Home topics small-business-resources sales-and-marketing Marketing Small Business Marketing How to get balance in your marketing budget Rony Chiha April 10, 2017 Determining the right marketing budget for your business can be difficult – it’s a fine balance between not spending enough and spending a lot more than you need to to be effective. The first thing you should do is look at your budget and how much you CAN afford to spend, before assigning numbers to different channels. But how do you determine what you can afford? Here’s a brief guide to help you do just that: 1. Where are you in the Growth Cycle? The age of your business will greatly influence the budget that you are able to spend. Your businesses age will, in most cases, be a guide for your established brand awareness in the market. A new business, less than five years old, should probably be spending between 12% and 20% of its gross revenue on marketing. Although this may seem like a high number, it is necessary, as a new business will likely not yet have an established name in the industry and will need to spend more to reach a wider audience, as opposed to a company that has been in the industry for many years. For a company that is older than five years, between 6% and 12% of the gross revenue should be put towards the marketing budget. 2. Do Your Research In order to research, you need data. To collate data