Content marketing budget: how to allocate budget for content marketing in your company

Budget planning is rarely an enjoyable procedure. It might get pretty demanding and hectic based on your content marketing activities.

But it’s essential to plan your content marketing budget to have precise knowledge about the monetary resources and assets available to you in the future.

Luckily, you don’t have to begin from the ground up because I’m going to tell you all the steps to prepare your content budget.

With the suggestions and ideas mentioned here, you’ll be able to create a budget that fits your requirements and let you achieve your objectives. So let’s dive in!

Table of Contents
    Add a header to begin generating the table of contents

    How to set a content marketing budget?

    To create a content marketing budget, determine your objectives, identify assets, decide on target channels, decide on investment in thought leadership and influencer marketing, and look for gaps in your current strategy.

    A content budget is dynamic in nature. You have to analyze your expenses and their outcomes constantly. There are numerous aspects to examine when you’re planning your budget. That’s why I suggest keeping your content marketing plan nearby when implementing these steps to create a content marketing budget.

    Determine your objectives

    Identify goals that give direction to your content marketing and let you find the type, quantity, resources, and promotion costs. Your goals should be based on where you’re in the marketing funnel and where you wish to go.

    When determining your content budget, it’s important to begin with the objectives you want to achieve through content marketing.

    A defined set of objectives will let you identify the kinds of content you’ll produce, their amount, the required assets, and the distribution expenses you’ll have to bear.

    For instance, if your objective is to boost SEO performance, you may want to plan your spending accordingly. This might include budgeting for search advertisements, advice from an SEO agency, or particular software to handle SEO activities.

    On the other hand, for an objective like growing the number of qualified leads through content, you’ll need to prepare loads of lead magnets or content upgrades. To do so, you’ll have to spend your content marketing budget on a landing page development tool and advertising expenses for social media avenues.

    But how can you identify your objectives? It all relies on your current marketing performance and where you’d like to go.

    For example, if you’re a startup or aren’t as recognized as you’d want, then improving your company’s recognition may be the best-suited objective for you.

    If you are somewhat established and want customers to perform a specific action, your objectives can include boosting lead generation or sales.

    Lastly, if you already have an existing audience, and like to develop and retain them, you should concentrate on methods to increase consumer loyalty.

    Identify your assets

    Define the required number of people and tools. For people, you can start small by employing freelancers and hiring more as your plan develops. And for tools, think about your requirements and what they can do for you.

    When identifying assets for your content budget, you have to consider human capital and automation tools.

    Let’s talk about the human aspect first. If you intend to produce twice as much content in the future, you’ll have to expand your staff or employ an agency for certain parts of your content marketing.

    Whichever option you pick, will require you to spend money. But you don’t have to hire for multiple positions at once. You can begin by hiring a single resource to produce and distribute content. Then think about the other members after you’ve created a plan.

    Another approach you can take instead of hiring a team is to work with freelancers. If you are just starting with content marketing, employing a regular staff when you haven’t developed a solid plan might result in lost hours and resources.

    But with freelancers, you can try out your plan before having a prolonged obligation.

    You might also see that hiring freelancers enables you to leverage a range of abilities you may be unable to identify in a single worker. You can hire freelancers on websites such as Glassdoor, Portfolium, or Upwork.

    Besides human resources, there are the tools that you’ll require. And there’s a huge variety of them available in the market to pick from.

    Although you may not require a tool for everything, you’ll need a few to minimize wastefulness, streamline tasks, and monitor your content’s effectiveness.

    So before you select the tools you need, consider what you want them to accomplish for you. Below are some points to think about:

    • Do you already have content that has to be categorized and arranged?
    • Do you already have content that you’d like to promote or that you believe will attract a larger target market?
    • Are you struggling with finding your target market?
    • Are you searching for methods to incorporate multimedia into your content marketing initiatives?

    On top of that, if you’re thinking of moving to different software or incorporating a fresh one, you’ll have to conduct due diligence. This will help you understand what is most suitable for your requirements and is still within your content marketing budget.

    For instance, content optimization is a hot topic in content marketing. So you may need an SEO tool to execute the same.

    Decide on avenues that need funding

    Select the channels for content marketing by analyzing industry patterns and evaluating the performance of the channels you used previously.

