How to Run Marketing Better with Effective Budgeting and Planning

It’s business planning season and we all know what that means — you’re in the trenches hustling to produce innovative, targeted, and dare I say it ‘proven’ business plans for how you are going to achieve corporate objectives and exceed revenue targets. And if you’re really honest, you want to impress leadership and climb a few rungs up the corporate ladder.

Am I right?

Perhaps.

But, and it’s a big but, how do you decide what initiatives to undertake? Do you know the revenue impact of your plan? Are your plans aligned with what leadership really cares about?

If these questions are making your head spin, don’t fret. Just remember, as a marketer you have two jobs: to do marketing and to run marketing. Without both wheels turning concurrently, you’ll soon find you’re veering off course and further away from your goals and revenue target.

All Marketers Do Marketing (Obviously)

Doing marketing is the front-office of marketing. It’s what is seen from the outside such as hosting events, sponsorships, and online advertising. In other words, it’s the initiatives you have listed in your marketing plan that are contributing to your marketing objectives.

But doing marketing with no regard for how you run marketing is akin to throwing a dart at a dartboard, while blindfolded and hoping to hit the bullseye. Not to mention a disregard for the importance of a marketing system of record to accurately manage your marketing investments and track their impact — including targets, plans, forecasts, and actuals for both online and offline marketing activities.

The Top Marketers Do and Run Marketing.

As an Oracle Marketing Cloud customer, you’re a leader at doing marketing. But, how well organized are you to run marketing? For every great performance, regardless of the discipline, it’s the preparation, ongoing management and agile approach that help you maintain your performance and propel you forward. Running marketing means paying close attention to the ‘I’ in ROI and measuring to determine the next best marketing action aka Marketing Performance Management.

The top marketers know where their dollars are being spent and most importantly, why. We’re not only talking at a campaign level but also at an executive and aggregate level. By connecting their campaigns and associated metrics to marketing budgets and corporate strategic plan data, the top marketers get a full view of their ROI and use that intel to influence their marketing plans and drive corporate revenue.

The responsibility for marketing performance, through running and doing marketing, is no longer limited to the scope of the CMO. Marketers as a whole are increasingly asked to demonstrate their value to their organization. When you’re asked how your marketing plan is contributing to revenue growth, you want that information at your fingertips.

Amanda Lomas, Director of Marketing Analytics at Change Healthcare and Eloqua customer, previously spent 5 days per month mapping her expenditure to her investments in a bid to determine her ROI. The process was time-consuming and challenging to complete without much notice. Now that she is a running and doing marketing expert, she has efficiently condensed that process to 3-4 hours!

From a Walk to a Run

Amanda isn’t alone. Hundreds of organizations are making the shift from an emphasis on only doing marketing to running and doing marketing simultaneously. Here are three easy steps to get your organization in the starting blocks:

1. Keep your eye on the prize: Align your marketing plan and budget with corporate objectives to make the right kind of impact and keep your plan focused.
2. Go for gold: Demonstrate how your plan will impact corporate revenue by estimating the ROI of your initiatives.
3. Stay agile: Create scenarios for 10%, 15% and 20% more budget. Also, be prepared for what you might cut if your budget decreases.

Invest an hour and join our webinar on October 5th, co-hosted with Allocadia, to hear how Eloqua customers, Change Healthcare, and Symantec have optimized their marketing performance through more effective budgeting and planning. In return you’ll leave with practical tips to implement today, setting you on track for driving corporate revenue and demonstrating to leadership how your marketing team is adding tangible value. Now that’s positive ROI!

The bottom line is always the bottom line. That's why you need to download the Marketing Budgets Report 2016, created by Econsultancy in association with Oracle Marketing cloud.

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