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Many manufacturers are wondering how to set a reasonable marketing budget that will produce results, particularly as they shift more marketing resources towards online marketing. I recently hosted a webinar, Marketing Budgets for Manufacturers, to guide manufacturing companies in setting overall marketing budgets, and how much to allocate to increasingly important digital marketing.

We've been partnering with security alarm companies for over eight years, and within the last few years we've come to the realization that using their customer data to personalize digital marketing efforts can yield impressive results. When security companies are proactive in gathering data, they are much farther ahead in the potential marketing results they can achieve.

Advertising of the past involved reaching the widest audience possible, in hopes that some people in your target market would see your message. Over time, the ability to target those audience segments most likely to buy from you became more sophisticated, and today's digital marketing makes precision targeting possible. If you're not taking advantage of the latest methods for targeting your marketing to your ideal customers, you're probably not maximizing your return on marketing investment or getting as many qualified leads as you could.

In November, I attended and presented at my first Honeywell Connect 2017 Security Dealer conference in San Diego, CA. Three days of inspiring learning from security company leaders, the Honeywell team, and fantastic keynote speakers. This years' theme was to "Differentiate, Disrupt, Deliver". Honeywell showcased their impressive array of residential and commercial security technology while providing an engaging and fun atmosphere for learning and networking.

Do you know your wildly important business goals?

In our recent survey of security providers, the most common marketing challenge was generating new quality leads, followed by figuring out where to focus marketing efforts. Of course the latter is all about figuring out the best way to bring in those all important quality leads, at the best ROI. Many security companies aren't sure what they'll need to spend on marketing to generate results and where they should focus those funds.

We’ve written several articles about online marketing budgets in a variety of industries, and as we've worked with security alarm companies across the country, we’ve identified a realistic marketing budget calculation for firms providing a combination of commercial and residential security offerings.

We spent three fantastic days last week at the Electronic Security Expo (ESX) conference in Nashville, TN, and it featured an amazing array of residential and commercial security experts, technology vendors and uber friendly folks representing security and alarm companies from around the US, Canada and even Australia! (and yes the Uber drivers were extremely sociable as well!) Preston Kendig, of our security digital marketing team, and I attended a variety of educational sessions starting with the OpenXchange Breakfast - The Changing Competitive Landscape, featuring experts from Allegion (Robert C. Martens), Honeywell (Scott Harkens), IFTTT (Justin Wong) & Skybell (Andrew Thomas). This year's overall event theme was Innovate or Else - expertly covered by NY Times and Businessweek Best-Selling author Robert Kriegel, PhD.