September 5, 2025 • 10 mins
Marketing budgets need to align with realistic expectations, starting with at least $500 monthly for small businesses and growing to 10% of your revenue goal. Strategic spending on tools like Canva Pro, targeted Facebook boosting, geofencing campaigns, and email marketing can maximize impact when combined with significant sweat equity.
• Facebook business page, Instagram, and Google Business Profile are free marketing tools that only cost time
• $500 monthly budget breakdown: Canva Pro ($50/year), strategic Facebook boosting ($100), geofencing ads ($150), email marketing platform ($50-150)
• Plan for 10-20 hours of monthly sweat equity creating content, networking, and updating profiles
• Calculate your ideal marketing budget as 10% of your annual revenue goal
• Consider the opportunity cost of DIY marketing versus hiring professionals as you grow
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hey guys, what's up?
It's Shelby here with theMarketing Happy Hour podcast.
Thanks so much for tuning inagain.
I hope you have learned a lotso far on this podcast, because
I love sharing my skills as wellas my knowledge that I have
learned over the past 13 yearsin the marketing industry with
you guys.
Today's topic is really fun.
(00:49):
Well, it's more fun for me as anagency owner, because many
people don't educate themselvesabout a marketing budget and
what they should be spendingtheir money on.
Whenever I am in a consultationwith a future client or a
potential client, my number onequestion is always what is your
budget?
If I send them a proposal andit's outside of their budget,
(01:11):
how do I know it's outside theirbudget?
Because they don't give me oneright.
It's just like any kind ofservice or product that maybe
you provide your customers andclients.
You want to know what theirbudget is too, so that way you
can offer a service that isequivalent to what they are
expecting.
Now, sometimes I'm never.
You know, I may not ever fit insomeone's budget.
I saw on Facebook yesterday thata woman was asking a group of
(01:36):
professional women for a websitedeveloper and her budget was
literally $200.
That included developing thewebsite.
She said designing the website,writing the copy, and she
wanted it to be professional.
So, okay, that budget not veryrealistic.
So let's talk about what arealistic budget is before we go
(01:58):
into how I would spend a smallbusiness marketing budget every
month.
So let's start withexpectations.
What kind of expectations areyou going to put on the person
that you decide to hire for this, or even yourself when you're
doing your marketing?
Let's use that website as anexample.
If she's spending $200 on awebsite, she's not even going to
(02:21):
get anything close toprofessional.
If she decides to hire anagency, I would literally give
her one hour of my time toinform her and educate her about
creating her own website,rather than actually doing the
work for her.
I believe that she hascompletely disrespected the
(02:42):
industry and coming at us likewe don't.
We're not like worth the timemaybe, and I understand if
that's her budget, but she needsto learn how to do it herself,
because $200 is not even goingto give her a one year of annual
hosting fees on somethingsimple like Wix or Weebly or
whatever, even Squarespace.
So her expectations are notaligned with the budget that she
(03:05):
is placing out there.
So let's talk about if you had$500 a month.
I believe that that is a goodstart.
When you have a small businessand you're just starting out,
$500 a month can be used verywell.
It can also take a lot of yourtime, though.
So if you're only spending $500a month on advertising or
(03:28):
marketing, you will have to puta lot of sweat equity into it,
outside of just paying somebodyelse or all the fees and stuff
that you have with the marketing.
So, if you have $500 a month,I'm going to give you a couple
free things that you can do.
Obviously, you can create aFacebook page, an Instagram page
(03:49):
, as well as a Google businessprofile.
All of that stuff is free andonly costs you sweat equity.
So when you have your Googlebusiness profile, you can go on
there, you can update it, makesure that people are leaving
your reviews.
As you know, you can also doall of your Facebook content and
posting, and all of that let'salso talk about.
(04:10):
With the Facebook stuff, youwill have to have Canva, and I
recommend Canva Pro.
It's only $50 a year, but thatdoes take up some of that
marketing budget that you setaside.
I also would recommend boostingtwo to three posts on Facebook
and using like $100 to do that.
