How to Plan Your Healthcare Marketing Budget in 5 Easy Steps
Hospitals & Healthcare marketing strategies!
You’ve decided to start investing in a digital marketing strategy for your healthcare company. But as you browse strategies and campaigns, you might be wondering how much you should spend on your entire marketing strategy.
If you’re currently wondering what the average healthcare marketing budget is and how to plan one for your company, we’ve got you covered.
This guide will teach you everything you need to know to craft a marketing budget for your healthcare company. Here’s a quick overview of some of the topics we’ll cover in this guide:
- What is a healthcare marketing budget?
- Why do you need a marketing budget for your healthcare company?
- How much should a healthcare marketing budget be?
- How to plan a healthcare marketing budget in 5 easy steps
So, keep reading to get started!
Bonus: Unlock more tips to help you plan an effective marketing budget by downloading our free budget management guide!
What is a healthcare marketing budget?
A marketing budget is a plan for how much your healthcare company will spend on marketing over a specific period of time. For example, you can plan a marketing budget for the year, quarter, or month.
Your budget should include costs for every aspect of your marketing strategy, like the cost of paid ads, website maintenance, marketing tools, and more.
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Why do you need a marketing budget for your healthcare company?
So, why do you need a marketing budget for your healthcare company? There are a few reasons, including:
1. It helps you keep your finances on track
A budget for your marketing strategies enables you to stay on track financially. When you plan a marketing budget, you can easily track how much you’re spending on each strategy. If you miss out on creating a budget for your healthcare company, you’ll likely find yourself overspending.
2. It helps you plan for the long term
When you make your budget ahead of time, you can create a long-term plan for your marketing strategies. That means you won’t have to stop any of your campaigns due to overspending. As a result, you can create a more effective and consistent marketing plan for your business.
3. It helps you create goals and benchmarks
Another significant benefit of planning a marketing budget is that it can help you set goals and benchmarks for your healthcare company. For example, you can create more realistic goals and expectations for your marketing campaigns based on your allocated budget.
This makes it easier for you to track the progress of your strategies and your return on investment (ROI).
How much should a healthcare marketing budget be?
How much you spend on your budget can vary depending on your current business goals and the strategies you want to invest in. Do you want to drive more traffic to your website? Would you like to increase your brand awareness?
The general rule of thumb is to spend roughly between 7–10% of your overall revenue on marketing. And of that 7–10% you spend on marketing, at least 50% of it should go towards digital strategies, like SEO, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and more.
How to plan your healthcare marketing budget in 5 easy steps
Now that you know the answer to the question “how much should a healthcare marketing budget be,” you might be wondering how you can start planning your budget.
Here’s how to plan your healthcare marketing budget in 5 easy steps:
- Know your external costs
- Consider your business goals
- Think about your sales funnel
- Decide which strategies you want to invest
- Research marketing strategy costs
1. Know your external costs
You’ll need to understand how much you spend on outside external costs before knowing how much you can spend on marketing. Here are a few examples of outside costs you’ll want to consider:
- Costs for employing team members
- Operation costs, like ordering machines, gloves, and other equipment
- Costs for running your business, like electricity and water
These costs can help you determine which marketing strategies can help you get the best ROI for your business.
2. Consider your business goals
The next step in planning your budget is to consider your business goals. Thinking about what you want your business to achieve enables you to create a budget that helps you meet those goals.
Here are a few examples of goals you can consider for your healthcare company:
- Gaining new patients
- Increasing brand awareness
- Driving more website traffic
- Increasing leads
When you consider your business goals, you can focus on setting a budget that enables you to invest in the strategies that help you achieve and exceed your goals.
3. Think about your sales funnel
You’ll also want to think about your sales funnel when building your budget. Your sales funnel is the process your prospects go through before becoming a patient.
Analyzing your prospect’s journey from initial awareness to conversion is essential for helping you plan your marketing budget. For example, you might notice that most of your prospects first discover your practice on search engines like Google.
In this case, you might want to allocate part of your budget to an SEO strategy to help more potential patients discover your healthcare company when they search online.
4. Decide which strategies you want to invest in
Now that you’ve considered your external costs, business goals, and sales funnel, it’s time to decide which marketing strategies you want to invest in.
Here are a few examples of digital marketing strategies you can invest in for your healthcare company:
When you have an idea of which strategies you want to implement, you can determine how they will fit into your marketing budget and how much you want to spend on each one.
5. Research marketing strategy costs
The last step in planning your budget is researching marketing strategy costs. You’ll want to consider whether you want to implement and manage the campaigns on your own or hire an experienced marketing agency.
If you choose to manage your campaigns in-house, you’ll want to consider how much it will cost in terms of salaries and the materials you’ll need to execute your strategies. In addition, you might need to use external marketing tools and software to help you manage your campaigns efficiently.
If you choose to hire an experienced marketing agency, you’ll want to research the agency and how much their services cost.
When you hire a full-service digital marketing agency like WebFX, you can expect complete “done-for-you” marketing services and prices tailored specifically for the needs and goals of your healthcare company.
WebFX helps clients in the healthcare industry grow their practices.
“My practice has grown quickly and improved our accessibility to those we serve or hope to serve within our community. WebFX is directly responsible for our growth and the fact that we have more than doubled our revenue in six months.”
— Merrimack Valley Psychological Associates
Start preparing your healthcare marketing budget today with WebFX
Planning a marketing budget for your healthcare company and implementing effective strategies that drive revenue is no easy feat. At WebFX, our team of over 500 digital marketing experts can help.
WebFX is a full-service digital marketing agency that can help you with all of your marketing needs. From helping you craft a successful healthcare marketing budget to managing revenue-driving campaigns, we can do it all.
We’ve already helped companies like yours drive over $3 billion in revenue with our industry-leading digital marketing services.
If you’re ready to achieve impressive results for your healthcare company, chat with one of our experts by calling 888-601-5359 or contact us online. We can’t wait to help your business grow!
