When you plan to launch a website for your business, you need to assign an internet marketing budget for two activities – firstly, the actual web design & development, and secondly, marketing your website. In one hand, website owners spend as much on marketing as they do for the development and on the other hand website owners skip the marketing and expect magic to happen overnight. Do not save on marketing budget; else you end up receiving poor returns on your investment in designing the website.
Evaluate your spending ability
Marketing is a bottomless well. You cannot draw a line and say, here is where I end marketing. In other words, marketing is a continuous expense, a marketing campaign in all honesty should never end, in the digital world, marketing should be constant, direct, conversational and smart.
Once your online business is up and running, you need to assign about 10% of your profits towards inbound marketing. Before your business begins to make profits, you are probably slightly hard pinched for money.
The first step is to evaluate your spending ability, analyse your finances and set an upper limit.
Once this is done, you can segregate it into different online marketing activities, for which, you can hire a good and reputable online marketing company. If you plan to do it yourself, approach an Internet marketing consultant for guidance. Do your research and learn about the pitfalls of not following the right ways of marketing your site.
Know the different elements involved
Make a list of different channels that play important roles in marketing. On a broad basis, there are four channels – search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media optimization (SMO) and social media marketing (SMM).
ANALYZE THE BEHAVIOUR OF YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE AND IDENTIFY THE MOST LUCRATIVE CHANNELS FOR YOU. FIND OUT THE COST OF MARKETING ON THESE CHANNELS AND PRIORITIZE YOUR BUDGET.
Prioritize spending
Remember, you don’t have to have a “base minimum” amount to begin marketing. In fact, you need to make the most of whatever limited resources you have. This means that you need to give priority to return on investment (ROI) rather than counting expenses.
For example, certain marketing techniques such as blogging, blog commenting, article submissions and organic link building cost you nothing. So, if you are on a tight budget, spend a major portion of your money on effective paid advertising channels such as Adwords, social media ads and banners. You can take up the other marketing activities on a smaller budget.
Research
Any marketing budget decision you make should be backed by strong research. Get an idea about how much it costs to buy an online marketing package. Usually, you get a basic package for $500 or less. Contact different companies, request quotes and compare them. You are very likely to land a package that falls within your range because several companies offer custom packages.
If you want to sustain an online business in the present world, you need to have a marketing budget. Make sure that you make the most of your budget and good luck!