(04:31):
So $50 a post if you did twoFacebook posts.
But they need to be verystrategic.
It needs to be something thatbrings in leads, so it could be
a lead magnet, or it needs to besomething that will take people
to your website and book aservice, so make sure that those
are strategic ads.
You can also do some geofencingad campaigns, which is going to
(04:53):
be hyperlocal.
I would recommend doing $150 onthat.
So that's $250 so far, and thenan email platform setup.
So I recommend doing emailcampaigns once a month minimum
for your business.
Now, the cost on this can varybecause some CRMs are a little
(05:14):
bit more expensive than others.
So my CRM is $149 a month.
I use a CRM called Leadly.
Brian Pappalardo is the ownerof that company and software
engineer.
He's amazing.
If you want to reach out to me,you can.
I can give you a referral linkon that and it will give you a
little bit of a discount.
(05:34):
But I use his stuff for my CRM.
I use it for my email campaigns, I use it for social media
posting, so it does more thanjust emails.
But you can always do somethinglike MailChimp or Constant
Contact.
It's a little bit cheaperaround $50 a month to be able to
send out those emails and makesure that you are staying the
(05:55):
forefront of the mind of yourclient.
I also recommend doing aprofessional photo shoot.
This means getting a headshot.
This means getting stuff foryour content for Facebook.
It could be products, it couldbe all of that stuff.
So everything I just listedwould be about $500 a month, and
you would have to pair that,though, with a lot of sweat
(06:18):
equity.
So I would recommend about 10to 20 hours in that month that
you are writing blog posts, thatyou are updating your Google
business profile, you'rerecording reels, you're taking
photos of your work, you aregetting out networking to people
because that's another freething that you can do.
You're actually posting contentthat is educational, so you're
(06:40):
creating that content in advance, while maybe you're a little
bit slower at the beginning, but$500 a month doesn't seem like
it goes very far, right?
You're like man, that justdoesn't seem like a lot of
things that you can do for $500.
And that's because it's reallynot.
We want to make sure that wehave, when we're starting our
business, that we have an ideain our head like, okay, I need
(07:04):
to increase this budget to $500or I need to increase this
budget to $5,000.
I always recommend thatwhatever your revenue goal is
for the end of the year, 10% ofthat needs to be spent on
marketing.
So I have goals of $250,000,$300,000 a year to make in
(07:25):
revenue, so that means I need tospend at least $30,000 in
marketing.
And for me that includesgeofencing, that includes emails
, my CRMs, that includes boostedposts.
It also includes any kind ofevent that I want to sponsor or
go to or spend money at.
So that kind of stuff is what Ilook at when I'm marketing
(07:48):
business to business.
And if you're marketing businessto customer or business to
business, then that stuff canalso be fit into your marketing
budget as well.
So what is your goal at the endof the year?
And then let's go back 10% ofthat and that's your marketing
budget annually.
Then you take that and youdivide it by 12.
That becomes monthly.
Then you can be like, okay, atthe beginning of the year, let's
(08:10):
talk this month, this month,this month.
These are the things that Iwant to do.
I want to make sure that I putmy money towards this and then
you can be strategic.
Towards the end of the year, ifyou need extra tax write-offs or
if you need to do somethingelse to make sure that your
income is a little bit less thanwhat you did so you don't have
to pay as many taxes, then yourCPA and your bookkeeper can help
(08:32):
you out with that kind of stuffas well.
But remember, when we start outwith that small budget, even if
it's less than $500 a month,you are going to be putting in a
lot of sweat equity with that,and so that right there costs
you money too.
If you're like, oh, I can do$500 and spend 20 hours a month
on social media posts or contentor something like that, and
(08:55):
really, if you think about it at20 hours, what are you actually
?
What could you make in 20 hours?
Like if what do you get paid anhour?
And what can you get paid for20 hours of your work?
If you could hire this stuff outand that's a goal too for small
businesses If you start withyour marketing now and then you
build up to that point three tosix months later maybe, or even
(09:18):
a year, in that you can hire anagency to help with your
marketing.
