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B2B Marketing on a Budget

Posted by Glenn Chapman

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According to GlassDoor, the average Marketing Manager earns an average annual base pay of $65,834. While this is no surprise to many, this level of marketing investment may come as a complete shock to others. How do you build your marketing without busting your budget?

Hiring their first Marketing Manager is a big decision to smaller or newer firms. Accompanying such a decision is the recognition that hiring a Marketing Manager is just the beginning of the investment. Most managers will soon enough make the case for a support team. In marketing, a one-person shop will rarely contain all the necessary skill sets. Skills range from writing content to graphic design to coding websites, and a dozen other technical specialties. A Marketing Manager will also need to have the tools and resources to be effective. All of this costs money.

3 Budgeting Strategies in Marketing

 
A decision maker must first recognize the level of investment an effective marketing strategy will cost. Then, typically one of three paths are taken.

1. Skip the Marketing

 
The first path may be to forgo building and implementing a cohesive marketing strategy altogether. The thinking goes like this: the ROI of the cost savings is potentially better than the risk of the larger investment not producing results. Often, these companies will experiment with smaller, piecemeal marketing campaigns without dedicated resources or a lot of planning. Each ineffective campaign reinforces the notion that marketing does not produce enough ROI. Keeping the savings of doing little or no marketing, it is concluded, is the best strategy of all.

2. Go All-In

 
The second strategy is to go the complete opposite direction and go all-in, hiring an internal marketing team to develop and install a strategy over time. This becomes the  company's internal “marketing department.” Organizations that can afford this improve their competitive advantage to varying degrees. Success ranges from incremental to wildly effective. In any case, making this type of investment is typically a function of affordability, and not simply the wish to do it. Building a “half-cost” marketing department is like fielding a sports team with half the players. The “all-in” approach can be very effective for organizations with the budget. A budget sufficient to field a competitive team and equip them with the right equipment and resources.

3. Hire a Marketing Agency

 
Finally, there is the marketing agency approach to implementing effective B2B marketing on a budget. Agencies can often implement a digital, inbound B2B marketing strategy for between $2,000 and $10,000 on a monthly retainer. This is far more cost-effective than hiring an internal team. Agencies accomplish this because they already pay for the tools and specialty workers, “pooling” the revenues from many clients. The basic infrastructure is already built and already paid for, and because the agency team and tools are already in place, your start-up times are accelerated. Additionally, your evolving strategies and tactics can be better accommodated. Agencies often have capabilities ready to go that you may not need today, but that you may need tomorrow.

Conclusion

 
B2B marketing on a budget is not only possible, it is happening every day through professional marketing agencies. The industry was built in large part to accommodate this need. Sparkinator is one of those agencies. If you're looking to upgrade your marketing, schedule your free audit today. You'll speak with one of our digital marketing strategists who will take a look at your current marketing operations, tell you what you're doing well and make suggestions on what can be improved. Then we'll help you set up a comprehensive marketing roadmap you can rely on for the long-haul.
 
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