How much of my marketing budget should I allocate to traditional vs. new media? We get this question a lot, and the short answer is: it depends. It depends on your brand, your product or service. It depends on your objectives. It depends on who you are talking to, what your relationship to them is and what you want them to do. And it depends on what type of new media you’re referring to. Let me see if I can clear this up a little without getting into the debate about whether new media is going to completely eclipse traditional.

The first step in determining how much to spend on anything is to clearly identifying your goal. Are you trying to introduce a new product, start a customer retention program or increase sales? And, how much are you willing to spend to accomplish your goal. Some businesses are willing to spend as much as 1/3 the lifetime value of a customer to acquire that customer, but even that depends on your product or service. Answering these questions will help determine an appropriate overall budget and influence where you’ll allocate those dollars.

To get closer to the right ratio, though, you need to understand your audience. And the more you know about them, the more likely you are to make smart decisions about what type of media to use to reach them. You of course need to start with the basics … your audience demographics. But if you can create a profile and really get to know your audience—what are their other interests and habits, who do they turn to for their information—you can more effectively target your communication.

So you know what your goal is and who you are talking to, but to reach your goal, what does your audience need to do? And, how quickly do they need to act? If you just want more people to know who you are, well, that will indicate a different type of media spend than if you want them to buy something today, right?

Finally, what type of new media are we talking about? The more ‘traditional’ new media, say banner ads or adwords, will have a very different placement to execution ratio than the ‘newer’ new media—specifically social media and the advertising opportunities available there. Generally, true social media has comparatively low placement costs, but if you’ve spent any time in this media, you know you can get completely lost in the execution of it. Making an intelligent decision of how to allocate your budget will require an accurate assessment of your (or your staff’s) skill set in this media—and in your industry specialty. I mean, if your time is more valuable doing what you’re supposed to, then you’ll likely want to pay a specialist to manage this. But if you love it, don’t require much sleep and can do it all, go for it.

Look, tomes have been written to this topic because there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer that will work for everyone. But, if you ask yourself these questions, it’ll get you a long way toward the best answer for your business. Let us know how it goes.