It is crucial to utilize every marketing channel in order to be successful. However, a common problem faced by many brands is that they do not have the budget to execute campaigns that can succeed. Running on a tight budget can lead you to opt for mediocre campaigns which are more like hammering your brand image rather than an investment.
Not every digital marketing agency in Australia will be able to cater your needs and be able to target a relevant audience. Thus, it becomes important to find such a company which can effectively be able to assist you with digital marketing. This will require great planning when it comes to your budget for digital marketing. When it comes to allocating your digital marketing budget, you need to be strategic and be careful about where and how you invest your funds.
Here’s the ultimate guide on how you can make sure that your budget is well spent.
1. Have clear goals
The first step you should take is to have a clear picture which will outline your brand’s priorities. Understand what are the areas you want to focus on. Do you want to increase brand awareness or boost up your sales? If you don’t have a clear picture of what your goals are and how you want to outline the plan for digital marketing- you won’t be able to achieve success.
Certain smaller goals which may lead to defining digital marketing plan include brand awareness- which will include gaining followers on social media, social engagement, content shares, views per post. This will also include collecting funds and allocating it for paid promotions. Brands which are already established and want to convert leads into customers should focus on conversion optimization, mobile marketing, or paid search.
2. Reviewing prior campaigns
Before beginning a new marketing plan, it is important to determine where your marketing budget should go next. For this, it is vital to know what methods you have already tried. Reviewing prior campaigns will bring a light on what type of plans worked for you and what did not. This will further help you to invest in marketing plans which worked effectively.
You should be able to spot the areas which did not work and neither generated any sales. Identify those channels which saw the positive performance and provided beneficial results. This will help you to choose channels which will meet all your requirements are worth the investment.
3. Research and analysis
Learning about digital marketing landscape will help you learn more about the industry and invest you in the right direction. In order to know how much you need to spend on digital marketing, you should be clear upon various terms. First things first, a competitive analysis should be done which means that you should be aware of the marketing channels your competitors are investing in.
You should also be clear about the keyword themes you should be targeting. whether you should be targeting paid services or organic search services. Have proper knowledge on what social media platforms your users are most active on. Also be well aware of the various content costs associated with the creation of different contents.
4. Know how much you can spend
When you go ahead and consider SEO services, firstly you need to make sure how much you are willing to spend on digital marketing. Make sure you know how much you can afford and whatever services you are considering to go for are unique to your brand name. It can be useful to consider a unique SEO plan which can be useful for your business objective.
5. Allocation
When you outline the priorities and objectives of your business it will give you a clear idea on how things need to be done. You can thereby decide which marketing channel will be able to get the most results and assist your company further in achieving the pre-determined goals. You can start this by determining how to allocate the plans and tactics.
Your allocation strategy will include content marketing, social media marketing, paid search, display advertising, website optimization and maintaining public relations.
Once you evaluate which channels have the biggest impact on the sales and in attaining goals, you can invest wisely in those channels. However, it is also a good idea to have some reserve funds that remain unallocated. This type of money will help you to invest wisely in any last-minute initiatives.
6. Track and measure
A successful campaign should not be mentioned only in the end but it should also be tracked and regulated at various intervals. The ongoing campaigns should be a part of formal check-ins and should be evaluated throughout the year. Understand that your brand is unique and it has different goals as compared to your competitors. So give everything some time and your business will grow gradually. Most importantly invest wisely and invest in strategies which have a fruitful outcome.
Author Bio: Maulik Patel is Founder & Director of ClickMatix.com.au. His passion for helping people in all aspects of online marketing flows through in the expert industry coverage he provides. He is expert in Web marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Affiliate Marketing, B2B Marketing, Online Advertisement of Google, yahoo and MSN.
