Budget for a Marketing Manager

[JonClifford]

During our latest Board Meeting, the idea of employing a Marketing Manager was proposed and whilst the salary is easy to calculate, the actual budget to allow to make this an effective post is harder to pin down.

I realise that it's possible to invest an amount of money in marketing, advertising and the like but I wondered if anybody would be able to give me an idea of a reasonable, initially low key budget that an SME would need to assign to make the venture worthwhile.

Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated.

 

[Billmccallum]

It's impossible to say, too much depends on what you expect from your marketing manager, what the reach of any single or multiple campaign might be, who your target customer will be and the type of media you expect to use over the lifetime of a campaign... and finally, what you have in financial resources that you can afford to throw at marketing.

 

[Billmccallum]

To advertise in Tyne Tees, one spot during coronation street can cost £1,950, not including the cost of creating the advert.

The Times & Sunday Times rate card is here http://newscommercial.co.uk/assets/pdfs/timesdisplayratecard.pdf

As you can see, the cost of a campaign can reach serious levels, but it all depends on which route you take.

 

[JonClifford]

Hi Bill,

Thank you for your replies - There's some very interesting information there. We need to exclusively target online retailers - which is the nature of our business - and I'm hoping that a decent Marketing Manager would know how best to focus our attentions in this direction.

Ideally, they would be able to drum up some interest through social media and other cheaper alternatives but I know that there will be a cost involved eventually and don't know if it is a financially wise move for us.

Thank you again for your input.

 

[Billmccallum]

Jon

It might be worthwhile looking at trade organisations such as:
http://www.ecmta.org/
http://www.emota.eu/
http://www.imrg.org/
http://www.imamerchants.org/

I would suspect that attending trade events would be the best way to get in front of decision makers much quicker.

 

[Billmccallum]

by the way, if your product "does what it says on the tin", it will be an invaluable tool that should have companies snatching your hand off.

 

[JonClifford]

Thank you for all your support here, Bill. I shall read those links with interest.

As for the product - It does work as advertised and, even though I'm a little biased, it does it very well.
You are right that once we are talking to companies, they almost always jump on board without delay.
Our problem is that people don't know that the service we offer exists, so don't know to look for us (which means AdWords doesn't help as much as we would like). Hence our looking to bring an 'expert' on board to help spread the word.

 

[Billmccallum]

It's not an area I'm familiar with, much of my experience has been with B2C & charities. not B2B, but I would suspect that the traditional marketing channels would not be suitable for what you offer.

I would look to finding every trade show in the country and attending them all, look for trade publications and membership groups/networking groups, anywhere you find a room full of business managers/owners where you can set up a presentation.

like this http://www.internetretailingexpo.com/

 

[JonClifford]

I appreciate all your help and comments. The only issue with the Trade Shows is that they run at an average cost of £4K per show which is a little more than we had put aside for this sort of thing.
I agree 'though that that is certainly something to look at again. Maybe targeting the main ones that cater to the online retail community...

 

[ethical PR]

Jon I think you are sensible to think about marketing budgets as an integral part of your marketing efforts.

The issue you will have is that if you don't yet have a marketing strategy and budget in place it will be difficult for you to think about how much you might want to invest.

The budget will be linked into your marketing objectives, so for example if you wanted to go into new markets geographically or by segment your costs would be higher than if you don't. If you are doing little marketing activity at present and want to take a more proactive approach for example exhibit, host events, do third party marketing and product collateral you will have to have budget to put these building blocks in place, before you can implement your marketing strategy.

If you have less than £4k to spend annually on your marketing activity, I wouldn't think it would be a good investment for you to employ a marketing manager.

Better to spend your budget using a freelance or smaller agency with experience of B2B in your sector to develop a plan for you and spend the balance on marketing content and implementation.

 

[Billmccallum]

Have to agree with Ethical PR here, if £4K is an issue for you, its unlikely that hiring a marketing manager will be of use, he/she would have little to work with.

 

[Alan]

I expect the £4k is a miss communication, as @JonClifford refers to the average cost, and teh poster before talked about every trade show, which could be dozens.

However if the marketing budget really is less than £4k p.a. then as above, how can you justify employing a marketing manager (I guess £30-£60k p.a.) to manage a £4k spend?

 

[JonClifford]

Yes, apologies if my post was unclear there. We have attended a number of Trade Shows and Expos over the years and each one cost at least £4K - Which would soon mount up if we were to attend them all.

llocally - You are right about the imbalance between the salary and the marketing budget which is why I thought it would be wise to seek advice on this sort of thing before committing ourselves too deeply.

Ethical PR - You may well have a point in that we might be better off getting a freelance company in on an 'as and when' basis rather than the permanent role.

This is all really very useful and interesting. Thank you all for your advice so far - It is most appreciated.

 

[2dleadgen]

Hi Jon, I would be interested to talk to you and find out a bit more about your business and whether there is anything my company could help you with at all. Our business is quite diverse but we do things like marketing consultancy for SMEs and work with putting together plans and budges, as a cheaper alternative to a marketing manager, however it will depend on your industry/positioning/history etc in order for me to be able to work out if there is anything I can do. My email is mia@ 2dleadgen.com

 

[Lucie@MightyOak]

If the average salary for a marketing manager is £40-£60k then why not spend 50% of that and outsource the marketing to a freelancer/consultant so all of the money available actually goes towards marketing your company?

 

[Cynic]

It would be much more lucrative to pay a consultant a £5K fee and a cut of the profits. That way it's performance based and a win-win for both you and him/her.