When I’m working on creating Marketing Plans with clients (and November has been a busy one, with plans created for four new clients) we always look at how much money should be spent on marketing.

“How much does marketing cost?” they all ask me. “How much should I spend?”

Good questions! Many people think that marketing is really expensive, but that’s not the case anymore. There are so many new marketing tools that you can use these days, that don’t cost much, or that don’t cost anything at all, except your time. That doesn’t mean that you should only use the free stuff or that you should do loads of it. The trick is to look at all the marketing tools you could use and decide which ones might work, based on who your ideal clients are. Check out two of my recent blogs if you missed the ones about identifying your ideal clients or working out what marketing is best to reach them.

Once you have your list of possible marketing activities, you can look at what each one will cost you – and what sort of return you’ll get from them. For example, you might have Twitter on your list, as a way of reaching a large new market for your new product. Twitter is free to set up and use – the only real cost will be your time. How many of your products do you need to sell to get a good return for your time? If you’re selling a high-end product, it could take a long time to build up enough followers and create a good reputation; if you’ve got something smaller and easier to buy, you could get results more quickly.

When you’re selling a service such as coaching or consultancy and you know where your potential clients network, you can put networking on your list of marketing activities. How much does it cost to join the networks and to attend meetings? How much time do you need to spend travelling to meetings, doing the networking and following up your efforts? Is it worth spending £500 a year on annual membership, £12 per event and an hour’s drive each way? It will be if you meet that ideal coaching client who wants to invest £500 each month in your support, for 12 months!

Before you rush into doing any marketing, go through the stages of marketing planning that I’ve been writing about for the last few weeks on this blog. Take the time to look at what will work, how much it will cost and what results you’re likely to get, before you spend any money at all. That way, any marketing you do will be well targeted and it’ll be money well spent. For a summary of the planning process I use, click here to see the page on my website. To get your copy of Magnetic Marketing, the planning book I’ve published, click here. It’s a workbook that will take you through the stages in lots of detail and help you create a solid, money-saving Marketing Plan.