How to set your charity marketing budget

I get asked a lot about setting a charity budget and my rule of thumb is to always set aside 10 percent of your overall annual revenue. To me, this is a comfortable budget to support your charity's marketing aims.

However, there is some wriggle room. If you are a very small charity, you could reduce the amount to 5 percent of your overall annual revenue. It will not allow for any growth or for running promotional campaigns, but it would be enough to keep things ticking.

If your charity is looking to grow, I would recommend allocating 15 percent of your overall revenue to marketing. Naturally, the more you invest in marketing, the more your brand can reach people who may need you, or who may wish to donate.

How to allocate budget

If you have agreed a budget, next you have to decide how to spend it. Allocating budget to paid advertising or professional video creation is tempting, but my advice is to invest first in the channels you own.

The priority spend is always your website - all roads lead here. If it is well-built, accessible and content-rich, your website will give you the best return on investment and will help you reach all of your marketing goals. Plus, you own it.

Next, I would invest in a good e-newsletter system. I personally use Mailchimp, but there's lots out there and many offer charity discounts. Again, you own your e-newsletter subscription list and it's the most direct way of reaching people.

Finally, I would invest in content creation. You cannot have a great website or e-newsletter without engaging, high-quality content that tells your story in an authentic way. This is actually a pretty expensive and time-consuming activity for any charity - getting consent for case studies, listening to people's stories and supporting them to tell those stories safely, using photos that feel human, ensuring copy is written from the heart. But it is hands down the best investment you'll make and it's worth it if you want to build real trust. This content can be used everywhere, including in funding applications.

What about social media?

Social media is an important part of your marketing strategy. Often, charities invest a lot of time, resource and sometimes advertising spend on this. Yet I find it never yields a return on investment that is even close to that of your website or e-newsletter.

I'm not advising you remove it, but in my experience, it's not a priority unless you are using it to build engagement in a meaningful way - i.e. regularly posting authentic content and using the channels to genuinely interact with audiences. If you struggle to do this, I would advise focusing on just one or two channels.

Getting the most from your budget

Maximising your charity marketing budget is important. My top tips would be...

1. Use the Google Ad Grant. Google offers charities up to £7,000 per month in free Google search ads. It's completely free, but be mindful of resource costs - you'll need to set up your account, maintain it and create website landing pages. If you have this expertise internally, it's a win-win!

2. Find the discounts. Often, marketing software comes with charity discount options. For example, Mailchimp offers a 15% discount and Canva offers all of their Premium features to charities for free. Charity Digital has a whole host of discounted products available via their website as well.

3. Work with a professional. There are many marketing professionals who offer pro bono support to charities (including me!) If you find an experienced marketing consultant who understands the sector well, they can help you achieve the greatest return on investment. You can find marketing support online via websites like Pimp My Cause or the Media Trust Volunteer Platform.

4. Stay on track. This is a tricky one - you want to be flexible and open to new opportunities, but you need to keep within your budget. My advice is to build in a small contingency budget in case anything crops up. You can mitigate needing this by regularly reviewing your budget (at least quarterly) and asking yourself if every activity aligns with your strategic aims. You can also set up a simple monthly reporting system to bring together your analytics, so you know what marketing is working and change direction if needed.

If you would like to have a chat about setting your marketing budget, please get in touch. I'm always happy to discuss your individual charity needs and support you to get the most from your marketing activities.

Call me on 07568 398908 or email me at laura@tiptoetraining.com

Good luck!