How to Strategically Invest Your Marketing Budget

Volumes could be written about budget planning and the dread that comes with. But, it’s important to remember that how you allocate resources should be part of your organization’s strategy.

Your marketing budget should translate into effective customer touch points. And these touch points should align with how your organization hopes to apply its strength against a singular challenge.

The clock model.

The clock model is a useful tool to help plan your budget. But it gets even more powerful if you use it to apply your brand’s strategy to budget allocation.

Imagine a clock divided into three wedges…

Pre-purchase:

The first wedge is the pre-purchase stage. This is when your ideal customers interact with your brand before purchase. It includes what others say about your brand and what your customers hear. You can impact this stage through mediums like advertising, trade shows, events, sponsorship, social media, and PR.

Purchase:

The second wedge is the purchase stage. This is the point where you’re actively selling to the customer—the point of distribution. This may be through sales reps, your website, a showroom, or store. You can impact this stage by focusing on distribution, packaging, the design of the store, user reviews, or even financing terms.

Post-purchase:

The final wedge is the post-purchase stage. This is what your customer experiences after they’ve purchased. It’s a place to add further value and create momentum for further purchases. You can impact this stage through things like customer service, loyalty programs, and warranties.

Form your strategy.

Assess:

Start by putting your customer at the center of the clock and look through their eyes. Where do they have a positive experience? Where is the experience lacking? Where do competitors over-invest? Do competitors all focus on the same area?

Attack:

Now decide where you’ll invest within the limits of your resources. Many organizations spread their budget across all three stages but fail to make a meaningful dent in any one area. Brand building is a game of stacking connections in the customer’s mind that are meaningful, distinct, and important to them. Spreading resources thin makes this more difficult.

Instead: consider investing in the stage that is most ignored by your competition and then meeting the bare minimum in the other two stages. Ask yourself: where, with limited capital, can I make the biggest dent? From there, over-invest in cues that signal the quality and value of your brand. Go a little wild in that one stage, it should feel big, loud, and maybe a bit overboard.

In most sectors, the pre-purchase stage is heavily focused on by competitors. Investing here is usually difficult and expensive.

Investing in the post-purchase stage usually doesn’t feel sexy. It can be boring and difficult. But it’s also a sweet spot to invest and see long-term returns.

Keep your customer’s point of view.

As always, keep your customer in mind. How can you appeal to their core motivations and serve the transformation they seek? This is always the best vantage to make your decisions as you invest in their journey.