Quick Answer
There is no marketing investment question asked more often by engineering business owners, and answered worse, than how much to spend. The honest answer is that there is no universal number, and any agency offering one before understanding the business should be treated with caution. But that does not mean the question has no answer. There are sound commercial frameworks for setting a marketing budget, and understanding them protects an engineering firm from both overspending on activity that will not pay back and underspending to the point where the investment cannot work at all.
This piece sets out the commercial frameworks for deciding what an engineering company should spend on marketing, why the common benchmarks need adjusting for the realities of industrial sales, and why the size of the budget matters far less than the thinking behind it. The aim is to help you arrive at a figure that is justified by your commercial objectives rather than plucked from a competitor’s behaviour or an agency’s standard package.
Why There Is No Single Right Marketing Budget
There is no single correct marketing budget for an engineering company because the right figure depends on growth ambition, margin, sales cycle length, competitive position and how visible the business already is. A budget that transforms one firm would be wasted on another.
The reason the question is so hard to answer in the abstract is that marketing spend is not a fixed cost like rent or a machine lease. It is an investment whose appropriate size depends entirely on what the business is trying to achieve and where it is starting from. A firm that is already well known in its sector and simply wants to maintain position has a very different requirement to one that is invisible and trying to grow into new markets.
Margin matters too. A business working on healthy margins can justify more aggressive investment because each additional pound of turnover contributes more profit. A business on thin margins has to be more careful, though it often has the greatest need to invest in order to escape the price-led work that created the thin margins in the first place.
The competitive position also shapes the figure. A firm in a crowded, well-marketed niche has to invest more to be noticed than one in a specialist area where competitors are largely silent. The right budget is the one that is sufficient to achieve the commercial objective in the specific competitive context, which is why a figure that works for one engineering firm can be entirely wrong for another.
The Percentage of Turnover Benchmark, and Its Limits
A common benchmark is to spend between 2% and 5% of turnover on marketing, but this figure needs careful adjustment for engineering firms because it was largely derived from sectors with shorter sales cycles and different buyer behaviour. It is a useful starting point, not a rule.
The percentage-of-turnover approach is the most widely cited method for setting a marketing budget. General B2B guidance often suggests somewhere between 2% and 5% of turnover, with growth-focused businesses at the higher end and established businesses defending position at the lower end. For a great many engineering firms, a figure in this range is a reasonable place to begin the conversation.
The Caution With Benchmarks
The danger of applying the percentage benchmark too literally is that it treats marketing as a proportional cost rather than a commercial investment with a specific job. A more useful approach is to start with the benchmark as a sense-check, then adjust it against the actual commercial objective and the realities of the sales cycle. A firm with ambitious growth targets, a long sales cycle, and low current visibility may need to invest above the benchmark for a sustained period before the return appears.
Comparing the Common Budget-Setting Methods
Engineering firms can set a marketing budget using several different methods, each with different strengths. The most robust approach combines them rather than relying on any single one, because each captures something the others miss.
The table below compares the common methods for setting a marketing budget, with the commercial logic and limitation of each.
| Budgeting Method | How It Works | Strength | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of turnover | Set budget at 2-5% of revenue | Simple, scales with business size | Ignores objective and sales cycle |
| Objective and task | Cost out what the goal actually requires | Tied directly to commercial outcome | Requires clear objectives and experience to cost |
| Competitor benchmarking | Match or exceed competitor activity | Keeps pace with the market | Assumes competitors are spending wisely |
| Cost of a salesperson | Compare to the fully loaded cost of a hire | Frames marketing as a growth investment | Marketing and sales are complementary, not interchangeable |
| Affordability or leftover | Spend what is left after other costs | Feels safe | Almost always underfunds, produces no result |
The weakest method in the table is the last one, and it is also the most common in engineering firms. Setting the marketing budget as whatever is left over after everything else treats it as a discretionary cost rather than a growth investment, and it almost always produces a figure too small to achieve anything. The strongest approach is the objective and task method, supported by the others as sense-checks, because it starts from what the business actually wants to achieve and works backwards to what that requires.
Why Underspending Is More Dangerous Than Overspending
Underspending on marketing is more commercially dangerous than overspending, because a budget below the threshold needed to achieve anything produces no return at all, wasting the entire amount. A small marketing budget is often worse than none, because it creates the illusion of action without the substance.
There is a critical threshold in marketing investment below which the spend simply cannot work. Building visibility and credibility in an engineering market requires sustained, consistent activity over time. A budget that funds a few months of half-hearted activity, or spreads itself too thinly across too many channels, never reaches the critical mass needed to produce a result. The money is spent, nothing happens, and the business concludes that marketing does not work.
The False Economy
Marketing Spend Versus Machinery Investment: A Commercial Comparison
Engineering firms apply rigorous commercial analysis to machinery investment but rarely apply the same thinking to marketing spend, despite both being investments expected to generate a return. Treating marketing with the same commercial discipline as capital equipment leads to better decisions.
A useful way for an engineering business owner to think about marketing spend is to compare it to how the business evaluates a machinery purchase. When buying a new machine, a firm assesses the capital cost, the expected productivity gain, the payback period, and the return on investment. The decision is made on commercial grounds with a clear view of what the investment will produce.
