Percentage-of-revenue rules, channel sequencing and the metrics that justify spend.
Marketing is where many Nigerian small businesses either overspend on the wrong thing or underspend out of fear. A simple framework prevents both.Anchor your budget to revenue. A common starting range for small businesses is a single-digit percentage of expected revenue, with newer businesses needing the higher end to build awareness and established ones able to spend less to maintain it. Whatever number you pick, pick it deliberately and review it quarterly.
Sequence channels before funding them. The first priority is usually whatever makes existing customers return and refer, because retention is cheaper than acquisition. Only then experiment with paid acquisition — one channel at a time, with a test budget you can afford to lose entirely.
Track the arithmetic honestly. Customer acquisition cost is spend divided by new customers gained. A business pays for marketing out of margin, so a channel only makes sense when the profit from the customers it brings exceeds its cost within a horizon you can finance. Our ROI and break-even calculators do this maths on your numbers.
Beware two traps. Vanity metrics — followers and impressions — feel good and prove nothing. And agencies that cannot tell you, in plain language, what you get for the fee; our marketing directory scores transparency precisely because it predicts this problem.
Finally, keep some budget unspent. Opportunities and emergencies arrive unannounced, and the SME with dry powder markets through slow seasons while rivals go quiet.