Worksheet: Marketing Budget
Clients, big and small, grapple with this question. Sometimes right in front of me, on our weekly checkin calls.
This week, I shared with a client how I generally break down my income and expense tracking, and how this informs what to spend on marketing costs.
Main Takeaways
10-15% of your monthly income is a good range for marketing costs.
Even if you outsource your marketing to an agency, classify their fee as labor. It’s not a marketing cost!
Shoot for an Operating Expense Ratio (OER) between 60-80% of your income.
How This Works
Each expense (and your income) is broken into categories. Organize these as well as possible and the category header will calculate the percent of your income.
Fill out your targets at the beginning of the month. The “Actual” column can be updated as income and expenses occur - maybe set aside an hour a week to update this.
Generally speaking, you want to shoot for a 10-15% income range for your marketing costs. This might fluctuate, especially if you have particularly low labor or overhead costs and can afford to focus more on marketing.
Even if you outsource your marketing to a contractor or an agency, you are paying them for labor and should classify it as such. It may factor into your marketing department’s total budget, but your marketing category should exclusively be dollars that directly contribute to your outward-facing marketing.
Recreate this, making sure to include the categories that are relevant to your business.
If a template would be a helpful jumping off point, pop your email below and we’ll share the spreadsheet with you.
Just a Heads Up
Marketing is our wheelhouse, so we won’t go telling you how to budget for your entire business.
This worksheet should be used as a planning tool to help you understand the actual cost of your marketing and its impact on your business.
