19 Ways to Spend Your Marketing Budget Next Quarter

The hard part is over – your budget has been approved for the next quarter. But now there is another challenge of how to spend this money.

You may be a little lost on how best to allocate your budget. Consider the resources and tools your team needs to do its job well. Also, leave a little space to celebrate your team for their big and small wins.

How exactly do you plan the perfectly balanced budget?

Regardless of whether you have funds left over from the quarter or are putting together a budget for the first time, here are some guidelines for effectively allocating that money.

1. Test new versions of calls to action that perform poorly.

Estimated cost: $ 50 per call to action

Sort calls for action in your analysis software according to click rate and conversion rate. Then redesign and test the lowest performing ones. One way to do this is to run an A / B test that shows you which design your audience prefers.

Perhaps a simple design change is to attract more visitors, such as choosing a different photo. Or maybe changing the wording can strengthen the connection you make with leads.

This test will be helpful to find the best ways to support potential customers on their purchase journey.

2. Identify opportunities for improvement on your homepage.

Estimated cost: $ 150

Install heat map tracking software such as Hotjar or Crazy eggon your website. This software shows where people click and how far they scroll down the page.

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These tools can help you determine if your audience is finding the content they want them to see most. You get a good idea of ​​whether you need to restructure your website to be more effective.

3. Revise the landing page copy.

Estimated cost: $ 150 per page

There is always room for improvement on your landing pages. Start with pages with conversion rates less than 20% and revise the language to fit the needs of your target.

If you’re not sure which language is popular with your audience, do keyword research and A / B testing. Do a little extra social listening. These methods will help you understand how to connect to your audience on multiple pages.

4. Find SEO keyword opportunities on your website.

Estimated cost: $ 250

With SEO keywords, you can use a language that improves search engine rank and promotes acquisition. For example, if you discover some offers that don’t work as well as you hoped, search for the keywords on that topic and revise your offers accordingly.

Find software that has built-in SEO tools, such as: HubSpots CRM. These tools optimize your content to be found in search engines.

5. Perform an analysis of social media engagement.

Estimated cost: $ 250

An analysis of the social media news shows which received the greatest engagement. Find out what worked best for your business. If you find that one or two channels outperform others, you can figure out how to plan usage for the next quarter. Perhaps you are investing more in successful news or disabling poorly performing accounts.

Or maybe you noticed that there is a huge YouTube audience that you are missing. Check out your analysis and decide if it is worth investing in YouTube. Check this resource for grow a YouTube audience in just over a year for quick tips.

6. Perform a usability test.

Estimated cost: $ 350

A Usability test gives real feedback from potential customers. Similar to the results of a Net Promoter Score, you can find out which customers like your website and which don’t.

Use the results of a usability test to find out how you can make the content of your website more user-friendly. For example, if you find that your product pages are not effective, you can mark this as a place to work for the next year.

7. Try retargeting ads to improve performance.

Estimated cost: $ 500

Retargeting ads captures those visitors who have almost turned into customers. They close this gap so that the process is complete. With retargeting ads, you have the option of tying yourself to a previously interested lead with a new, personalized offer.

Retargeting ads can give your acquisition numbers a boost. Search social media sites like Facebook for ad retargeting options so you can create and revise ads within the channel.

8. Experiment with social media advertising.

Estimated cost: $ 500

Social media strategies should evolve with the development of customer behavior. If you come across a block in planning, you are confusing your strategy. Try a new channel or approach with a network you are already using

Social media advertising requires some experimentation. Knowing your audience and engaging in social listening will give you an idea of ​​how and where you can reach your audience. However, if you know which copy, format, and design is a hit, you need to do some testing.

9. Invest in employee knowledge.

Estimated cost: $ 500

Since marketing is a constantly changing industry, investing in learning opportunities means that your team is well equipped to perform its daily tasks. The training can take the form of e-books, blog posts or webinars.

You can also offer online courses that give team members a deeper understanding of the industry. For example, HubSpot Academy offers courses on content marketing, social media marketing and sales in easily digestible, interactive lessons. Courses are updated as needed, so you don’t have to worry about certifying an outdated skillset.

10. Celebrate your success of the last quarter.

Estimated cost: $ 500

Remember to provide some funds to celebrate your colleagues and their quarterly earnings. This doesn’t have to be a big blowout party, but it could be something small, like sending a care package to colleagues to remind your team that their hard work is appreciated.

Think about superlatives and present them in a meeting at the end of the year. Awards such as “Best Movie Buff” or “Funniest Marketer” promote morale.

