To spend or not to spend: Marketing budgets in a social media world

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If you’re a marketer, you’ve been there: you work hard to create a detailed, attention-grabbing marketing plan for your new project and you stick to a modest budget. When you present it to your boss, he nods, smiles–he’s into it. Then comes the feedback. “I love it,” he says. “Let’s do it. Just one thing—there’s no budget money. I want you to do all of this for free.”

Ugh.

If you haven’t experienced the do-it-for-free conversation, you’ve likely been asked to operate on a significantly smaller budget than you hoped. Sure, retail giants like Coca Cola successfully perform marketing campaigns that rely on their social media followers to act as brand advocates (Young, 2014). But they’re Coke. Everyone knows who they are. They sport huge numbers of online followers, which is a definite advantage on the marketing playing field. For those who don’t have an established online presence, viral success or crafting spreadable media (Jenkins, Ford, & Green, 2013) is easier said than done. Money at least offers a leg up. Unfortunately, the individuals who hold the purse strings at many organizations would rather allocate that money elsewhere.

Netflix is no exception. This week, Netflix announced that it would increase its 2018 marketing budget to $2 billion, a sizable increase over its 2017 budget of $1.2 billion (Handley, 2018). For marketers used to working with minimal budgets, let that sink in: $2 billion. Imagine all the promotional items your business could buy with that money–you’d have pens with your company’s logo emblazoned on them for years.

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Despite the increase, Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings would prefer a different budget for his marketing team: $0 (Handley, 2018). Hastings would rather market solely through social media and online organic reach, relying on consumers to provide free promotion for Netflix and its services (Handley, 2018). Unsurprisingly, Netflix’s chief marketing officer, Kelly Bennett, is more than happy to spend her $2 billion budget, putting her marketing tactics at odds with Hastings’ vision (Handley, 2018).

So, even giants of the business world would rather cut their marketing budgets. Empowering consumers to create and share material is a great goal–but is it a reliable way to market? Oftentimes, viral success stems from the right combination of timeliness, appeal, and luck. Relying on consumers to do your marketing likely assumes you have an established consumer base already willing to act as your brand advocates.

Let’s be honest: money is great for marketing and most marketers would undoubtedly prefer to have money than not. Money opens doors to highly useful marketing tools, from traditional television and print commercials, to paid online search ads and boosted posts on social media. After all, Facebook’s algorithms don’t exactly make it easy to get your posts in front of your followers; boosting your post for a small fee helps.

Regardless, with the continued focus on social marketing and the ongoing shift from passive consumer to involved creator (Jenkins et al., 2013), do-it-for-free will likely remain a common saying in marketing offices. For those who don’t have Netflix’s spending power, there are numerous ways to tackle low-cost or free marketing. The following links offer suggestions to get started, and a quick Google search yields additional advice.

• 5 online marketing strategies for a tight budget
• 7 ways to promote your business online for free
• 50 free marketing tools any small business can use

While you may never have Netflix’s extensive marketing budget, don’t let that get you down. Remember, Netflix doesn’t want to spend that money either.

References

Handley, L. (2018, January 23).  Netflix just increased its marketing budget to $2 billion. Here’s why its CEO would rather not spend anything. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/23/netflix-2018-marketing-budget-to-hit-2-billion.html

Jenkins, H., Ford, S., & Green, J. (2013). Spreadable media: Creating value and meaning in a networked culture. New York: NYU Press.

Young, A. (2014). Brand media strategy: Integrated communications planning in the digital era. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.