Marketing Survey finds that “securing enough budget is a challenge for 14% of organizations”.

Can you think of designing a marketing strategy not thinking of a budget? In 99% of cases, the answer is NO. That is why, we created a separate section called Marketing Budgets and Operations, in 2019 Marketing Benchmark Report.

In this article, you will learn the key insights we have gotten in the following areas:

1. Marketing budgets as a percentage of organizations’ revenue.
2. Allocation of marketing budgets.
3. Planned changes to the marketing budget in 2019.

1. Marketing budgets in terms of percentage of revenue.

To learn about this topic during our study we asked this question: ”Please enter your organization’s marketing budget as a percentage of revenue”.

We then segmented the results by the organization size and industry sector. Below you learn the key results we achieved:

The smaller the company is, the larger the percentage of revenue dedicated to the marketing budgets is.

Chart: Marketing budget as a percentage of revenue by organization size

Organizations in the retail sector tend to dedicate a greater percentage of their revenue to marketing expenses.

Chart: Marketing budget as a percentage of revenue by industry sector

2. Allocation of marketing budgets

To see where marketing budgets are allocated today we asked this question: “Approximately what percentage of your marketing budget is allocated to each of the following tactics”.

Chart: The allocation of marketing budgets

And again, to have a complete picture, we segmented the results by the organization size and industry sector. Below you can see the results:

Chart: The allocation of marketing budgets by organization size

Chart: The allocation of marketing budgets by industry sector

3. Planned changes to the marketing budget.

To understand where marketing executives plan to invest during the next year, we asked this question: ”Please select the statement that best describes how you expect your organization’s budget will change for the following categories in 2019".

Chart: Marketers increasing investment into content and growth marketing

The majority of marketers are increasing their marketing budgets for content marketing, SEO, growth marketing, social media, PPC and PR. When considering outbound efforts, TV, and print ads, there are no huge plans on investment.

The growing potential of utilizing inbound tactics and growth marketing is most likely a result of the cost-effectiveness of these channels.

Chart: Increasing marketing investment by organization size

Chart: Increasing marketing investment by industry sector

To get a full version of the report, click here.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Growth Marketing Stage blog.