It can be difficult to decide on a marketing budget and understand exactly how to distribute your marketing and advertising funds. It's important to know that a marketing budget is really something that needs to be adjusted regularly to account for the ebbs and flows of the business year. Without paying close attention to their marketing budget, companies, especially small businesses, can see a really negative impact on their expenses. Below are some tips to help you set and adjust your marketing budget, as well as some important platforms to pay attention to so that you're getting the best ROI (return on investment) possible and really seeing the benefits of your budget. 1. Consider the following: How much is set As I mentioned, there are some components of a marketing budget that are less flexible. Money that can be moved should be moved in an informed manner. For example, if you find that you're getting a lot of traffic (based on Google Analytics data) on days when you promote Facebook posts and/or advertise on social media, it might be something you want to spend more money on. Likewise, if you find that you really need someone to dedicate an entire workweek to marketing (in most cases you do), then you may want to allocate part of your marketing budget to paying a marketing manager. 5. Developing a Marketing Plan According to Kinesis, there are several important components of a marketing budget. Here are a few you'll definitely want to include in your annual marketing plan: (1) who: your target audience, (2) your unique selling point or what makes your company different, (3) mark the channels and places that you want to spend budget funds, (4) benefits your company, and (5) execution. In terms of execution, it is useful to break down activities and strategies by week, but certainly the marketing budget must be on a monthly basis. This will help you understand how and when to adjust your expenses and respond to fluctuations in sales rates