“So, what’s your budget?”, a question I always ask during our initial consultation. I often get the response, “I don’t have one”. Let’s be honest, everyone has a budget. Some companies have allocated money, set aside for specific projects. They know their budget before they ever start looking for vendors. For those who don’t have a budget, we have to find that magic number. The magic number is the number that if you were to pass, you may feel uneasy, uncomfortable and possible ripped-off. That, my friends is your max budget, love it, own it, shop it and communicate it.
So why is expressing your budget so important anyway?
1. It saves you and your prospective vendors time
You have to pay for services and products you want, it’s the nature of business. Expressing your budget upfront will let you know if you can afford those services or products from a particular vendor. You may love their work, the concept, the process, the products, but if you can’t afford it, why proceed? Have this conversation upfront, that’s what phone calls, emails and consultations are for.
2. You’re less likely to run out of money
If you set a budget in the beginning, you know where you’re going. If you have no budget, you will likely spend way more than you need to. If you have a magic number, but didn’t communicate that to your vendor, you will likely become uncomfortable throughout the process, which can potentially affect the trust of the business relationship. You also stand the risk of spending a ton of money and having an unfinished project. This is also the case for many ongoing campaigns, in which it’s easy to run out of money, before goals are reached.
3. Set realistic goals with realistic outcomes
Expressing your marketing budget upfront can help designers and marketers design a project specifically for your needs. Your needs being goals, outcomes, conversions, collateral and other services or products.
There’s more than one way to do something. If you express your budget and your project goals, vendors can help you get what you need at the best cost. For instance, a client wants an online shopping cart to track orders, accept payments and display products. Based on their budget, they can’t afford a site like Amazon. The web designer may suggest a WordPress website with Woocommerce to serve the needs of the client, at half the cost a Magento ecommerce website.
This same idea applies to marketing campaigns. Maybe the client wants to reach 2 million people on social media, but their budget can only cover 200,000. The consultant may suggest an alternative solution to reach the market over time.
The reality of the matter is that everyone has a budget. Even the richest guy around doesn’t want to spend all his money on a single marketing campaign. Honesty and transparency will make the project run smoother and can help you and the vendor establish clear goals with predictable outcomes, to ensure the success of your marketing campaign.
Why do you think expressing your marketing budget is important? Please add them to the comments below.