Are you being stingy with your success?

Your postcard campaign's success ultimately rests on the size of your budget. Even when your campaign is perfect, a too-small budget will result in too-small results. That's because the size of your budget limits the audience you can reach. If you aren't spending enough money, you won't reach enough people--and you won't make the sales you need.

You may believe you can't afford to spend more to market your business, but the truth is, you can't afford not to. In fact, the easiest way to increase your returns from any campaign is to increase the number of people who see the campaign.

Now that you've created your marketing plan, it's time to determine how much money you can commit to the success of that plan.

At the end of the day, your very business rests on the efficiency of your marketing to help you make sales. You can't afford to skimp here.

This might sound overly dramatic, but consider this: If your business stops making sales, you aren't exactly in business anymore, are you?

It's one thing to acknowledge that bigger is better when it comes to your marketing budget. It's another thing entirely to determine exactly what your marketing budget should be. Consider these three options when determining your marketing budget.

1. Choose a flat percentage rate.

Take a look at last year's profits sheet. What do you intend this year's profits to be? Calculate 20 percent of both this and last year's profit and you have a range for an appropriate marketing budget.

Keep your marketing budget in this range and you can expect to do better than last year. If you'd like to really BOOM! your profits, consider doubling this range for a really concerted marketing push.

2. Decide how much you'd like to make.

You've heard all about setting big goals, taking your business seriously, and playing a bigger game. If this approach appeals to you, there's only one way to make it happen: spend an outrageous amount of money on your marketing. After all, money spent on marketing is actually money spent to make more money. It's just an investment, like any other. And, it's one of the safest investments you can make in today's economic market. So, consider those big goals you've set for yourself and your business and set aside 10 percent to 20 percent of that figure for marketing in 2007.

3. Find out what industry leaders spend on their marketing.

If you have access to marketing data for your industry, find out what the leaders spend on their annual marketing budgets. The difference between the industry leaders and the rest of the pack is often a large one. While most of your competitors may be spending within 1 percent to 2 percent of the same numbers for annual marketing, industry leaders often spend at least twice as much. You want to be a leader in your field, right? Then you'll need to budget accordingly.

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