The US Small Business Administration recommends that you spend about 7-8% of your revenue on marketing if you’re bringing in less than $5 million in sales per year. Of course, the actual amount will vary from business to business, as there are many other factors at play.

Are you wondering about the cost of marketing and advertising for small businesses? Then keep reading. We’ll break it down for you in this article.

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is the easiest way for you to get people in the funnel and keep your marketing costs down. Essentially, you have “free” content, as you can create blog posts, landing pages, and social media posts.

The costs associated here are mainly for website hosting, as well as paying your copywriters and graphic designers. You might also have a social media manager. All of these costs will be set, as you’ll know what the monthly expenses for paying for hosting and salaries are.

While this won’t put much strain on your advertising budget, it does take some time to gain traction. It might be wise to combine organic with paid traffic to get the optimal results.

Paid Traffic

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the easiest ways you can avoid going out of your marketing budget. It’s also great if you want almost instant results.

Basically, a PPC company runs your ads and you only pay when someone clicks on them. Once the clicks hit how much you’re willing to spend, the ads are turned off. You can also turn these ads off yourself to tweak your strategies.

In this area, you can put down however much you’re comfortable with and see how it goes. Many small businesses spend around $10,000 a month for paid traffic, but you don’t necessarily have to go that big.

Always Set a Goal First

When you’re looking at advertising costs for a small business, don’t just go into it blindly. It’s true that you need a good marketing mix, but it has to be carefully selected.

Once you set a startup marketing budget and what you wish to achieve, you can then use these two factors to carefully select the channels and methods for your marketing strategies.

While the US SBA does suggest you spend about 7-8% of your revenue on marketing, it may be best to start out with a budget of 2-5% for the first year or so, and then adjust accordingly based on how your company’s doing.

Estimate Your Company’s Cost of Marketing With This Information

With all the above information, you can estimate the cost of marketing for your business.

Obviously, not every small business will have the same expenses, as you’ll all have your own unique marketing strategies. But hopefully, this article will give you a better idea of what to expect so you don’t go out of your budget.

For more helpful readings, please check out our other blog articles.