New year, new budget, old habits

What’s your rationale for determining your marketing budget this year?

The majority of us marketers look at what we spent last year, make a few tweaks, and submit the not-much-changed plan for approval.

So, did last year’s plan work well for you? Did it tangibly increase revenues, or generate better quality sales leads? The best measure for marketing success is to ask the sales team whether they think marketing is doing anything for them. So go on, ask them.

In fact, since Influencer50 started surveying sales teams as part of our kick-start influencer engagement programmes, I’ve been startled at the appalling scores marketing departments get by the sales teams. The average score for usefulness of marketing to sales efforts is less than 50%.

And don’t give me that “Oh marketing is complicated and we have to invest in awareness” claptrap. If you can’t justify marketing in terms of sales (or sales support) then why are you doing it?

With my Influencer50 hat on, I’d say that you should instead map out who and where your key influencers are, then organise your marketing activities around them.

But it doesn’t really matter what rationale you use to plan your marketing this year. Just make sure it’s not last year’s plan. If last year's plan didn't tangibly and positively affect sales, what makes you think the same plan will work this year?