So I hope this kind of educatedyou a little bit about things
that you can do with a $500budget.
We were talking aboutgeofencing, boosting posts on
Facebook, email platform setup,doing some professional photos,
as well as downloading Canva,and making sure that when we are
(09:38):
doing this, we are pairing itwith sweat equity and creating
strategy to make sure that in ayear, we can hire someone to do
this for us.
Hey guys, what's up?
It's Shelby here with theMarketing Happy Hour podcast.
Thanks so much for tuning inagain.
I hope you have learned a lotso far on this podcast, because
I love sharing my skills as wellas my knowledge that I have
learned over the past 13 yearsin the marketing industry with
you guys.
Today's topic is really fun.
(00:49):
Well, it's more fun for me as anagency owner, because many
people don't educate themselvesabout a marketing budget and
what they should be spendingtheir money on.
Whenever I am in a consultationwith a future client or a
potential client, my number onequestion is always what is your
budget?
If I send them a proposal andit's outside of their budget,
(01:11):
how do I know it's outside theirbudget?
Because they don't give me oneright.
It's just like any kind ofservice or product that maybe
you provide your customers andclients.
You want to know what theirbudget is too, so that way you
can offer a service that isequivalent to what they are
expecting.
Now, sometimes I'm never.
You know, I may not ever fit insomeone's budget.
I saw on Facebook yesterday thata woman was asking a group of
(01:36):
professional women for a websitedeveloper and her budget was
literally $200.
That included developing thewebsite.
She said designing the website,writing the copy, and she
wanted it to be professional.
So, okay, that budget not veryrealistic.
So let's talk about what arealistic budget is before we go
(01:58):
into how I would spend a smallbusiness marketing budget every
month.
So let's start withexpectations.
What kind of expectations areyou going to put on the person
that you decide to hire for this, or even yourself when you're
doing your marketing?
Let's use that website as anexample.
If she's spending $200 on awebsite, she's not even going to
(02:21):
get anything close toprofessional.
If she decides to hire anagency, I would literally give
her one hour of my time toinform her and educate her about
creating her own website,rather than actually doing the
work for her.
I believe that she hascompletely disrespected the
(02:42):
industry and coming at us likewe don't.
We're not like worth the timemaybe, and I understand if
that's her budget, but she needsto learn how to do it herself,
because $200 is not even goingto give her a one year of annual
hosting fees on somethingsimple like Wix or Weebly or
whatever, even Squarespace.
So her expectations are notaligned with the budget that she
(03:05):
is placing out there.
So let's talk about if you had$500 a month.
I believe that that is a goodstart.
When you have a small businessand you're just starting out,
$500 a month can be used verywell.
It can also take a lot of yourtime, though.
So if you're only spending $500a month on advertising or
(03:28):
marketing, you will have to puta lot of sweat equity into it,
outside of just paying somebodyelse or all the fees and stuff
that you have with the marketing.
So, if you have $500 a month,I'm going to give you a couple
free things that you can do.
Obviously, you can create aFacebook page, an Instagram page
(03:49):
, as well as a Google businessprofile.
All of that stuff is free andonly costs you sweat equity.
So when you have your Googlebusiness profile, you can go on
there, you can update it, makesure that people are leaving
your reviews.
As you know, you can also doall of your Facebook content and
posting, and all of that let'salso talk about.
(04:10):
With the Facebook stuff, youwill have to have Canva, and I
recommend Canva Pro.
It's only $50 a year, but thatdoes take up some of that
marketing budget that you setaside.
I also would recommend boostingtwo to three posts on Facebook
and using like $100 to do that.
(04:31):
So $50 a post if you did twoFacebook posts.
But they need to be verystrategic.
It needs to be something thatbrings in leads, so it could be
a lead magnet, or it needs to besomething that will take people
to your website and book aservice, so make sure that those
are strategic ads.
You can also do some geofencingad campaigns, which is going to
(04:53):
be hyperlocal.
I would recommend doing $150 onthat.
