As everyone knows, a business can't thrive if no one knows it exists and reaching prospective customers can be a challenge without a solid marketing plan.
The old adage goes something like, "You have to spend money to make money", and while allocating a marketing budget will be necessary for advertising your business, we have some suggestions that won't empty your bank account.
In this article, the Zeemo marketing team looks at ways a company can market itself when resources are limited.
A marketing budget details the sum of money your company plans to invest in advertising to promote your brand, products or services during a given time frame, such as a year, quarter, or month.
Paid advertisements, employee salaries, marketing tools, website hosting fees, and more should all factor into the marketing budget.
Building a comprehensive marketing strategy and a solid marketing plan is one of the best ways to ensure all marketing dollars are put to good use.
If you follow a clear strategy and set a sensible budget, you can better control how your marketing dollars are spent and manage your cash flow more effectively.
Let's now look at some tried-and-true methods you can implement within your marketing strategy that won't blow out your marketing budget.
To help get the most bang for your limited marketing buck, it pays to give top priority to the advertising methods you use the most, and you know work for your brand.
As a general guide, businesses and marketers should budget around 10% of their annual gross revenue for promotion and spread time and resources across a mix of the following inexpensive yet effective marketing tactics.
Needless to say, if someone is looking for what you offer, they will most likely go to Google to proactively search for it, so it pays to invest in some well-targeted Google Ads and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Maintaining a blog is an affordable means of improving your website's SEO and one of the best ways of keeping your content fresh, keyword-rich for Google, and interesting and useful for your audience.
Here are some general blog topics you could use for inspiration:
Email marketing is an excellent strategy for conserving marketing funds and offers a low-cost opportunity to build rapport with your audience.
For Electronic Direct Mail (EDM) marketing to work, you must grow and nurture your email list. Offering freebies like ebooks or discount codes can entice people to sign up for your service.
Your company should try to maintain a blog for SEO purposes; however, if you want your blog subscribers to feel like they're getting more out of your service, you could create a private newsletter to share even more valuable insights and offers with your customers.
Leveraging social media app features is a fantastic method to limit advertising expenditures, and platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest are great places to share visual content and tell your brand story.
For your posts to have a broad reach, you can pay for them to appear on the timelines of target audiences. However, if you work to develop your social media following and produce excellent share-worthy content, there is also significant scope for organic growth that doesn't cost a dime.
Here are some ideas for photos and content you can publish for your social marketing strategy:
In most people's minds, a marketing campaign means a massive, far-reaching advertising push, but there can be abundant opportunities to get the word out about your brand at the local level.
Participating in local events is a low-cost way to increase brand awareness and attract new customers.
Some local marketing ideas your company might consider:
Referrals from satisfied customers are the best and least expensive way to advertise your business.
Unfortunately, many people struggle with and often feel uncomfortable asking for recommendations. Some people even worry that asking customers for a referral will come across as pleading or needy.
The good news is there are approaches you can take to ask for a referral that won't make you appear desperate.
Here are some suggestions you may like to try:
One of the most effective (and frugal) marketing strategies is repurposing existing materials.
Your marketing content can be reused in an infinite number of ways, here are just some ideas for recycling past content to boost your marketing:
Remarketing, also known as retargeting, is an easy, cost-effective digital advertising method in which ads with specific, user-defined content are shown to people who have previously visited a website and taken some action (or not).
With remarketing, you can target your pay-per-click (PPC) ads specifically at people who have shown an interest in your company or brand in the past.
Because visitors don't always convert on their first encounter with your brand, remarketing gives you a second chance to make a sale to previous site visitors or remind existing customers of your goods or services.
To learn more about Remarketing, read our article on the topic here.
Getting your brand in front of qualified paying customers generally doesn't come for free, but a well-planned marketing budget and using cost-efficient, effective strategies will pay off in the long run.
A solid marketing plan is an essential component of any prosperous business. Even if your company is on a tight budget, the investment of time and energy to get your marketing mix right can lead to healthy returns.
It is important to be prudent with marketing money because campaigns can blow out your budget if you haven't carefully considered your marketing objectives, the steps you'll take to reach those objectives, and the associated costs.
Zeemo can help you create a realistic marketing budget and plan based on strategies best suited to your that will limit any unanticipated expenses and deliver great results.
Call our expert team today to schedule an obligation-free discussion on how we can help you get the most business from your marketing dollars.