How do you get finance to allocate budget to programs that we haven’t proven out yet, but are experimental?

How I go about getting budget for these experimental programs really comes down to the CFOs style. If they are risk averse and very data-oriented, I will:

- View From Other Side: Imagining their most frequent worry. Do they want numbers set in stone, or are they OK with a potential payoff and some risk?

- Pilot: I recommend starting with a pilot. A smaller investment is easier to justify, and we want to get some proof of concept data.

– Keep Flexible: In my offer, I state that we are prepared to make changes or temporarily halt the program considering results and proving our understanding of a company's money.

When I cater to their style, and try not to get too fancy with the conversation it is usually easier for me to propose my innovations.

If you are doing an experiment, then you should have a hypothesis that you are testing.

To justify budget for this experiment, you need to share your hypothesis and test method with Finance in the form of a business plan.

Example:

• Business objective: Increase sales of Widgets by $10,000 over Jan - Mar 2025 through the use of influencer marketing.

• Background:

  • Sales of Widgets for Jan - Mar 2024 were $100,000.

  • Target market = Identified Persona, who gravitates toward Influencer as an expert in the field

• Budget:

  • $100 in free Widget products for Influencer

  • $1,000 for 1 month of product placement (1/week video + 1/week cross-platform social posts)

• ROI: 900% (anticipated return/budget)

The main goal is to quantify what you think will happen if you spend this money, then support it with background information and budget. As you can see, it doesn't have to be long or involved.

For example, perhaps you are looking to generate leads, rather than straight sales:

Business Objective: 500 market qualified leads attributed to Influencer between Jan - Mar 2025, resulting in $10,000 sales increase by Jun 2025.

Then, at the end of your experiment period, see if your hypothesis was correct. The additional benefit of having this documentation is that you can look back and see what campaigns were potentially influencing sales, so you know what worked and what didn't. In my experience, it's not always what one would expect.