Planning Your 2024 Marketing Budget? Read This First

The new year often brings a time for reflection on the past 12 months and planning for the next. As a business owner, one of your biggest initiatives is deciding how to allocate budget to marketing efforts that will drive results aligned to your growth goals in 2024.

And it doesn't matter the size of your business... whether you're a solopreneur or leader of a 250+ team, how you invest and move your money will determine whether or not this is a profit-maker or glorified hobby.

With experts predicting potential economic recession this year, it’s crucial to build a marketing budget focused on proven strategies rather than reacting out of fear. Cutting your marketing budget can significantly hurt long-term growth prospects.

Instead, stay anchored in what has worked for your business in the past, while allowing room in your budget to test new ideas.

We’ve put together key considerations for organizing your 2024 marketing budget to help you invest in the right areas and maximize your ROI.

Set Measurable Goals That Guide Budget Decisions

Before determining budget numbers, clearly define your target marketing goals for 2024. Outline specific, measurable objectives you want to achieve through your marketing.

Common metrics to track include:

• Increasing website conversion rate
• Growing monthly website visitors
• Expanding email subscriber list
• Improving SEO rankings

With defined goals in place, you can map out the strategies and campaigns needed to drive results in each area. Your budget should then be allocated across initiatives proportionate to their revenue impact potential. Attempting to adopt new technologies or platforms without clear goals is unlikely to provide strong ROI.

Not sure how to organize your goals or where to start? Try our SMART Goal Setting Guide & Template. Establish a marketing strategy that matches your brand and capabilities.

Prioritize Customer Experience Across Channels

Today’s buyers demand seamless, personalized brand interactions no matter where they engage—your website, email, social media, online ads, etc.

When building your marketing budget, emphasize channels and touchpoints that play an important role along your customer journey.

For example, if your paid ads consistently generate quality leads, make sure they receive sufficient budget to maintain volume and optimization. Or if most purchases happen after potential customers view specific product pages, invest in improving page content and conversion rate.

Meet customers where they are digitally at each step and your budget will go further.

Choose Tech That Supports Established Goals

With constantly emerging marketing technology, it can be tempting to adopt every new platform promising incredible results. But integration needs to be more strategic.

Carefully evaluate whether a tech solution actively helps you work towards defined goals before purchasing. Replacing existing successful systems with trendy options unlikely to move the needle on objectives may waste precious budget.

AI does represent one technology with proven ability to amplify marketing productivity in areas like content creation, testing, and personalization.

Here are some AI business tools you need to try in 2024:

• Descript: Transcribe podcasts & videos with AI
• Genei: Sum up long emails and articles in seconds
• Mini Course Generator: Create and sell courses online
• Podcastle.Ai: Audio & video creation platform

Leveraging AI can stretch budget impact across initiatives. For more essential business and marketing tools, download our Founders' Resource Library.

Invest Heavily In Your Owned Assets

While paid channels play an important budget role driving lead generation and sales, investing in owned media assets you fully control brings longevity and compounding returns.

Your website and its content will outlast any single campaign, continuing to attract organic visitors and conversions for years.

Funneling budget into site design, copy, downloads, and other owned materials pays dividends over time as you build an expanding library of authoritative branded content.

Email subscribers similarly provide lasting value as you deliver ongoing helpful information straight to their inboxes. Devote sufficient funds to grow your list and optimize engagements through relevant, personalized messaging.

In a year with economic question marks, stick to proven marketing strategies for your business aligned to clear goals. Anchor budget decisions in customer experience and owning more of your results through long-term owned media investments.

This balanced approach sets up 2024 for sustainable success no matter the conditions.