As a busy marketing director, it's difficult to budget for PR. It’s tempting to just accept the previous year’s budget basically as-is and let it ride into the next year. You’re managing a million tasks, onboarding new staff, and staring down deadlines. It’s hard to think about what the next year could look like and what you might do differently.
But your marketing and communications department’s success requires that you take a critical look at your PR budget, where you can save money, and how you can make the most of the funds you have.
Unfortunately, there is no magic budget formula that will show you exactly how much you should spend on PR, marketing, or communications. In general, a large stable company should expect to budget 2-10% of revenue for marketing and communications to simply maintain its market position. In contrast, a growth-oriented company may budget 15-30% of its projected revenue for marketing and communications.
But here are five questions to ask yourself (and your team) to create a budget for PR that will help you achieve your goals.
Are you looking to grow, or hold steady?
Your marketing and communications budget is linked to your overall company goals and brand strategy. A company that's well-established and looking to hold its market position will set a budget differently than a fast-growth startup.
Determine your company's goal for 2026, and determine what's needed from your department to hit key performance metrics. Your brand strategy comes first, then the communications tactics to support it. Once you know your tactics, you can start to assign costs to each one.
Can you make changes to your marketing technology vendors?
Chances are, you’re using countless digital services to monitor social media mentions, distribute press releases, or perform other digital functions. The first step to examining these vendors is compiling a complete list of each vendor or service, the monthly or yearly cost, the functions your team uses, and the login information.
Make sure you’re getting what you need from each application or service and that each is set up correctly. You may be paying for much more functionality (or a higher number of users) than you need, or you may find that the services are more capable than you realized and can allow you to do more tasks more efficiently. If your team isn’t using an app or service, cancel it and reallocate those funds.
What can you outsource?
An expert can help your team accomplish a goal by using special skills or focusing on only one project. For example, maybe your email list has gotten out of control, but your team doesn’t have time to clean it up. Or maybe your team has stopped producing an annual report or a publication, but you could hire a contractor or a PR agency to complete that project.
Our agency worked with a client who had wanted to start an e-newsletter for years but had never been able to make the time. By hiring us to create an editorial calendar, conduct interviews, and write content, the client got a quality e-newsletter each month without having to sacrifice her team members’ time to create it. Consider investing in outsourcing tasks or projects that will help you achieve your goals.
What can you bring in house?
This is the flip side of the previous question. Sometimes, a marketing director or PR manager might inherit a contract with a web design company, an SEO agency, or a marketing firm that isn’t serving the needs of the department or organization anymore.
Take a hard look at what you’re outsourcing. Consider whether it makes more sense to shop around for a better deal, renegotiate terms, or hire someone to bring the work back in-house.
Are you spending enough on training?
Training is sometimes the first line item to get cut on a budget. But it can pay off by saving you money over time. For example, maybe you have a team member who is interested in editing video but not very skilled at it. Can you invest in helping them learn this skill?
We’ve worked with many clients who were transitioning to using more video on internal and external platforms, but their internal experts weren’t comfortable speaking on camera. The company's investment in media training for these experts strengthened their digital content. Encourage team members to speak up when they want to learn something new.
Need help creating a PR budget or a budget for your communications department? We can help. Contact us to schedule a free consultation.