Like everyone else, marketers have to defend their budgets. So, you don’t want to mess up and waste any of your precious budget dollars. Let’s take a look at 5 common mistakes in allocating budgets, along with suggestions for more effective spending. 

1. Allocations need attention. You most likely set your marketing budget allocations based on some subjective criteria, such as historical spend or arbitrary percentages without assessing the effectiveness of those allocations. Here are some better ways to work with your budget:

• Instead of a fixed annual budget, consider a different budget model with periodic evaluations and necessary reallocations where needed, based on current performance towards marketing goals.
• Look at performing quarterly budget reviews, rather than a single annual review. Keeping a closer eye on how your allocations are performing allows for shifting allocations based on performance analysis.
• Consider allocating a small portion – 10-15% - to experimenting with new ideas, such as new channels, tactics, or technologies. After performance evaluations, you can increase funding to those methods that work well, and either reanalyze or cut those that don’t work.

2. Don’t throw good money after bad. Just because you’ve added the latest cool new tool or platform doesn’t mean it’s right for your organization. Consider these steps with new tactics:

• Phase in new channels, by starting small. Ramp up only when the performance results justify it.
• Start with a small test budget. Be sure to establish definite KPIs for the test phase.
• Multi-touch attribution tools can assist with evaluating the effectiveness of various channels to the customer journey.
• Not every channel is for everyone. Do your due diligence first to make sure your target audience will engage on a new channel.

3. Don’t overlook your current martech infrastructure. Before adding the latest shiny new toy, make sure your martech stack can support it. If you’re looking to add a new platform or tool, be sure to:

• Evaluate your martech stack on a regular basis. Identify and document underutilized portions and redundancies that affect the overall performance. Develop a martech development plan over multiple years, with analysis and justification of proposed investments.
• Adopting new investments requires more resources than the price on the package. You will need to also budget for training and ongoing support.

4. Don’t forget about the sales team. If your organization has a sales component – whether within the marketing department or elsewhere – it’s important that your strategies are aligned and on the same page.

• Be sure to create a specific line item in the marketing budgets for sales enablement. 
• Marketing and sales KPIs should be in alignment.

5. Don’t forget that marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. In times of economic upheaval, organizations tend to cut marketing budgets, overlooking brand building and awareness in favor of more immediate results. Help maintain your long-term customer loyalty and market position by:

• Keeping both long-term brand building and more immediate performance in mind and strike a balance with your marketing strategy. Remember, it’s cheaper to keep existing customers than to attract new ones. You want to do both.
• There should be a substantial percentage of the marketing budget devoted to long-term brand building strategies, such as content marketing, PR, thought leadership, organic social, and creative assets.
• Brand health metrics should be tracked on a regular basis and tracked along with performance metrics.

Performance campaigns should add to brand building with tactics such as consistency with messaging, visual identity and tone.