Whether you think of your marketing budget in terms of print ads and digital marketing or limit it to social media marketing and online tactics is irrelevant. It all costs you time and money and requires budgeting. As the year is quickly drawing to a close, it is more important than ever to think about your most effective budgeting tactics. The choices you make right now will have a ripple effect on the coming year (or years) and so you must give them appropriate levels of attention.

We have five key tactics to use in your plans for digital marketing, social media marketing, and everything else!

How to Spend on Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing

Should digital marketing consume a line item of its own in your budget? Yes and no. After all, it is more than a single strand, like print or TV ads. It involves PPC ads, any type of social media marketing and so on. So, it must be there in the budget, but it must fan out as needed. To make the most of this, use these tips:

• Start with goals – Yes, you want to build the bottom line, but what are your actual business goals? The marketing budget has to then focus on creating or reaching those goals. As one journalist explained, aligning performance with goals is a surer path to success, saying “Companies that closely aligned sales goals and marketing boast a 36% higher customer retention rate in addition to a 38% higher conversion rate.”
• Be realistic about the budget – What is it going to cost to meet those goals? Hone it down to fine details to understand what sort of budget is needed to activate the plans. Also, look at what competitors are spending on everything from digital marketing to print.
• Don’t ignore mobile and video – Yes, you may have determined your best strategy is in direct emails, but statistics prove that the largest portion of consumers are buying and shopping on mobile devices and prefer video content.
• Consider which channels are best for your goals – Which of your existing (or planned) channels are going to generate the most opportunity?
• Consult with experts – There is so much more to effective marketing and social media marketing, that it is is best to sit down and plot it out with experts. They can stretch your budget as far as possible and yield the highest ROIs thanks to their knowledge, skill and capabilities.

After all, you probably didn’t start your business to spend days and nights on marketing and budgeting. That is why it is far wiser to invest in expert help like that from the team at Organically. They are skilled at developing marketing strategies within even the tightest budgetary constraints and are adept at converting your business goals into actionable plans that lead to success.