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Bang For Your Budget: It’s Budget Planning Season

September 6, 2023

With summer nearly over and the holidays just around the corner, it’s budget planning season again: Time for our travel clients to consider every angle of funding the ‘always-on’ communications strategy that FINN Partners delivers to ensure the smooth execution of public relations activations to boost media placements and social media traffic through 2024 ahead.

Budgeting is serious business, and oversights can have significant impacts. Take a hotel that we’ve worked with for years doing media relations and social media marketing. While influencer collaborations for the latter were funded in the client’s 2023 budget, content creation was not. So, when we were approached first for support for photography for the client’s social channels, then to build influencer collaborations to draw content creators to a newly renovated dining outlet, our Digital Team was unable to act. Result? A missed opportunity – and a valuable lesson.

So, how to get the biggest bang for your next PR/Social Media budget?

Start by looking forward as well as back, in as well as out. Size up the funding you anticipate needing through the oncoming fiscal year and be realistic about what your corporate marketing and communications teams can accomplish on their own. Consider initiatives that will be worthy of coverage: From menu launches to new amenities, property renovations to partnerships with local brands – anything pitch-worthy for press coverage or tout-worthy on social, that is.

Once you gauge what’s in the pipeline, plan funding for the unanticipated as well. Like modern communications, travel and hospitality are dynamic, and when newsworthy developments such as awards, events, new spa offerings, creative packages, and executive appointments pop-up at your property, you’ll want our PR and Social Media experts to be able to give them the time, attention and support required to help make them successful.

Should every client be capable of fashioning a thoroughgoing budget on their own? In our two decades-plus of experience in the publicity game, some clients are better at it than others – and for the latter, trust that we are here to help.

Reach out to your PR team sooner rather than later for a proactive conversation to review your budget plans. Bear in mind that the audiences you are trying to connect with can shift like the wind. And be prepared to think beyond the services that clicked for you last year and ahead to new innovations in the communications space.

In the end, FINN Partners strives to do our best to make certain that all of our clients achieve their communications goals year in and year out. Just as there is a fine balance between being proactive and reactive, so there is a big difference between being well-funded and underfunded – hence the importance of appropriate budget planning.

Like Goldilocks, our end goal is for your budget to be just right for success in 2024. Care to discuss budgeting needs? That’s what your dedicated account teams are there for – and their inboxes are always open.