How do you convince your boss to increase Digital Marketing spend - or better yet, invest in Inbound Marketing? First of all, increasing Marketing spending implies that you're going to ask your boss for "extra" money...but in reality it can also mean changing your Marketing department structure or even which resources you invest in.
Below, we detail a series of fundamental steps in order for you to understand how to best invest in Marketing, which will empower you when it comes time for the internal negotiation about your Marketing budget plan.
1. Set the Context
First, you have to take an introspective look at your own organization. How are you currently investing your Digital Marketing spend? Simplifying this, there are usually three types of Marketing departments:
A) The classics. You have the same Marketing strategy as 15 years ago (events, media advertising, merchandising, etc.) The good news is that the world has changed, and there is a lot of data to support the need for change. Use this data to your advantage - numbers always speak louder than words.
B) The lonely cowboys. You have begun to digitize by performing online actions, but these actions are isolated from the company's overall strategy. Neither management nor sales know much about how to integrate Marketing to become a strategic element of the business.
C) The almost theres. You have a digital strategy defined and you are frequently performing Marketing tactics. Of course, everything goes through its own separate channel...social media, email, blog, etc. You have the base, but you lack the infrastructure and integration to get even more out of your Marketing department.
2. Prepare your Audience
By audience, we mean your boss. You have to make sure that they understand exactly what Inbound Marketing is and especially its benefits. For those who don't know, Inbound Marketing revolves around creating great content for prospects, the customer journey (also called the Buyer's Journey), and continuously delighting your customers.
In your meeting, you cannot miss hitting these talking points:
- The paradigm has changed. The company is not going to chase potential clients - they are going to come to us, attracted by our interesting and valuable content.
- Automation. The Sales and Marketing teams should only be working on the most important things. All the rest we can automate with workflows: emails, recommended content, follow-ups, lead scoring, chatbots, etc. Automate the process starting from when a lead enters a social ad until it is assigned to a salesperson.
- All-in-one. Greater integration, tracking, and ROI. Integrate all of your Digital Marketing campaigns on one platform. At mbudo we recommend HubSpot. You should have a single platform to control the spending and ROI of all our digital activity.
3. Partner with a trusted provider
Once it's clear that Inbound Marketing will be your chosen strategy and that you know all the implications that your project entails, you need to go hand-in-hand with experts, like the mbudo Inbound Marketing Agency in Madrid. They will help you set up your Inbound campaigns and lead you to success. There are several important requirements in choosing a provider:
- Experience and Solvency. A good Inbound agency must be able to guide you in the process of designing your entire strategy. They provide experience and implementation in similar markets and, hopefully, different markets (which can bring new and revolutionary ideas for your business). Partnership levels offered by technology providers such as HubSpot are a guarantee of solvency.
- Testimonials. Ask for customer references, or check out the testimonials on their website or on Google. Former or existing customers will tell you about the professionalism of your provider. Ask the agency directly who will do the onboarding of your project and who will carry out the day-to-day management of your account.
If you follow these 3 fundamental steps to create a plan for your budget negotiation, you will have increased Digital Marketing spending in no time! Do you still need more information? mbudo can help you.
David Romero
David has more than 20 years of experience directing Marketing teams in national and multinational companies. He has over 10 years of experience implementing Inbound Marketing strategies with a commercial focus for B2B companies. His motto is: always be learning.