No Dollar Bucks - No Problem

Marketing budgets in B2B often feel like a roller coaster.  Sometimes we’re climbing toward a thrilling peak and other times, it feels like we’re plummeting straight down. Never a dull moment in marketing, but certainly not the ideal state when you feel like you’re on the plummeting side of the budget curve.

Some may recall the days of massive print runs for collateral or making significant, year-long ad buys in key trade or business publications. Not printing and folding a hundred press releases, stuffing the envelopes, and then mass mailing them to key media and analyst contacts. Obviously I’ve dated myself a bit, but candidly I’m glad those days are gone for many reasons. Of course, new challenges have emerged that our past selves couldn’t have imagined.

But one good reason I’m glad those days are gone is the advent of digital marketing and how much a marketing team can now accomplish with limited budgets. From social media posts and expert-driven videos, to small ad buys that still make an impact, the possibilities are much greater.  

I do recognize the correlation that marketing budgets have likely decreased over the years because some marketing activities just aren’t done anymore (printing lots of materials), but there are still situations where marketing budgets are squeezed and making it difficult to hit aggressive business objectives. And it creates a very cyclical situation - business doesn’t hit numbers, marketing and other budgets or headcount are cut, there’s a nice bump in business numbers because expenses are down, but then marketing doesn’t hit targets, then sales decrease and the business doesn’t hit numbers. Rinse and repeat. 

Shifts in Marketing Budgets

In the last 10 years, marketing budgets have fluctuated - taking a heavy hit in 2021, but overall, as a percentage of revenue, they’ve continued to decrease. According to an annual survey “among chief marketing officers (CMOs) in North America and Northern and Western Europe, 7.7 percent of their employers' revenues were allocated to marketing in 2024, down from 9.1 percent a year earlier. In 2016, that share peaked at over 12 percent.” Ten years ago, the average budget was 10.7% of revenue. This varies across industry, but on average, there’s been a decline.

The 2024 CMO Survey paints a slightly different picture, but still underscores that marketing budgets aren’t climbing back to previous highs.

According to this Linkedin Post, the bulk of budgets are focused on lead generation, followed by brand awareness, demand generation, and account-based marketing efforts. No surprise, the CMO Survey also highlighted decreased investments in traditional advertising with increased spending in digital channels.

Doing More with Less

The good news is that there’s a lot you can do in B2B marketing when you have a lean budget.

Maximizing Events - on a Budget

In my experience, event spending often accounts for the bulk of our budget, especially as a way to reach new prospects. While there are still some tried and true in-person events that demand our presence, virtual events we host ourselves have been quite successful. That said, I’ve attended plenty of mediocre webinars and virtual events over the years, many hosted by vendors that charge a lot for participation.

So if you’re putting time and energy into recruiting for these events, using other cost-effective tools like social media or email campaigns to promote them, make sure you’re putting in the effort to deliver value. Feature your best presenters, keep the sessions short and engaging, and use tools like poll, asking attendees chat questions, and Q&A to drive interaction. Otherwise, despite being low cost, virtual events won’t deliver much value and attendees won’t return to the next one.

Cost-Effective Analytics Tools

The good news here is there are quite a few different low cost or event free analytics tools that can help track performance. While I’ve become less fond of Google Analytics, it’s still free and offers valuable insights into what’s driving traffic to your website or landing pages. 

Another tool I’ve recently discovered is Microsoft Clarity, which includes standard website data, but also includes visual scroll data and heatmaps, along with easy to build user journey trackers. Plus it offers an integration with your Google Analytics data for a “one-stop” view of your website performance.

I do miss the old Google Optimize capabilities which let you A/B test messaging or images on without needing a developer, but there are cost-effective alternatives that don’t require expensive market research vendors.

I recently tried a subset of VWO capabilities (it has a lot of functionality). We used it to A/B headlines to see which increased demo requests. One change gave us a 3% bump while another led to a 24% drop. Even small gains can be significant and being able to test this inexpensively can prevent negative impacts.

This is one area where affordable tools can have a big impact on your marketing performance.

Digital Ads for Building Brand Awareness

Digital ads may not always reach your exact target audience, but they can be effective for raising general awareness. Running ads on Google or Bing, with a set daily spend can be relatively inexpensive.

LinkedIn is a more expensive option, but offers precise targeting by company size, titles, industries and more along with a variety of ad formats to align with your goals. While seemingly more expensive in some cases, given the better targeting, it might be a more cost-effective option for your organization over time.

Content Generation with AI

Generative AI tools have become a game changer for content creation, helping marketing teams operate more effectively at a lower cost. While I see value in manually writing content, AI can assist with brainstorming new headline ideas, suggesting edits, summarizing data, and offering ideas to expand on blog, email or paper content.

Search engines and publishers may be devaluing content generated entirely by AI taking a cautious approach can still accelerate the vast amount of content marketers need to create.

Success is Possible

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it underscores that leaders can do a lot even with smaller budgets. Market surveys, SEO work, and even design and video projects are becoming more cost-effective, which helps make social media content creation less expensive.

The key is tracking ROI and other relevant KPIs to evaluate which efforts deliver the most value. Regularly assessing metrics like leads created, click-through rates, open rates, and sales-accepted leads can help you track progress. Don’t wait until the end of the year to make adjustments.

When certain metrics aren’t met, analyze the tactics to determine which are helping or hindering your progress. If needed, adjust your strategy or look for a more cost-effective way to achieve your goals.

While having a bigger budget is certainly nice, you can still achieve a lot with less. By focusing your efforts on a few key areas, rather than spreading resources too thin, you’re more likely to make the biggest impact.