Every small business needs marketing. It’s an essential part of attracting new customers and growing your business, but it’s also important for building customer loyalty and getting repeat business.

The problem is that marketing requires an investment. Whether you’re doing it yourself or you’re working with a marketing company, it’s going to take an investment of time, money or both to reach your goals and get your business off the ground.

Small business owners are some of the busiest people around, and most small businesses don’t have an endless budget that they can devote to marketing. You know you need marketing, but figuring out just how much of your time or money to invest in it can be tough.

What should your marketing investment look like?

When small businesses first start working with our marketing team or using the Marketing 360® platform, they all want to know the same thing:

“How long will it take before my marketing starts working?”

As a general rule, it’s a good idea to give your marketing strategy at least six months to start working. However, as with everything to do with marketing, there are caveats.

For example, a business that’s been around for longer, already has a strong reputation within their community and has done marketing in the past is going to see their marketing efforts pay off a lot faster than a brand new business that doesn’t yet have a strong foundation.

Marketing is a lot like building a house. You can’t jump right into building a bedroom or a kitchen without first having a solid foundation underneath. Marketing is the same way. You have to take the time to build your foundation before you can jump right in and expect great results.

It’s also important to realize that marketing will often get better over time. As you monitor your performance and learn what works for you and what doesn’t, you can fine-tune your strategy to drive more leads and utilize your budget better.

The longer you market, the more information you can gather about your customers as well. For instance, when you’re just starting out, your email marketing list will probably be pretty light, but over time, you’ll add more and more emails — and more and more customer data — that will make email marketing more effective.

All of that takes time, and if you’re only willing to put in a month or two, it’s probably not going to be worth the investment.

Whether you give marketing six months or three years, it’s important to realize that marketing is something your small business is always going to need. There’s never going to be a time when you don’t need marketing, but it’s important that you are regularly testing, tweaking and maximizing your marketing strategy.

Another common question we hear from small businesses is:

“How much budget should I invest in marketing?”

A lot of small business owners think about marketing budgets the wrong way. They allocate a specific amount for marketing and set their marketing goals. But, it’s a mistake to expect a $350 monthly marketing budget to get the same results as a $3,500 monthly marketing budget.

Instead, think about what your goals are first, and then build a marketing budget around those goals. If your goals and your budget aren’t aligned, it’s a recipe for disappointment.

Part of the challenge of marketing is managing your expectations, and making sure that you adjust those expectations based on the investment you’re willing to make at the time. If you decrease your marketing budget or spend less time on marketing your business, you need to adjust your expectations for that.

As far as how much of your budget you should be devoting to marketing, that answer, again, depends on your situation and goals.

A business that has a solid marketing foundation should expect to invest between 10% – 15% of their marketing goal. So, if your goal is to make $250,000 this year, you’d want to invest about $25,000 a year — or a little more than $2,000 a month.

However, if you don’t have a solid foundation, it’s going to take a little more to build that brand recognition and get your marketing off the ground, and you need to account for that in your marketing budget.

Keep in mind that your marketing budget will also depend on the industry that you’re in and who your competitors are. If you’re a local contractor who only has a few local competitors, you won’t need as big of a marketing budget as an e-commerce store looking to compete on a national scale with well-known brands.

Unfortunately, there are very few black-and-white answers when it comes to marketing. Every small business has different goals, challenges and opportunities, and a marketing investment that works for one business won’t necessarily work for another.

You need marketing, but you also need to be able to run your business, serve your customers and earn an income. That can be difficult for small businesses that don’t have the money to hire an in-house marketing team or the time to take it all on themselves.

With Marketing 360®, you get the best of both worlds. Our small business marketing platform has all of the tools you need to manage and grow your business, and our marketing team is available to help as much or as little as you need them.

Learn more and see our plans and pricing.