And Carrie On

How to build and how to manage a budget are skills that no one teaches you as a marketing leader.

The very first time I managed a budget I went over budget by $12,000. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I survived that moment and vowed to never let it happen again.

Carrie Phillips

You’re taught to think about ROI, exploring new tools, developing creative strategies, considering impactful design, and adjusting the breakdown of marketing mix. However, the Budgeting 101 class is usually missing.

Aside from the mechanics of setting up your budget (definitely a future post), there are typically more requests for funding than funds available. Simply put, there are more people who want me to buy something than I have dollars available.

This isn’t new. Higher education institutions have been operating on tight budgets for decades. However, as things cost more and the needs for advertising and MarTech increase, I feel the pressure to maximize every expenditure to help me get the most for the team.

In this blog post, I am sharing a few tools I’ve used when working with partners. These strategies help me maximize my resources, and over the years have saved my institutions thousands of dollars.

Five Tips to Stretch Your Budget

Seek Out Conference Discounts – Our world changes so fast, so professional development is a must. However, it’s expensive! That’s why I try to find ways to get conference discounts. By speaking at the conference, I am able to minimize the cost. Often, speakers get discounts, paid registration, and sometimes even paid travel. It’s a great way to gain access to quality content at a more reasonable rate. Additionally, early registration usually helps ensure that you’re getting the best rate for a conference. Sometimes, the best deals for registration are before the conference program comes out. This can be a gamble, but if it’s a conference you trust, it might be a valid way to save a few hundred dollars.

Shop Around – As people, we are trained to go to the first company or person we know about for a service. It’s all about what’s easy. However, it is possible to save a good deal of money by looking at other choices. For example, you might find a new provider looking to get into a market who is willing to do the work for a discounted rate. We had this experience on a website project. The company had been in the nonprofit world, but they wanted to break into higher education. As such, they did the work for half the cost of someone else, and they were incredibly invested in making sure it was a positive experience. As a team, we decided the savings were worth the risk. It might not be for every situation, but it made sense for us in this instance. The outcome was wonderful, and we felt good about saving the institution thousands. We would have missed this opportunity if we had just used the “easy” button and gone with the person we knew.

Efficacy Check – Often we onboard with a software or service, get it live, and forget to check on it. We are using it to fill a need, but we are not great about digging deeper. As a leader it’s important to encourage your team to yearly go back and see what has changed. Companies are always adding new services (especially integrations involving AI) that can save significant amounts of time, freeing up time for other tasks. Time is also money, so adding an upgrade to save hours of time is usually worth it. Additionally, on occasion a new feature is added that allows me to remove a second service I am paying someone to provide. Adding an upgrade for a service is usually much cheaper than a new service all together, so it is often a cost savings.

Ask For Discounts – When signing new contracts, one of the best strategies is to know your bid limits and your individual spending authority. What is the maximum the state will allow before they require you to seek a competitive bid? What is the maximum amount you can spend before you need supervisor approval? I have used these limits several times to shave dollars off a contract. It was worth the company to drop the price to avoid involving others in the conversation. Even if these limits aren’t helpful, I strongly suggest asking for a discounted rate. The worst the person can say is no, and if you are looking at long-term contracts the dollars can really add up.

Multi-Year Contracts – Speaking of long-term contracts, often a company is willing to offer a discount if you’re willing to commit to several years of the service. This is a bit of a gamble because you can be locked into something that isn’t a fit or is no longer needed. However, if it’s a service you intend to use and know it will meet your needs, this approach can save you thousand of dollars, without much heartburn. Before exploring this with the vendor, be sure to talk to your purchasing team to understand how long they feel comfortable with multi-year contracts. Having their guidance up front is key in this approach.

Final Thoughts

While I am all about stretching your resources, I also want to note the importance of being intentional. These strategies will not work for every situation.

There are some situations where using the leader in the space, who happens to be the most expensive, is important because of the quality of work. Additionally, having a long-term trusted partner can significantly impact the outcomes you’re able to achieve, even if you could save a few dollars going with someone else.

My hope is that this blog post gives you some tools in your toolkit to employ to help stretch your resources when it makes sense for your specific situation.