How Much Should I Spend on Inbound Marketing?

A question often arises when clients are considering how much they actually need to spend to achieve their marketing milestones. When considering the options you must first ask yourself four questions and be extremely honest about the answers.

1. How much time can I spend on this project?
2. How much money am I willing to expense on this project?
3. What are my goals for this project?
4. When do I want the project to be completed?

The answer to these four questions will provide a framework of the activities you are willing to complete yourself, those you must outsource, and the pace you should take to get it all done. If for example, you can only invest a few hours a week into this project but have some major milestones you need accomplished within the next month then it’s logical to assume you will need to vamp up your outsourcing expenses to complete the project on time. Let’s explore the components associated with inbound marketing in greater depth.

Creating a Well Oiled Machine

Whether or not you’re a lone ranger, have dedicated employees, or hire outsourcers your inbound marketing strategy should always be inline with the amount of manning hours available. Over extending your assets whether it be time or employees is problematic and will likely become a project detriment.

Blog Marketing

Like we mentioned in our post last December, Why Every Business Needs a Blog, blogging is a very important tool for your business to use.  When considering inbound marketing blogging consistency is of primary importance. First, search engines favor blogs with a natural flow of content generation. Second, users appreciate content consistency – it keeps them engaged in your blog content and helps you increase return traffic rates. In fact, according to Hubspot companies that blog have 55 percent more website visitors.

Exclusive Content Offers & Lead Generation

Blog marketing is only one aspect of inbound marketing. You can also create exclusive content offers. These offers can be in the form of e-books, webinars, video tutorials, etc. Great content exclusive to your blog will motivate readers and subscribers. You should be consistent with exclusive content to measure traffic and lead generation data.

Social Media Presence

Social Media Management can be a cumbersome task and many entrepreneurs struggle with social media marketing and how it correlates with inbound marketing. However, according to Hubspot, Facebook has 53 million active users with an average user demographic of 25 and older. Therefore, it’s a good idea to create a presence on Facebook and other social media marketing platforms. Maintaining a consistent social media presence is important and while there are applications that create a semi-automated process you can also outsource the tasks to social media managers or an online marketing company.

Direct Sales

Many online companies tend to steer towards SEO and lead generation. But leads and optimized content are only part of the machine. After generating traffic and collecting leads you must now monetize your efforts. Develop a plan to monetize your product or service. Some strategies you can use are relationship marketing, cold calling, or email marketing.

After creating the blueprints for your well oiled machine it’s time to return to the four questions above.

1. Your Time
2. Outsourcing
3. Goals
4. Deadlines

Use your answers from above to determine the level of growth required in the chart below.

Understanding the chart below:

1. Tasks- Components of inbound marketing strategy
2. Maintenance – No substantial changes
3. Appreciation – Consistent growth over a specified period
4. Expansion – Major growth over a specified period

Of course the number of hours per task may vary depending on the inbound marketing strategy itself as well as organizational capabilities. However, the chart gives you a general idea on the manpower you’ll need and exactly how much you should spend on the inbound marketing.

Need Help?

If inbound marketing is something that you are interested in but don’t know how to get started, contact us today to schedule your free marketing analysis.