Creating A Marketing Budget For Your Small Business

Are you ready to take your brand to the next level in 2026? I’m ready to help you do that!

Many small businesses and entrepreneurs neglect creating a marketing strategy or budget due to time, money or they simply “go with the flow.”

The hard truth is, no matter how great your products or services are, if nobody knows about your company, then your sales won’t be sustainable for long.

With over 15 years of experience marketing small businesses, entrepreneurs, and entertainers, I have gained a ton of knowledge, skills, and resources designed to help the small fish eat like the big fish!

In this article, I’ll discuss how to effectively market your business on a budget.

First, Establish A Budget ASAP!

Keeping up with the analogy that your brand is a person, your marketing efforts can affect how healthy your business will be. Startup companies can see your brand as an infant. Feed it well, and raise it right, and your baby will grow to take care of itself in no time!

It’s recommended to create a marketing budget or strategy early on. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be expensive to start!

The 3 Buckets for Product Pricing

Before we spend money, we need to make money. Don’t let the Catch 22 get you, though. All we need to do is make sure our prices are adequate.

While our marketing budget might not be embedded into our product pricing, we need enough wiggle room in our pricing to allow us to create that investment.

These 3 Buckets will help us understand where are money gets allocated.

Replication Bucket (COGS)

This first bucket contains the Cost of Goods Sold. That is your Labor Expenses, Materials, and Tools. Everything needed to make your product.

Lights On Bucket (OpEx) <- Where Marketing Lives

This bucket covers the expenses it takes to operate your business: rent, utilities, equipment, website, and a marketing budget.

We place the Marketing Budget here so it’s prioritized.

Growth Bucket (Profit)

The leftover money in your company’s wallet after the first two buckets are filled. This money can be used for investment, growth, ownership shares, or other indirect expenses that don’t affect creating more products or operating our business.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s use a product priced at $10 with a COGS of $6.50 . This leaves us with $3.50 Gross Profit or a 35% Profit Margin. Subtract our Operational Expenses (rent, utilities, bills), and we are left with a net profit that could go into savings for investment, and gr