Marketing budget management – Marketing director talks to Scott Todaro

Marketers are inundated with software that can streamline everything from sending an email to following up on leads, but there’s a lack of support when it comes to setting goals, refine plans, manage budgets and track success, especially in terms of return on investment.

“If you look at most of the solutions out there, they are in place to help you be more efficient, but the measure is not equal across different channels and different campaigns,” says Scott Todaro, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer from Plannuh. , a leading cloud platform for operational marketing. “Marketers report numbers, but the numbers don’t add up because we use all of these different metrics with no way of calculating true business value. “

A 30-year professional marketer who has held executive positions in seven companies, Todaro joined ITWC CMO Fawn Annan in January 2022 to Marketing budget management, a payment of CMO Interviews, a podcast series designed by ITWC to showcase strategies for gaining a competitive advantage through the intersection of marketing and technology. Their 30-minute discussion focused on how to apply strategic marketing principles to achieve a new level of operational excellence.

Using technology to make better decisions

“Unfortunately, many marketing teams don’t have a plan,” says Todaro, co-author of The Next CMO – A Guide to Operational Marketing Excellence. “They may have certain metrics that they’re looking to achieve, but there’s no real strategy. We need to take technology and use it in ways that help us make better decisions. “

The best course of action, in his opinion, is to combine the art and science of marketing to set logical goals and build solid plans. The next step is to use technology to measure success. “At the end of the day, to achieve excellence, you have to be able to see it all work together so that you can make better decisions,” he says.

Achieve true business value

According to Todaro, the operational component and execution boils down to a level of diligence and the ability to understand and measure goals. This leads to a better understanding of the best way to allocate financial resources. “The only way to make sure you’re allocating the budget correctly is to have a plan that’s built so that you allocate the budget to that plan,” he says.

Todaro says it’s possible to share ROI numbers with the leadership team, but only if the numbers are shared in a way they understand. This is where Plannuh sets itself apart by using metrics to calculate the ROI of every campaign customers run and calculating business value based on what was spent and ROI from a profit perspective. . The end result is real business value expressed in a way that allows for easy comparisons between all marketing activities.

Tips for managing the marketing budget

Although Todaro is quick to champion the impact of technology in his work, he believes modern marketing is about more than technology. “Marketers have to be marketers first,” he says. “Technological tools should be there as complements to help them do their jobs or give them visibility or efficiency. “

When asked by Annan to share recommendations for evolving his role in managing the marketing budget, Todaro suggests anticipating the budget by making a plan that supports the need for budget requests. He also advises asking for 20% more than what is necessary to compensate for the likelihood that the CFO will reduce budget requests by 20%. Beyond budget considerations, he advocates pushing boundaries, staying informed, focusing on the customer and getting the most out of marketing investments.

“And if you do, you’ll find that marketing will become a lot easier for you,” he says.

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