We were just perusing some recent articles from our buddies at eMarketer, and found one that grabbed our attention – B2B Marketing: Where Are The Dollars Going?

Hey, we’re B2B marketers and want to know the trends in budgets – increasing, flat or decreasing – and where these budget changes may fall. Well, the good news is that 1/2 of the businesses polled said they were increasing in 2015, and only 17% reported that they expected a decrease. The balance, approximately 1/3 project flat budgets. Overall, budgets are projected to increase 4.4%

Our Take

There’s a couple takeaways from this article. First is the allocation of budgets across several initiatives. It looks like companies are investing in hiring employees, and that’s always a good sign for future growth in other areas. Looking back at our previous experiences at other B2B companies, ‘marketing programs & campaigns ‘ which we see as paid media, looks pretty inline with many more mature companies. But with Dasheroo following a Business Freemium model, we project our paid media spend to be only 2-3% of our budget!

How does this jive with your upcoming B2B marketing spend? Let us know.

The other aspect of this article that popped to us was the reminder that no matter your marketing budget, get creative about ways to snag a few extra dollars from other, or unassigned budgets. Almost 80% stated that they could have access to additional budgets outside of the official marketing budget. So if you’re a little cash-strapped or your finance person of yours is having a cheap attack, think about how you can do the same.

Trying to drive more leads and have a great idea, but no budget? Refine your idea and approach your sales team. Let them know that if they co-opt all, or some of the lead generation cost, you’ll apply your expertise and efforts to make it happen. Or, have meeting with the other budget stakeholders in the company with a compelling pitch with your plan to invest an additional, specified amount of funds and how it would benefit the company. It may be surprising, but we’ve done just that and had folks from other departments (product, support, even engineering) volunteer some marketing budget for the greater good. Don’t be shy, be prepared and please please please make it work!