The new year brings with it the planning and organization of objectives, a fundamental step in the constant progress of a company, that is why here we bring you some points to take into account in this organization process.
Main elements for your budget
Determining the marketing budget for a whole year is not an easy task, also if you do not have data to support your decision the company will change your idea quickly, to set an exact amount you will need to know the data from other years and the essential potential customers to carry it out, here are some of the main elements that you should count on when setting your budget:
- Set targets.
- Base your budget on performance and efficiency.
- Analyze information.
- Phase your company is in.
- Sales funnel analysis.
To achieve the desired number of customers it is very important to have a planned and organized budget, so you can set it adjusted to the parameters of the company.
But how do you determine the amount needed for the whole year? The most important thing is to have data and information from previous years.
Get close to the MQLs to reach your objectives
In this phase you will not need to know the data of the leads, but of the MQLs, (for those new to the marketing world these acronyms stand for marketing qualified lead), that is to say a potential qualified customer, the perfect customer.
Once you determine your MQL, you only need to consult the historical revenue of the company and the information about the funnel, here are the steps to follow so you can implement it in your company:
- Set a revenue target per quarter.
- Analyze data from previous years within a limited period of time.
- Measure transactions in each quarter. How many MQL were captured and how many were converted into SQL (Sales Qualified Lead).
- Calculation of the conversion rate using the above information. We can also consult it in a measurement program if we have it.
- Consult the revenue generated during a quarter.
- Calculation of the MQL you will need to reach the revenue generated in the last quarter.
It may seem an odyssey all this calculation but if you have the relevant data and you know the market you will be able to set the number of MQL needed to reach the number of revenue.
Getting new leads
Time can play against you if you have to get leads quickly, the process of acquiring new customers is long and must go through different stages of the funnel, for this, you will have to take into account two very important metrics:
- The time it takes to be classified as a lead.
- The time it takes to make the first contact with the lead.
Once we know the time it takes to capture it, to become a lead and move on to SQL we can keep track of how much time we will need for the predetermined number of leads in the budget.
Do you need personalized help to get new leads in your company? Contact us.
Time to set your budget
Another key metric you should consider is the cost per acquisition, i.e. the price it takes for the company to get a new lead, to identify this type of cost it is important to take into account the marketing people involved in the process.
To calculate the cost per acquisition you divide the total marketing cost by the number of MQLs generated in a given period, for example in a business quarter.
For the development of the budget it is essential that the employee takes into account both the acquisition costs and the amount of activities carried out to capture that lead:
- Google searches.
- Ads on platforms.
- Display ads.
When you put in place all this calculation process you should always identify a specific quarter and perform all operations in that period so that there are no errors, for example, if your company’s accounts are annual and you want to calculate the quarterly budget, you can not extrapolate this data.
Create a budget in your B2B
With all this information, it will be very easy for you to calculate the budget concisely. But, there is a big disadvantage: when setting a budget based on the strategies of another quarter, the data does not work with complete accuracy since this new period may undergo changes.
As mentioned above, another essential point that every company dreams of achieving is performance and efficiency. For this, there are programs that help to identify this type of efforts and thus, obtain data on the performance of each channel, campaign or ad.
Here are some of them that may be of help to you:
- ActiveDEMAND
- Adobe Analytics
- Dreamdata
- Improved
- Looker
- Terminus
