Page 67 - SKU-000506274_TEXT.indd

Chapter 16—What should your B2B marketing
budget be?

So how much should you spend on marketing? There is
surprisingly little standard information on this topic. It’s one of
the most common questions I hear from CEOs—they simply
don’t know what’s reasonable.

Every company has a different approach to marketing and
needs different tactics, therefore a different marketing budget
is needed for every company. Factors that affect a company’s
marketing budget include the nature of its industry, its business
goals (especially related to growth targets), the size and stage
or evolution of the company, its target market, the position it
wants to take in the industry, and its distribution model.

With those caveats, here are some guidelines. The 2012
Marketing Sherpa study of 1,745 B2B marketers provides the
following benchmarks:

• 48% of B2B companies spend 1-5% of gross revenue
on marketing

• 25% of companies spend 6-10% of gross revenue on
marketing

• The remaining 27% of B2B companies spend more
than 10%

This is a good guideline for companies that are newer to the
marketing function. If you are just starting out, allocate in the
1-5% range, and as you build competence, you’ll have every
reason to expand. Companies that are more sophisticated,
and understand how to get ROI from marketing, tend to
increase their spend from year to year—which makes sense,

73

© 2012 Lisa Shepherd