A clear understanding of your target audience and a messaging strategy for how to reach them are the prerequisites for how to set a marketing budget. You need to identify your target market and develop customer personas that help you understand their pain points and needs. 

Not all people consume messaging the same way. Identifying which channels reach your targets is the next step in determining your costs. Small business owners have so many marketing channels available to them. A content-rich website gives your brand a home base. Email and text messaging are great for promoting your business, driving website traffic and collecting subscribers. Social media often works well for short-form content and videos. 

Once you identify how you’re going to reach your audience, you can begin to research the associated costs. There are small business marketing tools that can help you manage multiple channels at once, potentially consolidating some of your expenses. In fact, if done well, marketing doesn’t have to cost a lot to make a big impact on your bottom line.