Not many marketing leaders have a whole lot of finance experience – and that’s entirely understandable, the job of a marketing leader is to grow the brand, to attract an audience, all of that requiring quite a lot of knowledge.
That being said though, marketing leaders are in charge of a lot of money, and spending it wisely is definitely an important part of the job. So, if you happen to be the head of advertising in a company and want to learn more about alternative ways for you to reduce your advertising expenses, or if you are just interested in the topic, look no further.
Don’t overlook tax deduction
This list wouldn’t be a good one if it didn’t start off with tax deductions. There are so many different tax deductions out there, and learning about them and incorporating them into your finance strategies is a great and easy way to save money. Tax-deductible expenses basically allow businesses to reduce the amount of taxable income that they report each year, so, more deductibles mean your business pays less tax.
What can be considered deductible?
Very generally speaking, if the cost of a product or a service is related to promoting your brand and selling goods, it can be counted as an “advertising expense”, hence being deductible. That being said, if you aren’t sure what can be considered as a deductible and what can’t, there are quite a few useful tools out there that can help you with that, Keeper Tax being one of them. By utilizing it, your write-offs are automatically categorized into business expenses, hence making it way easier for you to save money.
Setting clear marketing goals
Even though this advice seems kind of obvious, the topic is by no means a simple one. It’s easy for your marketing path to change during the entire process, and sometimes it can be really hard to predict the outcome, and hence manage the money that goes into it. The saying failing to plan is planning to fail really is there for a good reason.
How should you assess setting marketing goals? By categorizing and optimizing key aspects that go into the campaign. Be sure to try and pinpoint key variables, be it ones that are prone to changing or the ones that are quite obvious and yet important. Using analytics helps greatly when it comes to predicting an outcome, and is by far a better way to plan than just guessing.
Be sure to have everything written down!
It goes without saying that you should have all these things written down from the very beginning. As the marketing campaign progresses, so will your notes, but you will always be able to go back and assess how different things affected the outcome, hence making it easier for you to cut expenses where they can be cut.
Be sure to create a good marketing budget template
In order for you to stay on top of costs, it’s imperative that you track all of your expenses in one place. Having all of it in one place ensures that no data is lost due to dispersion, hence making it easier for you to understand how much you are spending, and how much you are able to save.
In order to do this, the simplest option is to create a marketing budget template that you can update and refer to regularly so that you can make sure you’re on the right track. This will enable you to plot out your proposed spending at different points of the year, making it easier for you to put expenses into a good perspective.
Treat the company money like it’s your own
Handling big marketing budgets sure is exciting, but sometimes, this excitement tends to sway people to spend more than they really need to. Treating all that money like it’s your own makes you painfully aware of how much each strategy costs you, both short-term as well as long-term. This isn’t a bad thing though – it helps you to work a plan for variances in each strategy more efficiently.
Don’t get us wrong, the point here isn’t to pinch every cent that you have spent. After all, you’ve been given this money to spend it on something – but you do need to know how much specific campaigns are going to cost along the way.
Prioritize, even when you don’t necessarily need to do so
There are so many fun and exciting ways to market your products these days, and most marketers want to try them all. The most important part of your job may be rejecting promising ideas that just aren’t going to get you to your targets.
Naturally, this will save you time. It’ll also keep costs down by stopping you from heading down tangents that don’t get you anywhere.
In the end, it all comes down to being well organized and understanding and utilizing different factors properly. Managing finances truly isn’t an easy task, but having a set of rules that reflects how you spend your money helps a lot when it comes to cutting expenses.