Advertising Budget: How Much is Too Much? « « Business Improvement Blog « Flasch International - Helmut Flasch Business Improvement Blog « Flasch International

Advertising Budget: How Much is Too Much?

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

A frequently asked question among my clients is, “How much of my particular income should go over to marketing? What is a standard marketing budget?” Accountants and other analysts out there are always analyzing what is standard and what is good. Where they get their data about what is ‘right’, I don’t know and 99.9% is incorrect. How much do you spend on marketing? How much do you spend on dental website marketing? As much as it takes to move up and get people into your business.

If that is six times what you are making now, so be it. Am I joking? I am absolutely not joking. Do you usually need that? No, not really. But then again maybe yes especially if you are making little money right now. That is what it will take.

Several times, I have been around the world and studied some business while working for other companies. One similarity I noticed among the successful companies was that none of them had a budget of a limit for their marketing.

The more you market, the more successful you are likely to be, period. It’s a little bit like when you are sick. How much of the doctor’s bill should you pay? When I started my business, how much money did I make? Zero. How much did I spend on marketing? It didn’t matter, whether I spent $400 or $4000 it was more than what I made because I made nothing.

I once had a client who owned a dental practice in Los Angeles. He was spending quite a bit on advertising when he first started his business.

Flyers, coupons, internet dental marketing, stuff like that. I met him 12 or 13 years later, when he became my client.

At that point in time he no longer did any of those types of things. I asked him, ” Why did you stop, did it not work?” He said no, it worked, it brought people in.

He said that he advertised alot when he first opened his practice, just to get people in. However, he stopped marketing because he was told by other ‘experts’ that he should not be spending so much money! Then he paid me to tell him to start marketing again, which he did.

There are, however, many different inexpensive ways of dental advertising and internet dental marketing. There are even free ways of getting other people to promote your message from you. We called this ‘Un-Advertising’.