How to Effectively Plan for the Cost of Running and Expanding the Reach of Your Website
Running and expanding your website is a marketing cost, and you would have to allocate about 12% to 20% of your budget to marketing if you want your business to get the exposure it needs.
Marketing is even more critical to start-up enterprises and allotting 20% of your budget for marketing is highly recommended.
But what part of your budget should be allocated to online marketing through your website and other campaigns and strategies? And on which marketing channels and strategies should you focus?
Here's how to effectively plan for the cost of running and expanding the reach of your website:
Your online marketing needs
Your online marketing plan should include online advertisements, website management, and social media management. Of course, you shouldn’t neglect traditional marketing tools either, such as print advertisements and collateral like brochures, business cards, and leaflets, as well as participation in events in your industry and trade shows.
With all these needs in mind, you could very well see that a budget of 12% to 20% for marketing will already be well spent. But if you want to maximise your budget for marketing, it’s also best to go with a digital marketing and web design agency such as ours - a local company specialising in web development in Bristol - rather than try to do it all yourself.
The importance of a holistic approach
Regardless of how you decide to go forward with your marketing strategy, you should take into consideration all your marketing campaigns, from blogs to events, social media, advertisements (both digital and print), email newsletters, and so on.
By doing this, you can leverage marketing content across various channels to get maximum results. In other words, it’s best to have a holistic marketing approach. If you don’t have a holistic marketing approach, you can waste money, time, and resources, and your business’s brand may also suffer because of the inconsistency with how you present it.
A lack of a unified, holistic approach may also result in a lack of information on which efforts worked best and what resulted in the best return on your investment.
Revamping your website
If you are worried that one of the root causes of your lacklustre marketing results is your website, then it may be time to revamp it. Many business owners suffer from ineffective websites which don't do a good job of increasing brand awareness and don’t generate enough customer attention.
Spending on maintenance
When you have a website, it’s similar to owning a car. With a car, you have to spend on maintenance and accessories, fuel, and so on. With websites, you have to spend on hosting, content, updates, and reporting.
The good news is that hosting is relatively inexpensive, but it should also include additional security, backups, and caching. For website upgrades, you can assign someone to do it – or have your digital marketing agency do it for you as well.
Spending on content
Another aspect you have to pay attention to is your content. Websites should be continually evolving, and yours needs to keep up with different industry events and what's going on in your business.
Make it a point to invest in content creation, whether it's through articles, blogs, or case studies, and make sure to edit content as necessary for your products, services, and staff.
Spending on online marketing
Online marketing is also a heavy contributor to the cost of expanding your website’s reach, so don’t neglect the production of content, which includes ad campaigns for social media (especially graphics, videos, and photos). Factor in the cost of reporting and analytics as well so you know how effective your campaigns are.
To be doubly sure, allocate your budget like this: maintenance (10%), development of content (25%), online marketing (35%), and reporting and management (30%). This way, you can ensure that your website and marketing strategies will become much more effective.
Now expand the reach of your website
You should now be able to improve the reach of your website, by ensuring you have one which is easy to edit and optimise on an ongoing basis.
If you are looking for a website with all these features, then we are here to help - contact the friendly team at it'seeze Web Design Bristol to find out more about our creative website design services and ongoing support.
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