What Should Your 2021 Marketing Budget Include?

In the business world, 2020 has been a year to remember – and not in a good way for the most part. Lockdown restrictions meant that consumers were forced into changing lifelong habits and businesses in nearly every industry had to change they way they work in order to adapt to them, keep their head above water, and survive. It was a year of fast-paced adaptations, reactionary changes, and yes, plenty of stress.

But, as we enter 2021, there’s stability on the horizon. Sure, there will certainly be plenty of unpredictability in the business world this year, but we also have the time to prepare ourselves for much of it. With last year’s near overnight shift to online, it wasn’t exactly easy being thrust into the deep end of needing to take the digital aspects of our businesses seriously; but now that you have many of the much-needed foundations in place, you are in a situation to take full advantage of digital marketing and, as you watch your business grow and thrive in new and exciting ways, make 2021 another year to remember –this time, in a good way.

Setting a digital marketing strategy in place is one of the best ways you can keep your business momentum going. A proactive approach to your online presence and reach, branding, social media interaction, and current or potential customer communication this year will offer the focus, structure, and insight your business needs for short and long-term growth. A great digital marketing strategy for 2021 is, without a doubt, absolutely essential to business success. But what exactly should it include?

Google Ranking

• Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is unpaid (organic) efforts to maximise your exposure on search engines like Google and is an essential aspect of any digital marketing plan. More than anything else, search engines bring visitors to your website so getting to the top of Google’s search engine results is a key strategy for online business success and absolutely must be included in your 2021 marketing plan. Strategies that can boost your SEO include maintaining relevant, user-friendly websites with great, targeted content and having a strong brand and online presence across other digital marketing channels, all of which Google’s algorithms will use to rank your relevance and, if worthy, boost your website straight to the top of their results page.
• Organic SEO efforts are incredibly important and should never be overlooked, but they are, at least in the digital marketing world, a long-term plan. The fruits of your labours here may take time. In the interim, Paid Search strategies, or purchasing advertising space at the top of Google (or other search engines’) results pages, can offer great return on investment. Costs here are determined by keywords you want your business to be associated with, so work with your marketing team to determine the ones that will get you the best results.

Social Media Marketing

Like your search engine marketing work, social media marketing falls into two categories, paid and organic:

• Paid Social Media Marketing involves the running of paid marketing campaigns across social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. They use highly targeted strategies to boost your visibility and/or engagement with consumers that meet your specific profile goals (such as location, age, gender, habits, and interests). They can be incredibly effective and inexpensive when done correctly, but success here relies on background research to understand the best audiences to target.
• Any business with a social media account (which you should, unquestionably, have) needs to be taking part in Organic Social Media Marketing, or unpaid marketing strategies. These include keeping your pages up-to-date and relevant, posting content that will entertain and engage your followers, responding to comments, encouraging reviews, and more. Organic social media marketing strategies work best in conjunction with paid efforts and are only effective when you can dedicate on-going, (daily) time to social media accounts, so be sure to budget the time, energy, and expense to both when planning your 2021 digital marketing strategy.

Email Marketing

One of the most effective communication and digital marketing strategies to date, that has repeatedly shown to drive customer interaction and engagement. Use email marketing to offer up-to-date information about your business and products, provide valuable content marketing that helps set you apart as an industry leader, and stay in touch with your customers, but be careful with your content and frequency, as these factors can effect your overall success. If you’re not sure how to set up or maintain an email marketing plan that drives the growth and success your business needs, professional digital marketing companies are a great source of experience and can set up and track user statistics so you know exactly how to move forward without costly mistakes.

If you are looking to plan, develop, refresh, or audit your business’s digital marketing strategy so 2021 can be your best year yet, contact our experts!