You can’t guarantee that your marketing strategy is going to as planned. Just think about what happened in March 2020 as the world went into lockdown. Companies had marketing plans that had been running smoothly up to that point. Suddenly they had to stop and rethink them. There will always be things that arise unexpectedly that could change the course of your marketing strategy, so it is important to keep monitoring the results and being flexible enough to make changes when necessary.
We advised you, a few episodes ago, not to just decide on an overall figure for your budget and then fit your various channels into that. You need to base your overall budget on your business goals, chosen marketing channels, the steps in your sales funnel, etc. However, once you have worked out a total on that basis, it will pay to be flexible in how you allocate this total. You can keep your bottom line the same and still adjust the specific line items within your budget as you need to.
Remember that one of the advantages of digital marketing is that it is measurable. You can get accurate metrics on the impact of your strategy, and then shift your tactics quickly in response to the data. Your marketing budget can and should be flexible to accommodate those strategic shifts.
