6 Ways To Ask For More Marketing Budget
You’ve been tasked with delivering a big project. But you simply don’t have the bandwidth or budget to get the expected results. You need more staff, better tools, deeper pockets and possibly even to outsource elements if you want to pull it off.
Without the budget, you simply can’t do what management need you to do. So, what’s next? It’s time to build a case to help you.
How to construct a winning business case
If management is sceptical of a proposal, they will most likely dismiss it. You need to make sure you’ve constructed a bulletproof plan. Stakeholders should only have to listen to understand how it can positively impact the business.
Before you get started forming your plan, there are some questions worth considering. These are:
- How will this activity save the business time and money?
- How will this plan solve a challenge or reach a goal?
- How easily will it integrate into existing elements of the business?
Here are six ways you can effectively ask for more marketing budget…
1) Get involved in the planning process early
To get a bigger marketing budget, you need to be part of the conversation from the start. During the planning process is where you can demonstrate the value you’re able to deliver with the right budget.
It’s important to understand the position of the business too. If they can’t support your marketing budget, it’s better to know this earlier on so you can craft a marketing strategy that aligns with both the available resource and their expectations.
2) Align with sales
Your sales team has an incentive to get as much as they can from your marketing team. When you’re creating your marketing plan, it’s important that your sales colleagues are on board from day one. If sales are vocal about needing support from the marketing team, your management team are much more likely to support your budget need.
This is the time to ensure you’re on the same page when it comes to objectives, how you plan to reach them and who’s responsible for what. Doing so means you can present this strategy to senior management unitedly.
3) Justify the budget
A bigger budget means greater investment. Your senior management team need to be sure that they’re going to see the results they want before approving it. In other words, they need to be sure they’re going to get an even higher return for upping the investment.
This is where your KPIs come into play. By picking the most important and relevant indicators, you can share exactly how you will evaluate performance so you can fully justify the budget requested. Examples of KPIs could include:
- Conversion rate
- Cost per lead
- Revenue per lead
- Customer retention rate
- Customer lifetime value
It’s more than likely that senior management will want to see how these metrics are currently shaping up so that they can compare this to your targets. It’s also worthwhile including a plan within your proposal of exactly how you will measure them.
4) Do what you say you’re going to do
If you’re going to get a bigger budget, key stakeholders need to have faith that you can and will deliver. Trust can be earnt by meeting expectations on a regular basis. This means you need to stop agreeing to targets that you know just aren’t achievable.
Instead, focus on creating a plan you think you can achieve and work towards hitting your targets as best you can every time.
5) Plan for the worst-case scenario
It’s not fun but it’s important to plan for the worst-case scenario: rejection. If your marketing budget isn’t approved, you need to be able to work with what you’ve got.
In this scenario, we recommend documenting projections based on your results to make a stronger case for how much more you could have achieved if your budget had been increased. This creates the foundations to ask for more budget next year.
6) Make the pitch
The preparation has been done. The only thing left to do is make the pitch. Approach all your meetings well prepared and with the data you need. When you’re making the case for your proposed budget, it’s important to remember you’re also selling yourself, your team and your capabilities.
Showing that you’re organised, your strategy has been thought about from every angle and that you know your stuff is the best way to do this.
Go for it
Your budget should be the last thing holding you back but unfortunately, all too often, it can impact many elements of your work. You’ve got the ideas and now you’ve got the solid plan to convince your boss that the investment is worthwhile.
If you need a helping hand to establish what marketing budget you will need, get in touch. We can advise on specific marketing tactics to help you make the most of your budget.