If you are running a business and you want it to succeed, let's face the facts: it's essential to promote it. No matter how great your business idea is, you won't be able to grow if nobody knows about what you do. That's why setting aside money for marketing is so important companies today. Allocating money towards marketing allows you to take advantage of a myriad of strategies and platforms, which both get word about your company out to the public - and convince people to become interested sales leads.
Budgeting for Marketing
You only have so much money when it comes to running a business, so how do you know how much of that money should be used for marketing? In a recent survey by Deloitte LLP, the American Marketing Association and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, studies showed that on average, companies now spend 7.5 percent of their total revenue on marketing (down from 8.5 percent in 2012). Tech companies tend to spend a little more on marketing than the average company -- 13.8 percent. Using such a large percentage of revenue for marketing makes sense, since marketing has proven to be a driver of more revenue. The study showed that marketing was the leading cause of revenue growth at more than 38.4 percent of companies, especially when a large percentage of the budget was devoted to the undertaking.
Why Your Marketing Budget Should Include Digital Advertising
So marketing has been shown to drive revenue, but how do you know what avenues of marketing you should focus on? One important strategy that should be incorporated into your marketing plan is digital advertising.
There are countless ways that people choose to market digitally today. There are inbound digital marketing strategies, like content marketing and social media, which involve creating useful content and disseminating it to the world and ultimately convincing people that you are trustworthy and valuable. There are also outbound digital marketing strategies like pop-up advertising and banners or paid search ads, which show information about your company when people look for related content on search engines.
A well-planned and well executed digital marketing plan can have a big payoff for your company. Here's why:
Digital Advertising Widens Your Audience. Let's face it -- nearly everyone is spending time online these days. In fact, there are currently nearly 3.6 billion Internet users globally, which means if you advertise online, you have the opportunity to get your company out in front of a lot of people. By placing ads where people spend time, you are upping the chances they get seen.
Digital Advertising Increases ROI. A study on online advertising by Nielsen revealed that brands can experience a return of three dollars for every one dollar spent on digital advertising. This means that it's a great way to stretch your marketing budget and increase revenue because of your spending.
Digital Advertising Helps Your Brand's Reputation. Not only does spending money on online ads increase revenue for your company, it also helps shape and grow your brand's image. A study by Nielsen showed that more than one-third of people trust the information they see in online ads (video ads, banners, etc.) and nearly 40 percent of people trust the ads they see in search engines. So, by choosing to allocate dollars in your budget to brand's ads online, you can help build trust in consumers.
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