How much should your business spend on marketing?

Ask Google and you’ll find percentages. Ask an agency and you’ll probably get a proposal. Ask your Finance Director and you may get a rather different percentage.

Possibly zero.

In Episode 2 of Marketing, Properly!, strategic marketing consultant Sean Makin tackles one of the most common, and most misunderstood, questions business owners, founders and Managing Directors ask about marketing.

Rather than reaching for a convenient percentage of turnover, this episode looks at a much more useful question: what are you trying to achieve, and what level of marketing investment is realistically required to achieve it?

We explore why industry benchmarks can be useful as a sense check but dangerous as a strategy, why ambitious growth plans need realistic investment behind them, and what should actually be included when calculating your true marketing spend.

There’s also a look at customer acquisition costs, the danger of both under-spending and throwing more money at weak marketing, and a simple Run, Grow and Experiment approach to structuring your budget.

Because there is no magic percentage. A good marketing budget isn’t about spending as much, or as little, as possible. It’s about investing the right amount in the right things for the commercial outcome you’re trying to achieve.

If you’re currently staring suspiciously at a marketing spreadsheet wondering whether you’re spending too much, too little, or simply spending it on the wrong things, this episode is for you.

Marketing, Properly! – practical thinking, straight answers and occasionally the uncomfortable marketing question nobody else wants to ask.

Produced in Scotland.