Marketing spend deserves the same analysis but rarely receives it. It is often set casually, reviewed inconsistently, and judged on the wrong timeframe. Yet marketing, like a machine, is an investment expected to generate a commercial return over time. A machine that increases capacity is worthless if the business cannot win enough of the right work to fill it. Marketing is the investment that fills the capacity with the right work, which makes it as commercially significant as the equipment itself.
Framing marketing this way changes the conversation. Rather than asking what the business can afford to spend, it asks what return the investment is expected to produce, over what period, and what level of spend is required to achieve it. That is the same disciplined commercial thinking the business already applies to its capital equipment, and applying it to marketing produces far better decisions.
What the Budget Has to Cover to Work
A marketing budget for an engineering firm has to cover sustained activity across the channels where its buyers research, maintained consistently over the length of the sales cycle. A budget that funds only short bursts, or only a single channel, rarely produces a commercial return.
Beyond the size of the budget, what it funds determines whether it works. Engineering buyers research suppliers across multiple channels over extended periods, increasingly including AI search platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews alongside traditional search, industry presence and referral. A budget that funds visibility in only one of these, or funds activity that starts and stops, struggles to build the consistent presence that generates enquiries.
The budget also has to be sustained over a period that matches the sales cycle. In a sector where a buyer may research suppliers for six to eighteen months before making contact, a marketing budget that runs for three months and is then cut for lack of immediate results was never given the chance to work. The investment has to be maintained long enough for the slow-building visibility to convert into enquiries.
This is why the figure and the timeframe have to be set together. A budget that is adequate in size but too short in duration fails for the same reason as one that is sustained but too small. Both fall short of the sustained, sufficient investment that building commercial visibility in an engineering market actually requires.
How Brookstone Creative Approaches Marketing Budget
Brookstone Creative helps UK engineering firms set a marketing budget based on commercial objectives and realistic return expectations, rather than arbitrary benchmarks or standard agency packages. The aim is a level of investment justified by what the business wants to achieve.
Our approach to budget is grounded in the commercial realities of engineering, because that is our background. Before moving into marketing, our experience included toolmaking, CNC programming, CAD/CAM engineering, advanced tooling, and technical design across the plastics, automotive and aerospace sectors, followed by technical sales. We understand how engineering businesses evaluate investment, and we apply that same commercial discipline to marketing.
That means we start from the commercial objective, what the business wants to achieve and over what period, then work back to the level of investment required to achieve it realistically. We are honest when a budget is too small to produce the desired result, because setting a business up to waste money on underfunded activity serves no one. The aim is a marketing investment that is commercially justified, sufficient to work, and sustained long enough to produce the return.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of turnover should an engineering company spend on marketing?
Most engineering companies should expect to invest between 2% and 5% of turnover in marketing, with growth-focused firms at the higher end and established firms defending position at the lower end. This benchmark needs adjusting for engineering’s long sales cycles, so it is best used as a starting point for discussion rather than a fixed rule.
How much should a small manufacturing business spend on marketing?
A small manufacturing business should set its marketing budget based on its growth objective rather than a fixed figure, but the budget must be large enough to fund sustained, consistent activity over the length of the sales cycle. Underfunding is the most common mistake, because a budget below the threshold needed to build visibility produces no return at all.
Is it better to spend on marketing or hire a salesperson?
Marketing and a salesperson are complementary rather than interchangeable. A salesperson converts enquiries and manages relationships, while marketing generates the enquiries and builds the visibility that brings buyers in. Comparing the cost of marketing to the fully loaded cost of a hire is a useful framing, but the strongest engineering businesses invest in both working together.
Why does marketing fail when the budget is too small?
Marketing fails when the budget is too small because building visibility and credibility in an engineering market requires sustained activity over time to reach a critical threshold. A budget below that threshold never builds enough presence to generate enquiries, so the entire amount is wasted. A small budget often produces no result rather than a small one.
How long should an engineering company commit to a marketing budget?
Should marketing spend be treated like machinery investment?
Yes. Marketing spend deserves the same commercial analysis an engineering firm applies to machinery: expected return, payback period and the investment required to achieve the objective. A machine that adds capacity is only valuable if the business wins enough of the right work to fill it, and marketing is the investment that fills that capacity, making it as commercially significant as the equipment.
Next Step
If you are trying to decide what your engineering business should spend on marketing, the figure should follow from your commercial objectives, not from a benchmark or a competitor. Get in touch with Brookstone Creative to discuss what you want your marketing to achieve and over what period. We will help you arrive at a level of investment that is commercially justified, sufficient to actually work, and sustained long enough to produce a return.
Engineering Marketing. Built by Engineers.
About the author
Richard Stinson
Founder, Brookstone Creative Ltd | Leicestershire
Richard built his career across engineering and industrial sales, starting on the shop floor and working through CNC machining, CAD/CAM engineering, technical design, project management and technical sales management across aerospace, automotive, fabrication, cutting tools and specialist manufacturing. He has been the procurement manager researching new suppliers and the sales manager trying to reach those procurement managers. He has seen this shift in buyer behaviour from both sides of it.
