Marketing Budget

VO: Get ready for your semi-regular dose of random ideas from the guys at Codelation. We like to talk about big ideas companies that are winning, and those that aren't along with current events in our crazy world of software startups. So come along with Erick and Josh, who challenge you to think big, start small and turn your ideas into something on this episode of, from idea to done.

Josh: Welcome to another episode of idea to done. Hi, I'm Josh

Erick: And I'm Erick and today's idea is small business marketing ideas, and I'll start cause I'm talking. I think one of the biggest things, small business and startups need to do when marketing themselves is to establish a budget. You know, Josh, what are your thoughts as a business owner on marketing budget?

Josh: I think it's really tough. If you don't already have a budget set for marketing, you're going to see this as an expense. If you've already got it factored in, you're planning for it. You know, I I'd say think of it as giving your money a name. You know, you guys are my marketing dollars. I'm going to put you out into the world and you're going to go from marketing. Many people do this with know their personal budgets, but not in business. Eric, as, as your role as a marketer, what do you think?

Erick: Well, I see one of the bigger mistakes small businesses make is not establishing that budget. I worked for a pretty big company in the past and we put 2% of our sales was dedicated to future marketing and it was a pretty big company. And so we had some pretty big national campaigns. We had TV ads, we had billboards, we had everything, but you can take that same principle and apply it to your small business. If you sell $10,000 worth a month, you should probably be focusing $200 of your marketing budget on social media boosts. Or even I consider like face-to-face coffee meetings and lunches. That's, that's part of the initial baby branding in your business. And there should be a tipping point where you want to get to like a marketing person to go to those coffee meetings and help you write and produce those podcasts. What do you think about that, Josh?

Josh: Well, I, I think producing a podcast is awesome. Um, but as the business owner, again, if you don't have that pile of money sitting around and Eric comes to me and you say, Hey, Josh, I need $500 for, you know, X, Y, Z to go do this marketing thing. I'm immediately going to see that expense that I've got to go steal from somewhere else. But if I do have the funds available, we're proactive. And then Eric knows that he's got a budget each month, that he can go do a little tests with, or go to the coffee meetings or whatever's needed.

Erick: And as a marketer, it's the better marketers plan and marketing should be planned. And that helps in that process. If I know that I have just enough money to buy some mark microphones to start a podcast, that's the route we're going to go. Instead of putting my pretty face on a billboard,

Josh: The way I look at it though, you know, even if let's take that small budget, you said, even if it's not 200, it's it was a hundred dollars each month that you're starting with split it up acrossmany things and test a lot of different stuff to see what's really going to work. Um, you want the small test to see what drives engagement. You don't want to, you know, try, you know, what you want to try a lot of things as I guess what I'm trying to say. Otherwise, you're going to end up with trying to plan the perfect thing and kind of buyer's paralysis or even remorse. So take that a hundred dollars and spend it on 10 different Facebook ad buys two different marketing segments market segments, or take that a hundred dollars and test it against the same audience on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, I mean, heck even send out postcards that have a tracking phone number on them, just try something. That's measurable something that's small and you're going to start see results on it. And then you can get rid of the other nine that aren't working, but there's nothing worse than spending that thousand dollars a month. You know, Eric to put your face on a billboard and not knowing what it's doing. That's, that's what I'd call a mistake. There's so many mistakes

Erick: With putting me on a billboard. That's actually pretty measurable, but I think it's important to make marketing mistakes. Don't be stupid with your money, but marketing is a constant trial and error make mistakes. And that's actually a big enough topic to have a whole other episode. But we'll talk about that at the end of the budget episode. Yeah. Yeah.

Josh: And I wouldn't necessarily call, you know, a marketing mistake, a mistake it's, it's learning. You don't ultimately know what's going to work and not going to work. So I'd, I'd frame that a little bit differently.

Erick: Okay. We'll change it to learning. So thank you for listening. Thank you for learning. If you know a business that could use daily advice, then subscribe and leave a review on iTunes.