How to Create a Marketing Budget: Start at the Finish Line

Who should listen: Real estate agents who want guidance for creating a precise marketing budget that will help them meet their goals.

Key idea: To make money, you need to be willing to spend money.

Action item: Put your goal on paper, and refine it until it is specific because you can’t hit a goal that lacks clarity.

When it comes to setting their marketing budgets for the upcoming year, small business owners tend to start with their budgets for the current year. They shave a few dollars off one activity and maybe add a bit of money to another activity—sometimes without a clear reason for why they do either.

In this week’s Silver Dollar episode, we not only give you a sound strategy for where to invest your money but also suggest that you begin with your goals rather than your marketing dollars.

Start with your goal

As you approach the process of creating your budget for next year, begin with determining how much money you’d like to have in your pocket at the end of the year. Write that number down, and keep it where you can see it every day.

Once you have it written down, you can follow the steps we review in this episode to figure out what you need to do to earn that amount—how many Facebook ads, how many pop-by visits, how many listing appointments, etc.

Only after you set your goal and develop a plan do you then figure out the cost. If you find that you cannot afford to spend what your budget calls for, then you can start to cut back on activities that convert the least.

We firmly believe that if you start with your goals rather than your budget, you allow yourself to imagine what’s possible. You can think outside the box and consider ideas you may not have considered before.

It’s been our experience that business owners who start the budgeting process with a budget already in mind typically spend their time wondering how to divide the money among tactics they’ve tried in the past. However, if you start with your goal and find that you do need to cut back, at the very least, you’ll be cutting out activities that didn’t do much to contribute to your goal anyway.

Strive for an entrepreneurial mindset

Understandably, small business owners can be hesitant to spend money on their marketing, especially when their business is new, and they are still waiting to win over their first paying clients. But this is precisely when you need to invest in marketing—it’s how prospects come to discover you and leads start to know, like, and trust you.

Having an entrepreneurial mindset means understanding that it takes money to make money; that results don’t happen in days, weeks, or even months; and that being consistent with your marketing is critical to your eventual success. It also means having the courage and faith that you will succeed, even if it takes longer than you initially thought it would.

Because a particular Facebook ad doesn’t produce immediate results doesn’t mean that Facebook ads don’t work. It may be that you need to adjust your copy, your image, or your audience. You need to track and measure what works and adjust what doesn’t. Only then will you know where you can best invest your budget dollars.

Creating a marketing budget is a detailed and complex task. We explain the steps to take that will tell you how much to invest and where. You can also use the link below to download a free Marketing Revenue Calculator that will crunch your data and optimize your budget to meet your specific goal.

Adjust your numbers to where your budget makes sense, but also strive to keep an entrepreneurial mindset and trust that you will succeed. 👍

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Connect | Resources

• FREE resource: Marketing Revenue Calculator
• Book: The Millionaire Real Estate Agent: It’s Not About the Money, It’s About Being the Best You Can Be

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