Finally have a budget for marketing? While this can be an exciting time, your initial marketing spend deserves thorough planning and consideration, so don’t rush ahead without doing your research. Many people are tempted to plough thousands into a new website or to start their first campaign but first, you need to prioritise the basics. We take a look at what you should consider with your initial marketing budget.

Your first steps

Your initial step should be to contact a professional designer or agency and assess your current branding, including your logo. They will be able to help you determine whether your current branding reflects the look and feel that your business is trying to portray and suggest any tweaks you can make to get it up to scratch. At this stage, you should ensure that you have a tangible set of brand guidelines to adhere to, so any designer who picks these up can easily create work that stays on brand.

Gather required content

You then need to assess the content you need to get going. Perhaps your website requires an explainer video, or you want SEO-optimised copy throughout your site through a professional copywriter. You may need a company brochure or leaflets to hand out to local businesses. Ensure that every piece of content you get adds value to your business and is there because you need it, not just because you think you might at some stage. Just remember that everything you do needs to be the best it can be, don’t settle for mediocre marketing just to have something to share with potential customers. It can be hard to win someone back once they have lost interest.

Find your support system

Think about your marketing plan, are you going to be doing a lot through social media or do you prefer a more traditional approach? If like many other businesses in the modern day, you will need to conduct a lot of digital marketing, it’s worth researching the different software and applications available which could make your life easier. There’s plenty available out there, from social media scheduling software to accounting and work management apps. Many of these offer free trials so you can test them out before committing.

Test and regroup

One of the best ways to define and monitor your initial success in these early stages of your marketing journey is to set small goals and timescales. With these, you will be able to test out what is working and what isn’t, so you know what to do more of in the future. If you expend all of your time and money into one major project at this stage, this won’t give you the sort of variety and clarity and more spread-out and considered approach can yield.

At Skein, we can help you with these initial stages, as well as helping you throughout your marketing journey. Our team of marketing experts will help you get you to where you need to be. Just get in touch today.

Photo by Liane Metzler on Unsplash