Written by Vineet Sethi
I’ve been working on content strategy for the past few years, and it’s become clear that a lot of companies don’t think about how much money they should spend on content marketing.
And that’s understandable: with so many other priorities vying for your attention, it can be hard to see beyond quarterly profit margins and monthly sales figures.
But if you’re looking to create an effective content marketing strategy—whether it’s long-form blog posts or short videos—it’s crucial that you start thinking about budgeting right from the beginning.
1. Forecast how much money you will need for content marketing
- Understand and define the scope of your content marketing campaigns.
- Understand the cost of content marketing.
- Factor in all costs: content creation, distribution, labor, licenses, and social media management.
- Don’t forget about taxes.
- Budget for the time you will spend on content marketing: it can be a lot!
2. Analyze your success in previous years
It’s important to look at your analytics and see what is working and how well it is working. The best way to do this is by looking at engagement, conversions, and sales.
Content marketing analytics show how many people are engaging with your brand online. It also gives insight into who they are so that you can tailor future campaigns toward them better. This will help make sure there’s no wasted money on ineffective ads or social media posts.
Another thing to look at is how much extra revenue was generated through each channel of engagement, such as Facebook ads, Google AdWords ads, or social media influencers. By having a good handle on these numbers, it’ll be easier to predict what kind of ROI we may see from certain channels in the future when planning budgets around them again next year!
3. Know your previous traffic spikes and how you achieved them
When building a content marketing budget, you need to know how much you have been spending. But that’s not enough—there are also two other crucial pieces of information:
- What type of content gets the most eyeballs and
- What your audience wants from the content
To do this, know Your Audience – Think about how many people visit your website, what they expect from it, and how those expectations may change over time. The more information about them that you have available—particularly demographic data like age range and gender—the better equipped you will be to create a strategy and budget for reaching this audience.
4. Identify your competitors’ content strategies
You need to know how much your competitors are spending on content marketing. Why? Because you want to outdo them. You don’t want to be a minnow swimming in the sea of content marketing; you want to be the shark, eating everything in sight and then swimming off into the sunset.
You can do this by looking at their content marketing budgets and seeing what kind of content they produce, analyzing their strategy and learning from it, or even just seeing how they’re performing compared with your own site’s performance.
5. Develop a 12-month plan based on the above information
Now that you’ve identified what your content marketing goals are and the content you want to produce, it’s time to take a look at your current budget and make sure there’s enough room in your budget for all of the content marketing initiatives you’ve outlined.
If there isn’t, then it’s time to make some cuts elsewhere in order to make room for your new content goals. You should also consider setting aside money for tools like a video editor (for video production), social media management, and analytics tracking tools. This will help ensure that your efforts aren’t going underutilized by poor planning or inadequate resources.
Also, Read 3 Signs You Need A Content Marketing Agency
6. Know that you can always adjust your content marketing budget
Flexibility is crucial. Ensure you can always adjust your content marketing budget.
This can be done by constantly monitoring your traffic and revenue, as well as what other companies in your industry are doing.
With the right information and realistic planning, you can set up a content marketing budget that makes sense for any time of the year.
Setting the right content marketing budget is crucial to ensuring that you’re able to stay on track, so it’s important to take the time and make sure you have a budget that makes sense for your business.
The first step in setting up a budget is knowing how much money you have available. This will help determine what level of content marketing campaign you can afford.
If your initial strategy doesn’t provide much room for creativity, don’t worry—there are always workarounds for situations like this! For instance, if all of your numbers are low but those pesky figures keep going up every month without fail, you might want to consider seeking assistance from an accountant or financial counselor who can offer advice on how to cut costs.
Depending on how seriously one wants their business to be taken by potential customers online today, there are numerous solutions accessible. Whether you want high-quality blogs or social media posts, there is a solution for every budget.
Read Benefits Of Outsourcing Writing Services
Conclusion
Content Marketing is a great way to promote your business. Your clients will be more inclined to do business with you repeatedly and also recommend you to their friends by establishing good relationships with them. Make sure you have allocated the time and resources it merits in your budget.
At Beyond The Panorama, we work with businesses to develop their digital brand presence; a big part is content writing for various channels. If you want help to organize this business function, we would love to have a conversation and set it up! Reach out to us at hello@beyondthepanorama.com on our social media channels.
