Today’s marketing landscape is becoming more and more complex, as brands continue to do what they can to thoughtfully deploy assets across the spectrum—distributing resources among traditional vehicles like print and direct mail, as well as social and digital marketing channels.

According to Gartner’s “2022 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey,” marketing budgets increased over 3% to reach almost 10% of overall company revenue year over year. The report shows that today’s marketing firms are back to pre-pandemic levels, with 70% saying they increased their budgets in 2022. The critical duty of the marketing team is to effectively allocate their 2023 budget to capture the highest level of effectiveness. It is not necessarily how large your budget is, but rather how you allocate your spending.

Consider the following in 2023.

1. “Hold on to your current customers and nurture them,” Ali Kraus, Benetrends Financial Inc. says. “Don’t stop marketing—especially to your current client base. Now, more than ever, it’s important to spend time and resources on connecting and engaging with your current clients to continue to build brand loyalty during questionable times.

2. Keep going, keep pushing, and keep your brand loyal to its customers. The best thing we can do is be price sensitive, rethink and evaluate our marketing plans, but keep consistency.

3. Successful brands allocate the bulk of their resources to three key areas: brand strategy, campaign development, and operations. The most successful companies appear to be the ones that balance out these three resources.

4. In today’s media environment, video rules. It is the top channel for B2B marketing and the hot new trend is short-form video. TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts are now some of the most popular media for brands, thanks to consumers’ short attention spans. Short-form video accounts for 80% of all mobile data traffic (Adobe).

5. And there’s also a simpler way. For example, bolstering your SEO by updating your website. Remember that you can’t just toss a bunch of keywords in a blog post or optimize tags and call it SEO. Search engines are getting smarter, and you have to prioritize the user experience in terms of:

• Page speed
• Mobile performance
• Image quality
• Focus the content to align with the target audience – targeted landing pages

6. Posting blogs frequently is a cost effective way to stay marketing strong. 63% of B2B marketers use content to boost customer loyalty (Adobe). Ensure your blog posts are being promoted via social media.

“Stay top of mind, provide educational content, and find a cadence to your social media posting,” Benetrends’ Kraus says. “Be sure your blog posts and content are relevant to what people are searching for.”

7. Marketers who are prepared to spend should be bold in their approach, measure carefully, and be ready to change as the business environment evolves. Have backup plans for your marketing budget because your company may be asking for budget reductions nearly across the board to save profitability goals.

If necessary, most of you will reduce spending on marketing strategies that don’t lead to direct results or leads. In other words, if the ROI isn’t positive, they will cut spending on these strategies to focus on the marketing strategies that visibly work. Multichannel programs with proven results should be in your plan. Options like Think Patented’s Mail360 or Direct Mail Retargeting are two great solutions.

Jordan Lintz, CMO for digital marketing firm HighKey Enterprises, says that is just how the landscape will play out for now. “I think all marketers should focus on what’s working and ask themselves where they are generating the most leads. Whether that is spending money getting leads through social media or email marketing or direct mail, keep spending money on what’s working and reduce or cut your budget on what’s not.” Take the lead in managing the marketing budget.

According to Gartner’s “2022 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey,” marketing budgets increased over 3% to reach almost 10% of overall company revenue year over year. The report shows that today’s marketing firms are back to pre-pandemic levels, with 70% saying they increased their budgets in 2022. The critical duty of the marketing team is to effectively allocate their 2023 budget to capture the highest level of effectiveness. It is not necessarily how large your budget is, but rather how you allocate your spending. Today’s marketing landscape is becoming more and more complex, as brands continue to do what they can to thoughtfully deploy assets across the spectrum—distributing resources among traditional vehicles like print and direct marketing, as well as social and digital marketing channels.

For more information on Smart Marketing Budget ideas for 2023:

Contact your Think Patented account executive

Check out some successful marketing strategy case studies at thinkpatented.com/resources/case-studies

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