This year has been unexpected and complicated for companies around the world, the difference was made by the ability to adapt quickly and see those changes as opportunities.

Planning your marketing budget for 2021 may be a good thing to do before the recovery gathers pace and gains some competitive advantage.

In November we ran our Women in Innovation bespoke workshop on strategic marketing for 2021 for companies doing innovation. Now, it’s time to share some extra information with all of you about how to plan your marketing budget for 2021.

During the event Mercè Cozens, founder of Think Beyond helped the companies learn more about three key topics:

●        Why should you have a marketing strategy?

●        Strategic marketing plan and audit

●        How to achieve success in your marketing activities

‍

Many questions during the workshop focused on marketing budgets for 2021, so we put together 5 key tips about planning your marketing budget for 2021:

1)        Start planning on time - this will allow you to react to uncertainty and establish some goals for the next year, facing the heightened internal competition for budgets.

2)        (Re) evaluate your marketing strategy – consider the change of scenario and how it brings you to interact with new actors. Is there a new player you haven’t considered before? How can I collaborate with the other departments?

3)        Build your sales funnel(s) and reverse it! - Consider who is essential for you and how it can bring new opportunities to you. Be innovative!

4)        Agree your budget for activities – Think about how to adapt to the new normal. A marketing budget is a financial plan within your marketing plan, necessary to deliver your marketing strategy. The budget needs to consider the concrete actions to deliver your marketing goals for 2021. Be realistic and consider which new paths you can take, do not try to reproduce what you planned for 2020.

5)        Work now for later – Give yourself the time to think about the risks you can face during the year and try to simplify your work in case you are going to have new (and unexpected) impediments. You may also want to request budget to innovate investing in new tools, automation, and advice. It will allow you to improve your marketing to save time when you will be busy. According to the CMO survey, innovation is one of the biggest challenges marketing leaders face every year. If you can’t fight it, embrace it!

Marketing is key to your recovery when approaching 2021 but, in some cases, these activities may request some extra marketing budget. To understand how you can ask for more budget you need to have a good marketing plan. This will support your requests for an increased budget for marketing activities.

To ask for more marketing budget we suggest:

a)        Plan it and make your case strong.

b)        Justify your need for extra budget, providing data.

c)        Measure its impact.

‍

Read this Think Beyond article for more details about when it is appropriate to ask for more marketing budget and how much marketing budget you need. In the same article, you can find some useful information about what is included in a marketing budget.

Click on the following links if you’re interested in finding out more about Women in Innovation and our upcoming Women in Innovation Events or to read the Press Release about the Strategic Marketing workshop.