Marketing Demands vs. Shrinking Budgets: Navigating This Balancing Act

CEOs want their firms to grow, expanding into new markets and edging effortlessly ahead of the competition. Despite this desire, they consistently give their marketing teams less to work with financially. Startup marketing professionals are expected to produce grand results with shrinking budgets. Is it possible? Yes, but only with an opportunistic and curious approach.

Insights from the Experts

Gartner recently released an article exploring marketing in the “Era of Less.” It notes that marketing budgets have dropped to a post-pandemic low — just 7.7% of most businesses’ revenue, compared with 9.1% last year.

Gartner also states that 62% of CEOs cited growth as their top strategic priority — which seems at odds with the dwindling marketing budgets. In fact, only 24% of CMOs say they have the funding they need to execute their marketing strategies over the next year.

Doing More With Less

So, how can marketing professionals make it work when, on paper, the budgets they need simply don’t exist? Technology can help. Data-driven marketing solutions, utilizing AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning algorithms, can leverage increasingly granular client/lead data for more finely tuned campaigns.

AI can also help automate client interactions, freeing up marketing personnel for more intensive campaign creation and management tasks.

Marketers can also maximize their budgets via continuous and accurate monitoring of campaign results. Pivoting quickly when something’s not working can save startups serious amounts of cash — and improve client relations.

From “Grim” to Growth: Finding Opportunities

Small budgets don’t have to mean a bleak outlook. Successful startup marketing professionals will look for opportunities in emerging technologies, new audience segments, and new channels to explore.

Careful allocation of company resources to the most effective marketing channels helps ensure continuous success — and drives profits. Marketers should also make sure that they’re reporting on those successes. The better CEOs and CFOs understand the impact of the marketing team, the more likely they are to sign off on those bigger budgets.

Final Word

You really can do more than less. It’s all about investing wisely — choosing to spend on the marketing support functions that will have the most impact. If you need to audit your existing marketing strategy, book a free 15-minute introductory call with a marketing expert to see how we can help.

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