Completed the GrowthBox plan, received your feedback and now (hopefully) have a clearer idea of what you need to do to start growing your business? Or are you wondering whether to do your marketing in-house, or connect with one of our trusted marketing suppliers? This simple guide has been created to help you decide when you may want to approach a marketing expert, how prices are usually presented and what to expect in terms of typical costs.
Before we get into the detail, a frequently asked question is how much a business should invest in marketing. According to GrowthBox partner Halo Effect Marketing, 'while a general rule of thumb is 10% of gross turnover, the truth is the amount of budget will be influenced by a number of factors, and most importantly, it’s unique to your business.' Every business is indeed different, with varying needs, but we aim to help you know what to expect in this article.
Whilst businesses definitely can look after their marketing activity in-house (with an internal marketing department depending on the size of their organisation), one of the main benefits of outsourcing to a marketing expert is that they will have the marketing skills and experience to enhance your company’s presence and image through various channels according to your objectives. This will help produce better results and, in turn, increase sales for your business. For many small businesses, time is tight, often there is no in-house marketing expertise and so outsourcing - to the right experts for your needs - can make sure all-important marketing activities are properly planned and actioned to help you find and keep customers to good effect.
The majority of marketers calculate their pricing model in the following ways:
A retainer is essentially a paid agreement between a business and a full-service marketing provider where services are costed up and included under the umbrella of one consistent monthly or quarterly payment; the time and resources that will be spent on each task per month is then managed by the agency themselves. It is not project-specific and tends to be an option a business will opt for when committing to working with an agency long-term.
But irrespective of the pricing approach, first they will consider the amount of work your marketing project will require before providing a quote.
In 2021, Adzooma carried out research into the average cost of a marketing service in the UK and collected data from a range of freely available online pricing information, as well as nonpublic submissions from various UK based agencies and clients. The prices their study found were broken down per each type of marketing activity: SEO; Organic social media; Paid social media; Content marketing; PPC (pay-per-click); Website build; and Marketing strategy. Each one will be discussed below in turn.
For SEO (search engine optimisation), Adzooma’s study found that the average prices are:
For more specific SEO, their research identified local projects to be at the lower end of the pricing scale with e-commerce being the most expensive.
The average prices for organic social media services were found to be as follows:
Adzooma note that most agencies will calculate this price per channel; this means if you are seeking social media management for more than one platform, this figure will likely increase.
Adzooma’s research found the average prices for PPC services to come in at:
Adzooma point out that, as with paid social media services, some agencies will use a % model instead, noting that the average fees for PPC services are 10-20% of the overall advertising spend.
Their findings showed the average cost of a website build in 2021 to be £5452.30. Adzooma do note that this is just a guide and that pricing will vary depending on the size of the website, with simple one-page sites ranging from £350-£2,000 and multi-page e-commerce sites being around £30,000.
Marketing strategy is the most imprecise service which covers anything from consulting and campaigns to helping build strategies, and often embodies other services such as SEO and PPC but sold as one package.
The above study found the average prices for marketing strategy are:
We hope this acts as a useful guide. We will be refreshing this article on an ongoing basis so please check back or look out for more updates.
Look out for our blog about how to assess a marketing proposal and things to consider in selecting the right expert to help you. As always, GrowthBox can help you do that and make all things marketing easier to do.
For more advice and updates, check out our advice pages here: https://www.growthbox.co.uk/advice/. If you would like GrowthBox to find a marketing expert to help you grow, complete the quick form here and we will take care of the rest!
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