A zillion dollars! Just kidding. 
As you can imagine, it's not possible to predict exactly how much it will cost to do inbound (a.k.a. digital) marketing without doing an in-depth business analysis. There are too many variables involved, such as your available internal resources, the experience level of the people you hire, how advanced you are with your current marketing strategy, and your goals and objectives.
Still, to plan a realistic marketing budget, you need some idea about how much various marketing services cost! Here are some ideas about what to expect to pay for fundamental digital marketing strategies:
Blog Articles
On the cheap side, prices range from $80 for four blog posts to $250 for four blog posts. The problem I've seen with the low-end blog prices is that they don't necessarily follow blog best practices - meaning keywords, SEO, article length, graphical appeal, compelling titles, and strategy for engaging prospects. So, I'm not sure how much articles like that will actually help you.
For a blog program that includes the whole kit and caboodle - including everything mentioned above plus managing the entire posting process, article promotion, and ongoing strategy and analytics, you might pay $1500+ per article.
Just remember: the writing part is only one one small piece of blogging. Know what you are paying for, especially with the emergence of AI.
Premium Content Creation
There are infinite types of content - videos, ebooks, infographics, case studies, etc. Each piece of content is unique and will need to be priced out individually. However, I know you want to know how much this stuff costs, so I'm going to give you some generalities about what to expect.
Something like a professionally developed ebook, case study, special offer, or video could cost anywhere between $2500 - $5000+. That could include the writing, layout, and graphics (or it might not!).
It's important to remember that the content piece alone is only one small part of the process. You need to have a marketing campaign in place to promote it, which should include things like landing pages, social media promotion, and email marketing. Best practices say you should spend the same amount of time promoting your campaign as it took to create it, which, when translated to dollars, about doubles the cost. If you spend $5K to create premium content, you spend $5K to promote it.
It sounds like a lot, I know. But - the cool thing about this kind of content is that it can continue to generate leads for a long, long time, so it's a good investment - especially if it's well done. Poorly done (cheaply done) content won't get you the same results. You need to take that into consideration when you are thinking about the ROI.
Just ask yourself: How many leads/customers do I need to get from this investment to make me happy, and is that realistic?
Social Media
To hire someone (clarification: someone who knows what they are doing!) to write your social posts, schedule, monitor, manage, and respond on your behalf, it will probably cost between $1000 - $5000 per month.
Email Marketing
Ahhhh.... good 'ole email marketing - my favorite. This tactic is very similar to blog writing and publishing. But with email marketing, you have the whole list management piece to add to it. You need to manage your database to keep it clean with valid emails and continuously add or delete contacts based on what's going on with your sales marketing campaigns. $3000-$5000 for 4 or 5 emails a month, plus database management, would be a reasonable estimate of how much you would spend.
Website Design
You get what you pay for. A small basic website might be $1500 - $5000 if you do most of the work yourself and just hire a tech person to help with what you can't figure out. A more robust website that is developed by an experienced web team that knows what they are doing might be $20,000 or more.
There is so much to think about when investing in a website. You should invest as much into it as you would a physical store, comparatively speaking. Your site is your virtual storefront where most people will get their first impression of you. If it's ramshackle, they'll turn away in a jiffy, never to be seen again.
Design is only one small part of it, too. The strategy is just as important, if not more so. The whole goal is to use your website to get more business, so you need a plan in place to make that happen. The strategy and design go together.
So now you're talking about two things: design AND strategy. Understand what parts of the process you are paying for and the skill set of the team you are working with. Some agencies are more designers, and some are more strategic, and some are both.
A website less than $5000, and you're pretty much doing most of the work yourself. Hey, if you have the time and know-how, that is a great way to save money!
For a good website, between $5,000 - $15,000, it will likely be a smaller site with fewer pages and "fancy" things. If that is your budget, keep your priorities and goals tight so each page you invest in gets maximum results.
Most small businesses that have a fairly decent website right now and need to do a refresh or restructure typically fall in the $15,000 - $50,000.
Before you do anything with your website, take a minute to learn about growth-driven website design because it is a more realistic way to manage your website in today's environment than the traditional approach.
Conclusion
There's more I could talk about, but you're getting the idea.
If you're a small business and this seems WAY out of reach for you, don't despair. There are ways you can start dipping your toe in the water at a price you can afford. If you're not sure how much you should invest in marketing, read How Much Should You Spend on Marketing?
If you are a super small business and have hardly any money available for marketing, you'll probably have to get on the do-it-yourself model until you get big enough to bring on some help. But if you do that, make sure you do some research first on how to do it right so you don't waste your valuable time! HubSpot has tons of free resources to help you become good at inbound marketing so you can grow.
To find out more about what inbound marketing will cost YOU, let's talk.
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