11. Do customer research.

Estimated cost: $ 500

Customer research is important. You may have already done customer research at the beginning of the quarter, but have continued to provide funds to regularly refresh your understanding of customer behavior.

How do you monitor your customers’ web behavior, for example? Do you invest in social listening tools? And have you revised your personas to take account of the customer change?

Invest in tools that you can work with exactly Customer research So you can develop new ideas and strategies for future campaigns.

12. Design an infographic.

Estimated cost: $ 150

Perform an analysis, e.g. For example, take a deep look at customer demographics on Twitter and create an infographic to give a visual representation of your results. This infographic can be used to get a bird’s eye view of part of your customer base. In addition, infographics can be great material for a business Blog entry.

Check out this infographic about font sizes. It sounds like a boring topic on the surface. An infographic makes the information more exciting and understandable.

For example, if you write a blog post about social media demographics in the marketing industry, you can use the Twitter infographic to illustrate your results. You can use a tool like that Canva to design your infographic (Plus, a tool built into HubSpot).

13. Optimize your outdated blog posts for conversion.

Estimated cost: $ 100

Since a blog post can last several months and you have published new content, you may need to revisit old posts and see if there is a more relevant call to action to improve conversion on your blog.

SEO tools help identify posts that fall in traffic and can be updated with new information. If you keep an archive of previous blog posts, you can track blog performance.

14. Perform a sales analysis.

Estimated cost: $ 1,000

Search for qualified contacts in your CRM The fact that your company was unable to connect could close sales that didn’t happen in the last quarter. Use a sales analysis to identify these contacts so you know who you need to contact in the coming months.

Once that’s done, develop ideas to reach and connect with these customers. There are several ways to do this: You can send a personalized email, e.g. For example, create a special offer to close sales, or check the execution of an email Account based marketing Campaign.

15. Invest in better CRM integration.

Estimated cost: $ 300

Does your website automatically send leads to your CRM? Can your sales and marketing teams give feedback on leads? It may now be time to make adjustments to your CRM integration so that it works better for your company.

Check out CRMs that automatically integrate with the programs you use every day HubSpot. This streamlines all the work you need to do. Cooperation between teams is improved, as is the navigation between the internal processes of your professional duties.

15 Perform an SEO audit on your website.

Estimated cost: $ 500

Check your website for SEO opportunities about every six months. Have your core websites checked to optimize on-page factors and check the web copy for missing keywords.

SEO audits Clean up your website, improve the user experience and increase the likelihood that websites will be found in search engines. If you improve the SEO language on certain pages, you can more easily crawl them from Google and recommend them to searchers.

16. Plan and write a webinar for the next quarter.

Estimated cost: $ 200

A webinar is a great way to generate new leads. Focus on issues that solve your target’s weaknesses and create a high quality webinar. It can be saved live and saved or recorded for later.

Persona weaknesses that you can focus on are topics that your audience has questions about, such as: B. Sales analysis. For such a webinar, contact a top seller in your company and ask them to host. Alternatively, ask them about topics that they see as a trend.

Once you’ve recorded and edited the webinar, you can promote it via email subscribers and social media.

17. Localize your website for an international audience.

Estimated cost: $ 2,000

If you have an international audience or are planning to expand internationally, be sure to update your website. A localized website will enjoy the content on it for the audience everywhere. Go beyond language translation and consider what customers in other countries will really love.

Find out, for example, about current elements and offers that are popular in different regions. Familiarize yourself with culturally relevant graphics and website formats that appeal to a global audience.

18. Compile an e-book with relevant information.

Estimated cost: $ 200

An e-book is another content marketing idea for generating leads. Studies or experiments you did over the course of the quarter that delivered interesting results could be very valuable to your customers.

Check out amazing e-books and take notes of what inspires them. Decide on a topic for your e-book and format it as an offer for subscribers and for sharing on social networks. Also create an offer that you can add to some relevant topics to increase the reach of your e-book.

19. Contact the industry thought leaders for an interview.

Estimated cost: $ 500

HubSpot likes to organize “HubTalks”, in which various thought leaders are invited to an interview. This can be a book author, an educator, a doctor or a motivational speaker. These lectures are intended to inform or entertain the participants.

Conversations like this expand the knowledge of employees and give them the opportunity to explore their interests. Let your team vote on possible respondents or topics so that you can choose the right thinkers and ask them to submit questions. This is a great opportunity for team loyalty and Learn.

It is difficult to make sure that you spend your budget wisely. However, if you pause and think about what your team needs, what your audience needs, and what these parties want, you can get a pretty good idea of ​​how you can plan these resources.

If you’ve done a little research, plan your budget accordingly and prepare to go into a new quarter.