    Not every content marketing strategy or tactic should be on your to-do list. This may dilute your efforts and compromise your focus.

    For example, although it doesn’t cost anything to have a social media account, making the most of this avenue needs a budget.

    Now you might be wondering, how can I figure out which platforms are worth spending on? You can do so by evaluating the industry patterns.

    Image Source: MarketingCharts.com

    After that, you’ll need to look at how these platforms worked for you previously. If you placed ads on any social media platform, you must be able to evaluate the effectiveness of those efforts.

    For example, if you used $3500 for running Facebook advertisements and received a good number of leads and sales, think about increasing this spending in your content budget in the future.

    A similar logic applies to geographical regions. If a particular area shows good results, you can increase spending there.

    Promote thought leadership and influencer marketing

    Consider how much will you invest in promoting thought leadership by conducting events, partnering with magazines, or publishing books. For influencer marketing, you have to determine your goals, audience, types of influencers, and budget.

    Thought leadership will increasingly get more crucial to content marketing in the coming years.

    Even though building thought leadership is a natural approach, that doesn’t imply that it will be free of cost.

    Some of the efforts will need money and assets in order to position your company as an authority within the industry.

    For example, these can include expenses for an event where your specialists can conduct seminars, collaborate with business magazines for paid posts, provide funds for an expert to publish a paper or book, or hire a public relations agency to have your business showcased in the press.

    Lastly, influencer marketing is an important spending aspect that compliments thought leadership. With that said, your influencer marketing plan must be tightly connected with your content marketing campaign to ensure that you’re getting maximum returns.

    Look for gaps

    Calculate the usage and cost of content to figure out the required funds. And if you’re running low, you can borrow from assets like ads or other internal departments via strategic partnerships.

    It’s common to overlook the financial aspect of tasks while preparing your content marketing plan. But, you wouldn’t want to be in the middle of the year and run out of funds for the necessary expenses.

    So, the final stage in planning a content marketing budget is to review every activity and ensure that you didn’t skip something.

    It is reasonable to request as much as you’ll need instead of struggling afterward. This involves funding for content production, equipment, and software.

    Find out how much the content is costing you

    You must have a thorough knowledge of your company’s present content expenditure and its usage.

    So let us begin by estimating the average cost of a single piece of content. When figuring out this amount, remember to consider the expenditures of contractors, wages, and tools.

    For instance, let’s assume that your company produces 500 articles in a year, with every one of them costing $300 in general. As a result, your company spends $150,000 on content per annum.

    After that, you have to find out the amount of your company’s content that is genuinely utilized. Usually, a large portion of content never sees the light of day.

    With these details, you can take your company’s present content expenses and deduct the cost of content that is bringing any value. This way, you’ll figure out the funds your company is losing through underperforming content.

    This is why you need a well-thought content marketing plan. A plan will offer a channel to distribute this content, recycle and rework it in various forms. This will increase the content’s relevance and utilize it properly.

    Take funds from low-performing campaigns

    Another approach you can use to find extra funds is by cutting down on other poor-performing investments like ads. In fact, banner ads have been known to be ineffective for a while now.

    Contact other departments for a possible collaboration

    Landing pages for ad initiatives are also historically costly, but they can have inefficient online resources from where you can acquire funds.

    For instance, one of our client’s teams had a huge amount of money for landing pages used in promotional activities.

    These web pages had a bounce rate of almost 99%, and whatever visitors came to these were from the ads.

    The content division requested a portion of the funding with the assurance of bringing organic visitors to those pages. This way, the results were beneficial for each side.

    So reach out to departments that have sizable funds with a prospective collaboration. It is an excellent method to execute your content marketing plan and create strong internal advocates for your company at the same time.

    Finalize your budget

    A general formula that many marketers suggest is to designate 25-30% of your marketing budget to content marketing.

    Lastly, here’s a benchmark to help you finish planning your content marketing budget.

    While these numbers differ by market sector, a decent criterion that several experts advise is to allot 25 to 30% of your marketing funds to content marketing.

    So for instance, if you presently have marketing funding of $200,000, that converts to approximately $50,000 to $60,000 for content marketing.

    Frequently asked questions about content marketing budget

    Here are answers to the common questions people ask about content marketing budget.

    What is a content marketing budget?

