The most important thing you can do if you want to be successful at marketing your small business is to commit to it. Commit to investing in marketing (not just money, but time and attention).

"What should I spend on marketing?" is one of the most common questions we are asked by small businesses. A question that is as hard to answer as "how long is a piece of string"? There's no one size fits all answer. A lot of people ask whether they should spend a % of turnover and 10% is often bandied about as a general rule of thumb.

Looking at turnover is not very helpful either though, as profit margins will be different for every business and it's the cash flow from that, that will determine what's left over to spend on marketing. Ideally your marketing budget will be driven by your business goals.

• What do you want to achieve?
  
• How much revenue do you need to generate?
  
• What does that to equate to in sales?
  
• How many leads do you need to generate a certain number of sales of a certain value?

Answering these questions should help you to determine what you need to invest to generate leads and sales. Regardless of your goals - what is true is that every business needs to invest in marketing on some level.

Money is one component, but a large part of effective marketing is not just throwing money at advertising, but investing in skills and resources to make sure you're doing the right activity and resourcing it so you're being consistent.

What every business should invest in

Learning about marketing, putting together a marketing plan and getting your core message right: $500 - $2,500.

• Read as much as you can about marketing. Invest in some e-guides or books on specific marketing principals and tactics.
  
• Attend a Workshop or a seminar and/or get some marketing coaching to develop your marketing plan, core messages and get the support you need to put the plan in place

This will make sure that you don't waste money on poor marketing messages and tactics. Often a lot of the tactics a marketing consultant will recommend will be low cost or even free. They'll provide guidance on marketing tactics and messages that are going to be the most effective (from a results and cost perspective).

Creating a first impression that lasts: $2,000 - $10,000

• Get help developing a good creative brief
  
• Get a decent corporate identity developed
  
• Get a decent web site developed that is optimised for search

First impressions online and offline are really important when you are starting out and don't have a well-known brand. Poorly designed logos and web sites can actively work against your business when it comes to attracting new customers.

It's not enough also to just have a great web site but to make sure that you can be found online when people are searching for your product or service.

What you can expect for what you spend?

Less than $2,000 - Maybe you need to rethink whether you believe in your business?

It's very difficult to get anything for less than $2,000. If you are not willing to invest at least this amount you need to question how much faith you have in your business and your commitment to grow.

Less than $2,000 - You'll need some strong design and technical skills yourself.

A really Internet savvy start-up could generate some awareness with less than $2,000 - but you would need a lot of marketing smarts and online strategy to do so.

$2,000 might get you:

• Some business cards with a cookie cutter logo and a landing page or blog site created using a free open source web platform
  
• Some email marketing using some of the free/very low cost email marketing platforms available.
  
• DIY Search Engine Optimisation - you would need to really know your stuff to be able to optimise your site well enough by yourself to get consistent leads through search engines

$2,000 - $5,000 will get you - The bare basics

• A cheap corporate identity
  
• Simple brochure-style website,
  
• DIY Search Engine Optimisation (again easier said than done and very time consuming)
  

For this amount of budget you would need a decent amount of skill (particularly in search) and a fair amount of time to manage the marketing yourself.

$5,000 - $10,000 - Some smart marketing tools

• Perhaps a more complex website (one with perhaps a good content management system and Customer Relationship Management system)
  
• DIY Search Engine Optimisation and limited Search Engine Marketing
  
• Some consulting help to assist with low cost marketing ideas, product development, PR and marketing coaching
  

A small budget should be focussed on investing in some good web-based online marketing tools and some expert help on low-cost marketing.

$10,000 - $20,000 - Some smart marketing tools and a very limited amount of advertising, direct marketing or other marketing activity

• A high performing web site with some customer relationship management tools, a content management system and perhaps an email marketing platform
  
• Limited Search Engine Marketing (campaign created and managed yourself)
  
• Limited paid Search Engine Optimisation assistance
  
• Very limited Direct Mail activity, limited print advertising or event budget
  
• Very limited PR
  

A budget of this size will mean you can now start to expand on your marketing tactics. You'll have a small amount of money to invest in some paid advertising or other tactics that require an investment. You probably won't have enough to advertise or run other campaigns frequently though.

