Marketing Budgets Are About Trade-Offs, Not Percentages

I'm sitting with the partners of a boutique consulting firm, pitching what seems like a worthy marketing experiment. A flagship industry event. $5,000 to get in front of hundreds of decision-makers. One client win would pay for the event ten times over.

Their response? A five-second glance at the price tag and an immediate "Feels like a lot of money. We're not doing it."

This is the paradox. Consultants who spend their lives advising clients to invest rationally often make the most irrational decisions about their own marketing.

When firms finally decide to tackle this problem, they usually retreat to the false comfort of benchmarks: "What percentage of revenue should we spend? Is 5% enough?"

But that's the wrong question entirely. The real answer - the one that actually moves the needle - comes down to three much simpler questions:

1. What are your goals?
2. How fast do you want to get there?
3. What standard do you want to operate at?

The first two matter. But the third one - standards - is the real killer.

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The Standard Trap: When Excellence Becomes Self-Sabotage

Here's the mental trap I see consulting firms fall into again and again. They convince themselves there are only two paths:

• Path #1: Corporate perfection. Everything polished to a mirror shine. Slick decks. Glossy reports. LinkedIn posts that look like they were birthed in a Fortune 500 comms department after six weeks of meetings.
• Path #2: Amateur hour. The consulting equivalent of a kid's lemonade stand. Typos everywhere. iPhone videos that look like they were filmed during an earthquake.

This false choice paralyzes consultancies. They get trapped in endless cycles of polishing, debating, and delaying - all because they're terrified that anything short of McKinsey-level polish will destroy their credibility.

I've watched smart firms do painfully dumb things because of this mindset. One delayed their entire thought-leadership campaign for six months because they couldn't agree on a tagline. Another killed their video strategy because the partners - who clients trusted with million-dollar transformations - decided they "weren't polished enough" on camera.

The real problem isn't imperfection. It's failing to be strategic about where imperfection actually builds trust rather than destroys it.

Clients don’t want every piece of marketing to look like it came out of a corporate design studio. They want ideas that are useful, voices that feel authentic, and perspectives they can trust. Polish matters in some places - but consistency and authenticity matter far more in most.

This is what I call strategic imperfection: deliberately deciding where to invest in polish, and where to prioritize speed and authenticity.

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The Strategic Imperfection Matrix

Think of every marketing activity along two dimensions:

• Credibility Stakes (High vs. Low): Does this moment require formal polish to signal professionalism (e.g., pitch decks, flagship reports)?
• Authenticity Payoff (High vs. Low): Will showing some mess, speed, or humanity actually increase trust (e.g., client pivots, behind-the-scenes observations)?

This creates four quadrants:

1. High Credibility / Low Authenticity → Polish to Win
   • Example: Million-dollar pitch decks, industry research reports.
   • Standard: Polish earns trust here.
2. High Credibility / High Authenticity → Polish the Core, Show the Edges
   • Example: Case studies, keynote talks.
   • Standard: Polish the facts and structure, but let some imperfection show to deepen trust.
3. Low Credibility / High Authenticity → Deliberate Imperfection
   • Example: LinkedIn posts, quick Loom videos, plain-text emails.
   • Standard: Speed > polish. Raw voice wins.
4. Low Credibility / Low Authenticity → Don’t Bother
   • Example: Glossy HTML newsletters, sanitized “success stories.”
   • Standard: Cut these. They waste time and budget.

The opportunity isn’t to look flawless everywhere. It’s to be intentional: polish the moments where high stakes demand it, then deliberately embrace authentic imperfection where it builds more trust than perfection ever could.

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What This Means for Spend

When you start thinking this way, something fascinating happens to budget conversations. They stop being about arbitrary percentages and start being about strategic choices.

The questions transform from "How much should we spend?" to:

• "Where do we absolutely need McKinsey-level polish?" (Think: that million-dollar pitch deck, the flagship research report that we want to be known for)
• "Where would polish actually hurt us?" (Like those LinkedIn posts where trying to sound corporate just makes you sound fake)
• "What's the minimum viable consistency we need to maintain trust?"

Now your marketing budget becomes a series of intentional trade-offs. You might spend more on fewer assets and content pieces - but make those count. Meanwhile, you spend less but more frequently on the authentic stuff that actually builds relationships.

The firms that get this right never ask themselves "Is 5% of revenue enough?" Instead, they ask "Are we investing in polish where it actually drives results, and giving ourselves permission to be real humans everywhere else?"

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What This Looks Like in Practice

Let me show you how real firms are putting this into action:

• Client Case Studies
  • The old way: Sanitized success stories that read like PR releases. "We implemented the strategy flawlessly and achieved 300% ROI."
  • The better way: Real stories with real tension. "Here's where we hit a wall. Here's how we pivoted. Here's what we learned." Prospects trust these because they match reality.
• Content Distribution
  • The old way: One perfect quarterly white paper that takes three months to design.
  • The better way: A steady stream of insights. Quick LinkedIn takes on industry shifts. Five-minute Loom videos sharing what you learned this week. Raw observations from client work (anonymized, of course). Build trust through presence, not perfection.
• Speaking Engagements
  • The old way: Reading perfectly scripted keynotes off teleprompters.
  • The better way: Fireside chats where you admit what you're still figuring out. Real stories that show your thinking. Especially the messy parts that make you human.
• Firm Leadership Visibility
  • The old Way: Ghostwritten thought pieces that sound like they came from ChatGPT.
  • The better Way: Partners sharing what they actually think, even if it's not perfectly polished. Behind-the-scenes looks at how decisions get made. Real expertise, real voice.
• Email Marketing
  • The old Way: HTML newsletters that look like they're selling timeshares.
  • The better Way: Plain text notes that sound like they're from someone focused on delivering value rather than perfecting email designs. Because that's what matters to clients.

Each of these examples shows the same principle: polish where trust depends on formality, embrace imperfection where trust depends on authenticity.

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Closing: An Actionable Process

So, how much should your firm spend on marketing?

Enough to achieve your goals, at the speed you want - and at the standard you deliberately choose.

That means:

1. Get crystal clear on your goals. ("We want to be known as the go-to firm for supply chain transformation" is better than "We need more marketing.")
2. Set your timeline. Be honest about how fast you need to move.
3. Then - and this is where most firms mess up - choose your standards strategically:
   • Pour resources into high polish where formality builds credibility.
   • Deliberately embrace authentic imperfection where it builds trust.
   • Never accept mediocrity, but recognize that "perfect" often isn't optimal.

Most consulting firms don't fail because they spend too little or too much. They fail because they try to be McKinsey everywhere - and end up being nowhere.

If you can get comfortable with a “70% quality” in the right places while reserving your perfectionism for where it truly moves the needle, you'll stop treating marketing like a costly gamble and start seeing it for what it really is: a strategic investment that compounds over time.