How to Create a Marketing Budget

Does your cosmetic surgery practice have a yearly marketing budget based on projected revenue? We have helped dozens of plastic surgeons create or update marketing budgets to help guide the overall marketing plan. The marketing budget is a critical aspect to your marketing plan and should be set annually based on expected revenues and evaluated monthly. Doing so will help you see opportunities to reallocate your marketing budget to maximize return on your investment.

A well-thought-out marketing budget is of utmost importance, especially to a successful cosmetic and plastic surgery practice. This detailed roadmap of expenses will outline marketing strategies, advertising tactics, estimated costs, and ultimately, the projected results for a specified period. The marketing budget is a critical resource for your management team, acting as the framework to keep your team focused on specific goals. If your cosmetic surgery practice does not have a marketing budget, contact MD Internet Marketing, so we can help you put one together.

HOW A CUSTOMIZED MARKETING BUDGET IS CREATED

Most cosmetic surgery practices do not have a working marketing budget. Instead, while cash is still going to marketing costs, there is no formal budget in place, meaning these funds are not actively managed. Once a marketing budget has been created, and marketing dollars are appropriately allocated, your marketing strategy becomes more manageable. A successful marketing budget should be reviewed quarterly, if not monthly. A cosmetic surgery practice should be willing to allocate 3%-15% of the yearly projected revenue for marketing. While an established practice can tend to go lower, a new office, needing to gain more of the market share, may need to be on the higher end. To create a marketing budget, all of the current marketing expenses must be isolated. Depending on the current state of your marketing budget documentation, this step can range from mildly difficult to extremely complex. All items must be compiled into one list, segmented by category. These include the amount for ad buys on television, radio or websites; money for Pay-Per-Click management services; funds for blog post writing, social media, and content marketing. MD Internet Marketing will help to gather ALL of your marketing expenses, both internal and external, to help you determine what you are currently spending. As we review each of the line items, we will ensure they are consistently in the appropriate range of similar size practices from around the country.

ALLOCATING YOUR MARKETING DOLLARS

Once your marketing expenses have been established, we then look at how the money is being spent. Some costs are fixed, such as your monthly web vender, one-year agreements like RealSelf, and some reputation products. Others have variable pricing, such as Pay-Per-Click, content creation, and special events. The specific allocation of funds is a complicated process and will depend on your unique practice. This is especially true when it comes to implementing new marketing strategies, not already in your current budget. Some of the important budget categories that should be considered include:

Paid Advertising like Search, PPC, and Social Media Advertising

For any advertisement budgeting, remember to account for both production (design, messaging, testing, etc.) and ad placement costs.

Website

Website design/development (or re-design/development) includes updates, maintenance, integrations, improvements, registrar/hosting, stock photo/video, fonts and much more. This budget will depend on whether you are building a new site or redesigning and maintaining an existing website. Even with a new website, regular upkeep is still essential, and maintenance is an ongoing expense which you should expect to pay at least $2,000 per month.

Content Marketing

Content expenses include creation, design, video production, stock photo/video/audio, freelancers, marketing automation, monitoring services, and social media tools. Content marketing became popular due to the perception that it was a “free” tool — however this is not the case. Although different from traditional “paid” advertising, the creation and distribution of quality content takes time, research, and effort by a proficient team of content marketing pros — all costing money.

Public Relations

PR includes fees for research/contact services, reputation marketing, events, awards, dinners, swag, and outside agency retainers. Management of brand perception takes concentrated effort. Smart businesses invest in tools that spot PR trouble before it becomes a significant problem, then respond smartly when necessary.

Review, Monitor and Adjust

Marketing is a dynamic process, constantly in flux. For this reason, it is important to constantly monitor your marketing data, including impressions, sessions, leads, consults, and booked cases. The MD Internet Marketing team will determine the categories that are most cost effective for your practice, and then create a customized marketing budget. Our budget allocation includes negotiating/renegotiating current agreements, where applicable. As we have strategic relationships with many cosmetic industry vendors, your practice can take advantage of discounted pricing.

To learn how our experienced team at MD Internet Marketing can help you create, manage, and optimize your marketing budget for your aesthetic practice, please feel free to contact us.

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