Email is one of the cheapest ways to keep selling to people who already know you. Here's how to pick a platform, build your list, send your first emails and what to budget.
If your business is new, the usual advice to spend a percentage of your revenue doesn't help much. You don't have revenue yet, or not enough to plan around. Instead, set your first-year budget from two things: how much money you can put into marketing, and how many sales you need.
1. Split your first year into launch and ongoing
Your first few months need more marketing than later ones. Nobody knows your brand yet, you need content to work with, and you need room to test what works.
- Launch (usually the first one to three months): a higher budget to make people aware of you, create your first batch of content and test different ads.
- Ongoing (after launch): a steadier monthly budget focused on what worked during launch.
Planning these as two stages stops you from spending everything in the first month, or spending so little at launch that nobody notices you.
2. Decide how much of your startup money goes to marketing
Before you think about monthly numbers, decide on a total. Look at your startup money and ask: after stock, packaging, your website and running costs, how much can go into marketing for the first six months without putting the business at risk?
Say you set aside ₦2,400,000 for marketing in your first six months. You could split it like this:
- Months 1 to 2 (launch): ₦500,000 a month, ₦1,000,000 in total
- Months 3 to 6 (ongoing): ₦350,000 a month, ₦1,400,000 in total
Treat the total as a limit, not a target. If something isn't working, you don't have to spend it all.
3. Check it against your sales target
Next, work out what that money could realistically bring in. You need two numbers: how many orders you want each month, and what you expect each new customer to cost.
New brands usually pay more for each customer at first. You have no reviews, little content and no data for the ad platforms to learn from. So plan for a higher cost per customer early on, and expect it to come down over time.
In our example, say the brand expects to pay about ₦9,000 per customer during launch and ₦7,000 once things settle:
- Launch: ₦300,000 a month on ads ÷ ₦9,000 = about 33 orders a month
- Ongoing: ₦250,000 a month on ads ÷ ₦7,000 = about 35 orders a month
If you need 60 orders a month to cover your costs, this plan won't get you there. You'd need to find more budget, raise your prices or average order value, or accept that it will take longer. It's better to find that out now than in month four.
To find your own numbers, read our guide on working out your cost per customer.
4. Know what to spend on first
At launch, your budget covers more than ads. Here's how the ₦500,000 launch month in our example might be split:
- Content: ₦150,000. Good product photos and short videos. Your ads and website depend on them.
- Ads: ₦300,000. Testing a few audiences and a few versions of your ads to see what works.
- Tools and other costs: ₦50,000. Your email platform, design apps and small extras.
After launch, content usually needs less. In the ongoing months, the ₦350,000 might be ₦250,000 on ads, ₦70,000 on content and ₦30,000 on tools.
Also start collecting emails and WhatsApp contacts from day one. People who sign up but don't buy straight away are much cheaper to reach later than strangers.
5. Set checkpoints instead of judging too early
Your first few weeks of results will be messy. Don't scrap everything after one week, and don't keep spending for six months without looking. Set simple checkpoints:
- End of month 1: which ads, products and audiences are getting the most interest?
- End of month 3: is your cost per customer moving towards your target?
- End of month 6: are customers coming back to buy again?
If the numbers are moving the right way, put more behind what works. If they're not, change your offer, content or targeting before you spend more.
6. Switch to a revenue-based budget once you have sales
After three to six months of steady sales, you have enough history to budget the way established businesses do: as a share of your monthly revenue. Our guide on how much a small business should spend on marketing in Nigeria shows you how.
Plan your launch budget
Our Ad Budget Planner works out your target cost per customer and the ad budget you need for your sales goal. You don't need any sales history to use it.
Launching soon and want a plan built around your business? Book a consultation with us.