It is every health tech and life science marketer’s favorite time of year! By favorite, I mean that period when we pore over spreadsheets and slide decks all day, powered by a caffeine-infused frenzy, to develop annual B2B healthcare marketing plans.
2025 campaign and budget planning is in full swing across most health tech and life sciences sectors. For some, this is a beautiful opportunity to dream and look forward to a robust budget with countless opportunities to saturate their brand into a bustling industry. For others, it is an arduous time to juggle being a startup team with insufficient resources and budget while needing to achieve aggressive KPIs and growth goals.
The reality is that if we want sufficient lead generation and brand recognition, we must have sufficient budget and support. Here are some tips on how to get creative with your planning and budgeting.
Do I have adequate staff to achieve KPIs?
One of the first steps you should consider in your roadmap to 2025 planning is whether or not you have adequate staff to achieve KPIs.
The demand associated with “showing up” in this industry can no longer be qualitatively achieved by a “Jack or Jill of all trades.” Let’s break the day-in and day-out of effective marketing into lanes for a moment:
Chris Slocumb, Founder of Clarity Quest, wrote about the importance of auditing your marketing department. That article will provide more detailed insight into the roles, lanes, and KPIs of your business’s marketing arm, but to keep this short, no one person should be responsible for all the lanes outlined above.
If you are in the C-suite and you are reading this post, hear my plea: No single person can or should be responsible for executing all of the marketing lanes listed above.
Even with adequate agency support, one person (or an undersized team of 2-3, even) managing internal affairs and overseeing all the above-listed responsibilities is overwhelming and unsustainable. If your marketing team looks like it is drowning, it probably is!
Audit your programs and processes to see where some extra help can improve the quality and quantity of output toward your growth goals. Your marketing team and company culture will thank you.
How much budget do I need for healthcare marketing plans in 2025?
This is the age-old question … How much marketing budget do I need?
The unfortunate reality is that when companies are strapped, underperforming, or even cutting back to withhold cash in preparation for a sale, merger, or acquisition, the marketing budget is usually the first to go.
BUT, if you establish a standardized rule where the marketing budget is reflective of the company’s ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), it still gives your marketing team, program, and performance room to breathe.
The Standardized Rule: Always push to make your marketing budget 8-10% of your ARR.
In a previous case study, Five Ways to Set an Optimal B2B Marketing Budget, our team examined a wide range of industry segments, company sizes, and revenue sources. We recommend a sliding scale that ties your marketing budget to your ARR. There are many methods to consider to reach this budgetary number, but if you are looking for consistency, a percentage of ARR is the way to go.
We have met with professionals and worked through marketing strategies in the last year and discovered some shocking numbers.
The most baffling? A one-person marketing team working for a company with an ARR of around $50M operated their department on a 0.9-1.1% of ARR marketing budget. When steep growth goals are present, operating on this size budget when trying to meet stout sales goals is unrealistic. Small and mighty is a way of the past, and unfortunately, those approaches won’t cut it with how competitive our industries are.
I have my budget, now what?
So I have my budget, now what? Work backwards. Take that overall budget and determine your buckets. Almost all initiatives that will fall into your budget are going to fall into the following categories. We have taken it one step further and are providing you with the percentages in which your budget should be comprised by bucket:
In part 2, we will break down what should be included in each of the buckets above and discuss an adequate activity timeline.
P.S. Our B2B healthcare marketing agency specializes in health tech go-to-market plans. Let us know if and when you’re ready to put your best foot(print) forward.