So that's $250 so far, and thenan email platform setup.
So I recommend doing emailcampaigns once a month minimum
for your business.
Now, the cost on this can varybecause some CRMs are a little
(05:14):
bit more expensive than others.
So my CRM is $149 a month.
I use a CRM called Leadly.
Brian Pappalardo is the ownerof that company and software
engineer.
He's amazing.
If you want to reach out to me,you can.
I can give you a referral linkon that and it will give you a
little bit of a discount.
(05:34):
But I use his stuff for my CRM.
I use it for my email campaigns, I use it for social media
posting, so it does more thanjust emails.
But you can always do somethinglike MailChimp or Constant
Contact.
It's a little bit cheaperaround $50 a month to be able to
send out those emails and makesure that you are staying the
(05:55):
forefront of the mind of yourclient.
I also recommend doing aprofessional photo shoot.
This means getting a headshot.
This means getting stuff foryour content for Facebook.
It could be products, it couldbe all of that stuff.
So everything I just listedwould be about $500 a month, and
you would have to pair that,though, with a lot of sweat
(06:18):
equity.
So I would recommend about 10to 20 hours in that month that
you are writing blog posts, thatyou are updating your Google
business profile, you'rerecording reels, you're taking
photos of your work, you aregetting out networking to people
because that's another freething that you can do.
You're actually posting contentthat is educational, so you're
(06:40):
creating that content in advance, while maybe you're a little
bit slower at the beginning, but$500 a month doesn't seem like
it goes very far, right?
You're like man, that justdoesn't seem like a lot of
things that you can do for $500.
And that's because it's reallynot.
We want to make sure that wehave, when we're starting our
business, that we have an ideain our head like, okay, I need
(07:04):
to increase this budget to $500or I need to increase this
budget to $5,000.
I always recommend thatwhatever your revenue goal is
for the end of the year, 10% ofthat needs to be spent on
marketing.
So I have goals of $250,000,$300,000 a year to make in
(07:25):
revenue, so that means I need tospend at least $30,000 in
marketing.
And for me that includesgeofencing, that includes emails
, my CRMs, that includes boostedposts.
It also includes any kind ofevent that I want to sponsor or
go to or spend money at.
So that kind of stuff is what Ilook at when I'm marketing
(07:48):
business to business.
And if you're marketing businessto customer or business to
business, then that stuff canalso be fit into your marketing
budget as well.
So what is your goal at the endof the year?
And then let's go back 10% ofthat and that's your marketing
budget annually.
Then you take that and youdivide it by 12.
That becomes monthly.
Then you can be like, okay, atthe beginning of the year, let's
(08:10):
talk this month, this month,this month.
These are the things that Iwant to do.
I want to make sure that I putmy money towards this and then
you can be strategic.
Towards the end of the year, ifyou need extra tax write-offs or
if you need to do somethingelse to make sure that your
income is a little bit less thanwhat you did so you don't have
to pay as many taxes, then yourCPA and your bookkeeper can help
(08:32):
you out with that kind of stuffas well.
But remember, when we start outwith that small budget, even if
it's less than $500 a month,you are going to be putting in a
lot of sweat equity with that,and so that right there costs
you money too.
If you're like, oh, I can do$500 and spend 20 hours a month
on social media posts or contentor something like that, and
(08:55):
really, if you think about it at20 hours, what are you actually
?
What could you make in 20 hours?
Like if what do you get paid anhour?
And what can you get paid for20 hours of your work?
If you could hire this stuff outand that's a goal too for small
businesses If you start withyour marketing now and then you
build up to that point three tosix months later maybe, or even
(09:18):
a year, in that you can hire anagency to help with your
marketing.
So I hope this kind of educatedyou a little bit about things
that you can do with a $500budget.
We were talking aboutgeofencing, boosting posts on
Facebook, email platform setup,doing some professional photos,
as well as downloading Canva,and making sure that when we are
(09:38):
doing this, we are pairing itwith sweat equity and creating
strategy to make sure that in ayear, we can hire someone to do
this for us.
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