The Marketing Budget Planner

“How much should I spend on marketing?” is the question every agency dodges, because the honest answer isn’t a percentage - it’s an order. Spend on the wrong things first and any budget disappears. Here’s how to work yours out in half an hour.

Step 1: Know your numbers (10 minutes)

Three numbers, rough is fine:

• Average job value - what’s a typical customer worth per job or per year?
• Lifetime value - how many times does a good customer buy or refer over the years?
• Capacity - how many new customers a month could you actually serve?

If an average customer is worth £2,000 over their lifetime, then £100 to win one is a bargain and £5 is a fantasy. Most owners have never done this sum - it changes how you see every marketing decision.

Step 2: Pick your lane

As a rule of thumb for established service businesses:

Situation	Sensible annual marketing spend
Steady, mostly word-of-mouth, want modest growth	3-5% of revenue
Actively growing, competitive local market	5-8% of revenue
New business or entering a new market	8-12% of revenue

A £200k business in growth mode is looking at £10-16k a year - £850-1,350 a month. If that number frightens you, remember it has to replace itself: marketing that doesn’t pay for itself gets cut, and everything measurable can be judged on that.

Step 3: Spend it in the right order

This is where most budgets die. The order matters more than the amount:

1. Foundations before fuel. Ads pointed at a website that doesn’t convert is money in a paper shredder. Fix the destination before you pay for traffic. One-off costs: website, Google profile, follow-up system.

2. Free and compounding before paid and rented. Google Business Profile activity, reviews, SEO basics, email to past customers - these compound and cost mostly effort. Do them before renting attention with ads.

3. Keep-warm before reach-out. Following up existing enquiries properly is cheaper than finding new ones. Most businesses have a small fortune sat in their “didn’t reply” pile.

4. Then - and only then - paid ads. Once the site converts, the profile ranks and the follow-up catches everyone, ads pour fuel on a working engine instead of leaking one.

Step 4: The monthly split

A sensible shape for that £850-1,350/month growth budget once foundations are built:

• ~40% visibility - SEO, Google profile, content that gets you found
• ~25% nurture - email, staying in touch, review generation
• ~25% paid - ads, once the foundations earn them
• ~10% testing - the new idea of the quarter, killed quickly if it doesn’t work

Step 5: Judge it like an investment

Give any channel 90 days, measure enquiries (not likes), and ask one question: did it pay for itself? Keep what did. Kill what didn’t. Repeat. That’s the whole game.

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Want a second opinion on where your budget should go first? Start with a free web review - we’ll tell you honestly whether your leak is visibility, conversion or follow-up, and what we’d spend first. And if you want the full plan, that’s the Growth Blueprint.