It’s never too early to start planning for success! Setting a winning digital marketing strategy for 2022 is key for connecting with new customers, nurturing current relationships, and building brand recognition. As 2021 winds down, we must take the lessons we’ve learned this year and transform them into actionable goals for next year.
As you look to set your digital marketing budget for 2022, keep these things in mind so you can set a flexible budget that supports your business goals.
What Do You Want to Achieve?
To better understand how much you should allocate toward digital marketing in general and which specific channels you should focus on, you should first nail down your goals for the coming year.
For example, do you want to increase your brand visibility? Draw more people to your website? Increase your online revenue by a certain percentage?
Start visualizing your goals, and then, from there, you can start thinking about what those goals look like in action. Is brand visibility about more engagement on your social media channels? How much more traffic do you want to draw to your website? What increase in revenue do you want to see?
By starting with the endpoint, you can better create the framework for getting there.
Review Past Campaigns
The performance of your past campaigns can help you determine which efforts may be the most advantageous for you moving forward.
If you have access to your digital marketing reporting, look at what’s driving traffic to your website, which campaigns are converting and driving sales, how well your website and specific pages and posts are performing, and what isn’t working.
Are there specific PPC keywords that you thought would work but didn’t? Did some of your ads do well while others missed the mark? Did one channel consistently outperform another?
Consider investing more on campaigns that brought in qualified leads and running tests on channels that didn’t fare as well to see if you can improve performance.
Diversify
2021 has taught us that you shouldn’t have all of your digital marketing eggs in one basket—which is to say that you should diversify your ad spend so that if something happens on one channel, you’re still seeing the benefits of your strategy. This year, Apple shook up the effectiveness of PPC on Facebook and Google with their new privacy features—and something similar could always happen with little to no notice. By diversifying your campaigns, you can help minimize the effect of any one channel on your revenue.
Different channels and tactics to consider include:
- Display Ads: It’s not all about PPC! Display ads are a great way to get your message right into your customers’ hands.
- Alternative Channels: If you’ve only ever done PPC ads on Google, consider checking out Bing Ads or investing in social media ads.
- Content Marketing: Blog posts, newsletters, videos—content marketing is all about creating valuable content that potential customers want to read.
- SEO: Search engine optimization can help you get found more easily online. From keeping your Google My Business profile up-to-date and link-building to creating new web pages to capture additional keywords, SEO helps set you up as the answer to a searcher’s query.
Some tools, like SEO and content marketing, are useful regardless of your goals, though increased budgets can help you improve your search rankings and grow your organic traffic more quickly.
While considering which channels may work best for you, think about new tools that you haven’t used before. For example, if you’ve stuck mainly with written content, why not do a video? It can be a great way to share a difficult concept or a new product with your audience while illustrating everything that makes your brand great. Set aside some funds for trying something new and for testing different tools so that you have the wiggle room to continually improve your strategy. You want your digital marketing strategy to remain agile, not go stale!
Also, think about whether it’s time for a refresh. How old is your website? Is it working well for you? Is your branding out of date? These are both essential tools for building connections and converting visitors into customers or clients. Suppose your website is lacking features that are now expected, like mobile responsiveness and user-friendliness. In that case, it’s probably time to launch a new site that positively highlights everything great about your business. Get started with a website audit to identify opportunities.
Allocate Enough
Sometimes, you don’t see the effects of a campaign unless you invest enough into it. Running a $100 campaign over a month will not get you the data you need to create a winning ad that consistently gets you new leads. The old adage is true—you gotta spend money to make money. And nowhere is that more evident than with your digital marketing plan.
One general rule is to allocate about 10% of your revenue towards marketing, with almost half of that being for digital marketing. However, if you’re just starting or are launching some new initiatives, that may not be enough. Consulting with a digital marketing agency about your goals could help provide you with additional guidelines that are more specific to your industry and what you want to achieve. Plus, the cost of certain digital marketing campaigns will vary depending on your industry, so it’s always a good idea to get input from an expert as you set your budget. The PPC costs for lawyers, insurance agents, and financial experts can be much higher than those for other professionals because the keywords are so highly sought after. If you want to utilize those tools that are guaranteed to get you seen, you need to know how much they cost to invest enough to get you the results you want.
Also, if you are planning any product or service launches, don’t forget to increase your budgets during those launches to make the most of them and attract attention!
Are you ready to talk about creating a digital marketing budget for 2022? Let’s start a conversation. We’ll help you plan out which tools may be best for your businesses and provide you with guidelines for how much to invest to reach your goals. Contact us now to learn more.
