It’s no secret that marketing is critical for business growth. But are you allocating enough for your efforts? Inbound marketing agency HubSpot says that B2B product companies spend an average of about 8% of revenue on marketing each year, which has increased from 5% in 2011. And a recent survey of 85 small-business owners and marketers found that 52% spend between $5,000 and $15,000 a month.

Here are six ways to make sure your strategy is working and that you’re maximizing your marketing budget.

1

Define your goals.

Get your team together and take the time to identify exactly what you’re looking to accomplish with your marketing efforts. Consider new marketplace opportunities, the average sale per customer, the number of sales required to hit your required monthly revenue, and the average number of leads it takes to close one deal. Then align your marketing spend with these monetary requirements.

2

Understand your prospects and customers.

Conversion can take a long time, and it can be a complicated process. Do you know how your audience goes from product awareness to closed sale? By surveying satisfied customers, you can figure out the best marketing channels and platforms to use, ideal messaging, creative that resonates and common pain points.

3

Hit key marketing areas.

Your strategy is composed of several key areas, including branding, website, advertising, digital marketing, social media and trade shows. Take a look at each piece separately and figure out what’s working well and where things could be improved. Perhaps the website needs updating, or your email open rates have fallen over the past few months.

4

Collaborate with the team.

Bring everyone together, ask for their feedback and be sure to align marketing with other functions at your company. You want everyone on the same page, from designers to content creators to the sales team. Your marketing strategy is only as strong as the buy-in from your colleagues, and you want to communicate the goals and strategy you’ll be focusing on moving forward.

8%
The percentage of yearly revenue that B2B companies spend on marketing efforts.(HubSpot)

5

Look at analytics and re-evaluate.

Once you’ve implemented changes across your channels, review how it’s working. It won’t be overnight, but analyze engagement and new followers on social media, for example, as well as click-throughs on your website and paid advertising campaign performance. It’s a good idea to use a tool like Google Analytics that can present trends over time in a clear, streamlined way.

6

Hire experts.

Consider hiring a marketing agency to help you with strategy and as an extension of your in-house team. They can help you oversee multiple campaigns at once, and having full-time experts in your corner can help you drill down to a clear strategy that will in turn allow you to meet your goals while avoiding wasted time, resources and money.