    A content marketing budget is a drafted record of the funds that your company is allocating for producing, promoting, and sharing content. It includes the expenditure on personnel, tools, layout, and suppliers.

    How much does content marketing cost?

    Content marketing expenses can vary from $5,000 to $50,000 or more each month based on your company’s size, objectives, marketing funds, and capabilities. This consists of analyzing, planning, producing, improving, and distributing content on numerous avenues.

    How much should your company budget for content marketing?

    The statistics differ by sector, but a general guideline that multiple marketing professionals suggest is to allocate 25% to 30% of your marketing funds to content marketing.

    So if you presently have marketing funding of $300,000, that corresponds to approximately $75,000 to $90,000 for content marketing.

    Why invest in content marketing?

    Content marketing is worthwhile since it addresses your customers’ queries and allows you to establish confidence, build connections, boost sales, and drive leads. Constant, exceptional, and interesting content affects consumers’ judgment better than other methods.

    How do you build a content marketing budget?

    To create your content marketing budget, you must think about what content marketing can accomplish for your company. This includes focusing on particular performance indicators related to your marketing efforts, thinking about your business’ size, analyzing the general content marketing budget for your sector, and putting your funds to the best use.

    How to succeed at content marketing on a small budget?

    To excel at content marketing with limited funds, you must prioritize value above numbers, have a practical method, and focus on a single platform at once. You may end up with subpar performance in every one of your initiatives if you try to do everything simultaneously.

    How to make the most of your content marketing budget?

    To make the most of your content marketing budget, you can do multiple things. These include repurposing existing content, creating how-to guides about your items and solutions, encouraging customers to submit content, engaging in social media activities, and live broadcasting.

    How much does content development cost?

    The price of producing exceptional content can fluctuate based on its depth, analysis, salaries, and other factors. But it typically costs between $500 and $3,000 per piece. This usually includes room for changes, analysis, and unique visuals.

    How much does a content audit cost?

    Based on your business objectives, for a full website evaluation, you might have to spend anything from $5,000 to $25,000.

    An analysis is an important first step in every content marketing plan. In its absence, you’ll not be able to correctly evaluate standards, marketing performance indicators, and reasonable forecasts as you execute the plan.

    How much does a content strategy cost?

    A content marketing plan can cost somewhere from $5,000 for a simple one to $50,000+ for an in-depth one, which may be suitable for a Fortune 500 company.

    This expense involves content audit, target market research, defining objectives, setting milestones, and making a personalized content strategy for your company.

    How much does content optimization cost?

    The expenditure to improve your current or fresh content might differ based on the vendor, with several asking for a per-hour payment (about $75 to $200) to make the necessary adjustments. Search-friendly content allows search platforms and your intended visitors to locate your content, consequently boosting your company’s exposure and credibility.

    How much does content promotion cost?

    The cost of promotion can vary from $75 to $150 per hour to write, optimize, and handle social media profiles.

    You could also keep separate funds for sponsored marketing from $100 to $1,000 to test whether you can get any meaningful momentum and eventually a reasonable ROI for a particular article.

    How much do content marketing education and workshops cost?

    The expenses related to coaching in content marketing could range from as low as a per-hour advisory charge to brief demonstrations, half, or one-day seminars, all varying from $800 to $6,000.

    Content marketing requires a change in how a lot of businesses operate. That’s why it is critical to ensure that your staff is educated in content marketing.

    Summing up

    It’s crucial to understand that expenses are not fixed. There are both inside and outside factors influencing them.

    Just like how you should constantly develop your content marketing plan, you must also adjust your funding to complement it. That’s why you should leave space for adaptability in your content marketing budget.

    So, if there’s a change or you wish to increase your spending in an avenue that’s working well, you’ll have the capacity to adjust.

    After you’ve determined what’s ideal for your company, focus on expanding it and lowering the funds towards the less productive avenues. This way, you can make the most of your content marketing budget.

    Did we miss anything? Did you try these steps? Do you have any questions or comments? Share your thoughts below in the comments section.

    Want the right tools and guidance to manage and grow your business in your inbox?

    🚀 Subscribe to my blog and newsletter for game-changing insights, expert strategies, and insider tips on achieving unparalleled business growth! 🌐✨

    Privacy protected | Opt out any time | No spam guarantee

    join newsletter icon

    Leave a Comment

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Scroll to Top