$20,000 - $50,000 - Some smart marketing tools and some consistent advertising or other marketing activity in one medium

• A high performing web site with some customer relationship management tools, a content management system and perhaps an email marketing platform
  
• Search Engine Marketing (managed externally)
  
• Paid Search Engine Optimisation assistance
  
• Consistent activity in either:
  
  • Direct Mail
    
  • Print advertising
    
  • Some events
    
  • Limited PR
    

With a budget of this size you should now be able to start to consistently advertise or run a marketing campaign in probably only one medium.

$50,000 - $100,000 - Some smart marketing tools and consistent advertising/marketing activity in multiple mediums

• A high performing web site with some customer relationship management tools, a content management system and perhaps an email marketing platform
  
• Search Engine Marketing (managed externally)
  
• Paid Search Engine Optimisation assistance
  
• Consistent activity in one or more of the following mediums:
  
  • Direct Mail
  • Print advertising
  • Some events
    
  • PR
  • Some sponsorship

With a budget of this size you should be able to start to consistently advertise or run a marketing campaign in more than one medium.

DIY Marketing Tools

To help you stretch any marketing budget further I've also investigated some smart DIY Marketing tools to help savvy, entrepreneurial business owners with a lean team DIY.

1. Search Engine Optimisation tool

A great basic FREE SEO tool is Grader.com. Developed by US Web consulting business hub spot. You can plug your web site address into this free tool and it will spit out a free SEO report (giving you a grade on how good your SEO site is) and a list of recommendations to improve.

2. Outsourced freelancers

Source skilled freelancers to help with web development, copy writing, application development and graphic design from all around the world. Simply put up the brief and how much you are willing to pay at Elance.com or guru.com to source design and development skills from all around the world.

3. Crowdsource Creative Work

99Designs allows you to crowd source creative design services from all around the world. You put up your brief, the price you are willing to pay and designers will submit designs for logos, web sites, stationary, icons, advertising you name it. You only pay for the design you like with any changes you want.

4. Copy Editing

Wordy is a new copy editing service setup by some Danish copy gurus. They have over 200 copywriters and editors on their books. You can submit your copy, get a quote and have the job completed all within a couple of hours.

5. Copy Writing

Copyblogger.com is an excellent blog to help amateur copywriters improve their own copywriting skills.

6. Online DIY PR

Handleyourownpr.com is an online DIY PR service for small business. They will help you write a release, buy a media list and distribute releases for a small fee.

7. Jump onto topical media opportunities

Source Bottle is an excellent online service that matches Journalists with sources for news stories. Subscribe and receive free updates every day on media calls that you can respond directly to journalists to via the source bottle web site. Great for jumping on top of media opportunities relevant to your business or service.

8. Email Marketing

Mail Chimp is a web-based email marketing platform that provides excellent email templates, tracking technology and lightweight CRM solutions.

9. Market Research

Survey Monkey is a great online surveying/market research tools allowing you to create, distribute and analyse your own online surveys.

10. Marketing Planning and Message development

At Marketing Angels, we've created some very affordable DIY Marketing workshops designed for businesses who'd like the help of a Marketing consultant but can't afford one. You join a small group with other business owners to set business goals, brand strategy and positioning and define the right marketing tactics as well as a budget with the help of one of our consultants. Great for businesses who want to DIY but need help getting a marketing plan and messages created first.

So now you've got a sense of what you might need to invest in marketing and a toolkit packed with DIY Tools - get cracking and get your brand out there. But remember often it's not what you do but how you do it that makes all the difference. Have a planned approach and make sure your messages are on target first. This is where asking an expert can really help.

Michelle Gamble is Chief Angel of Marketing Angels, Australia's leading Marketing Agency providing outsourced Marketing Management, direction and knowledge for small to medium-sized businesses.

Marketing Angels are the preferred marketing experts engaged by the ANZ bank to deliver marketing advice and education to the ANZ's Small Business banking clients.

Michelle is a contributing author in the book, The Secrets of Marketing Experts Exposed, and writes a regular column in My Business Magazine, Retailer Magazine and Manufacturing Magazine. Michelle is also a Think Tank blogger for Fast Thinking magazine.

Michelle is also a busy Mother to three children and lives in Manly NSW. She loves reading, riding her bike and the ocean.

Connect with Michelle

Website: www.marketingangels.com.au
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