Creating a marketing plan for the new year can be a daunting task. There are many digital marketing services to choose from. How should you spend your marketing budget? How do you know how to allocate your budget for the new year?

2016 is the year where digital advertising and social media campaigns will skyrocket, which will be crucial for business owners. Global spending on social media in 2015 was 24 billion, and businesses have spent over $15 billion on Facebook ads. This trend will continue to grow in 2016 as more consumers are embracing social media platforms.  

As mentioned in our last blog on how to develop a marketing strategy, we mentioned that creating a new marketing plan at the beginning of each year is especially important. We also recommend refining your plan on a quarterly basis. Your customers, competition, products, and of course, marketing strategies, change over time, which is why they need to be re-evaluated frequently.

With that being said, once you have established your revamped marketing plan, we think it’s wise to consider updating your how you spend your marketing budget as well.

4 Areas of Your Marketing Budget That You Should Shift Your Attention to:

• Social Media Marketing (Paid ads, Consistent Branding, Visibility)
• Search Engine Optimization (Correct Keywords, Optimization, PPC)
• Digital Advertising (Website Visuals, Banners, Graphics, Logo, Advertisements)
• Content Marketing (Blogs, Newsletters, Website content)

The majority of customers search and view products online, and network through social media, and use their mobile devices to buy items, it’s vital to adjust your budget to mirror these categories to promote appropriately.  For example, is your website mobile-ready?

We recommend you to review your target market and your customers’ shopping habits through Google Analytics or Facebook Insights, for example, if sales are higher online than in-store, it may be time to add more money to your website design and e-commerce budget.  E-Commerce makes it easy for your customers to buy after browsing through your website, more importantly, they stay on your site instead of leaving to your competitors, sometimes they don’t want to wait for you to email them, and you may miss an important selling opportunity. By adding more to this budget, you can decrease a less important budget, such as your print advertising budget or local phone directory listing.

Spending Your Marketing Budget Can Be Trial & Error

Unfortunately, sometimes business owners invest in promotions such as Google Adwords, SEO, PPC, and paid social advertisements, without the ROI they anticipated. This usually occurs because different vendors approached them, they heard through word-of-mouth, or they decided themselves it would be a good idea to “try something new.”

Without the proper knowledge, planning, and strategy, some business owners, unfortunately, end up spending their valuable resources without any benefit. Many business owners also forget to track their results, whether they’re successful or not. By tracking results, changes can be made to future campaigns, so the same mistakes don’t happen again. It is important to look at your Google Analytics on your website, or Insights from your Facebook page/ads.  This analytics can tell you the type of visitors coming to your website and what devices they are using. For Facebook insights, you can see the demographics of your fans and the type of posts they love to see. Without thinking through a comprehensive marketing plan for their particular business, they end up spending money on campaigns that do not work for them.  Here’s a YouTube Tutorial on how to find your Facebook Insights.  

If you’re struggling with your marketing budget or need help with any part of the marketing campaigns, Tomo360 is here to help. Give us a call today, or learn more about our digital marketing services and how we can help.