How Much to Spend on Digital Marketing?
While partnering with a digital marketing team that has the insights to help you manage your budget and get the most out of those necessary marketing dollars, you must first assess what you need, the benefits, and have an idea about how much you are willing to spend.
How Much Should My Company Spend on Digital Marketing?
Whether you have already invested in your business's marketing, or you are looking to expand marketing efforts, the biggest question for you and your finance team is how much to spend on digital marketing.
While partnering with a digital marketing team that has the insights to help you manage your budget and get the most out of those necessary marketing dollars, you must first assess what you need, the benefits, and have an idea about how much you are willing to spend.
Assessing Current Position and Vision for Future
You cannot hire a digital marketing agency until you identify your goals. Agencies have multiple pricing models, from monthly retainers to a la carte/per service fees. You may only need a single service, such as PPC or SEO, or you may need a full-service firm that handles all aspects of digital marketing.
Why Hire a Digital Marketing Agency? 3 Critical Advantages to Consider
1. Access to Marketing Skills You Do Not Have
Instead of shouldering the costs of hiring, training, and managing an in-house marketing team, a digital marketing agency will already have a team of professionals, trained and ready to deliver results with their experience and knowledge.
2. You Will Save More than You Spend
According to Dan Scalco at Inc., you save more than you spend on a digital marketing agency.
The same article also states that the average salary of in-house, high-level marketing positions range from $50,000 to $120,000 per year. You will not spend that much on professional services and also have an entire team at your disposal.
3. Exposure to New Marketing Perspectives
Digital marketing concepts and trends are changing constantly. For someone connected to their business, staying on top of those trends is hard enough. When you pay for professionals, you get access to the latest marketing techniques for the same price.
The Cost of Choosing the Wrong Agency
While you're obviously concerned with your company's bottom line when creating your budget, you're not looking to sacrifice quality in the process. Often, agencies with the lowest prices are the most "affordable" for a reason - they do not offer quality services. Aligning your brand with quality partners may mean a little extra to your budget up front, but those agencies also maximize your ROI and improve your brand image in the long-term.
Last Minute Tips for Setting the Marketing Budget
Be up front with agencies about their pricing. Discuss what you need and get an estimate as to how much you can expect to pay to meet those needs.
Create financial benchmarks. Then, have potential partners detail the expected outcomes for each.
Compute the definable ROI. This will help you measure the effectiveness of your agency hire.
Set the Budget, but Be Realistic
Do some shopping around before setting a digital marketing budget in stone. See what types of agencies are out there, their pricing models, price points, and get some estimates. While it is best to lean on professionals to help you achieve your goals, helping you set your budget is as easy as speaking to a few different agencies to gauge what you can/should spend.