How To Market My Business On A Budget

Trying to figure out how to do some marketing on a budget is one of the biggest challenges small business owners face. You understand that you have to spend money. However, you do not have money to waste so whatever you do put your budget behind, needs to produce. It doesn’t matter if it’s social media, SEO, Google Adwords, email marketing or anything else, if you want to see results you have to spend money. Figuring out which areas are going to produce the best for you is the key to a successful campaign. As you gather information, remember to follow these tips for marketing on a budget:

1. Social Media: Whether your business would benefit from social media or not, the platforms are free to have and they can be managed from your own phone. It’s a great tool for branding, keeping customers updated on news and promotions you are having and will also help you to control the content people read about you online.
2. Don’t be afraid to outsource: We all want to have someone working for us who is actually working where we can see them. But that means paying them a lot more to do the work, work that could be done at a lower cost. Marketing agencies will save you money because they are handling more projects and will make up the difference with volume. For example, if you need to run a PPC campaign, a marketing agency will cost you less than a thousand dollars a month in most cases. Can you hire someone fulltime to work in-house for that price?
3. Set realistic expectations: You are not going to spend $5 and make back $10 in the same day. Marketing takes time and you have to know when to change your efforts or keep them going and be patient. Know that there is a difference between a click, a follower and a conversion.
4. Don’t be cheap: Yes, you are trying to put together a marketing campaign on a budget. However, if you want it to be effective, you need to make sure that you pay the right people to do the job. A website that costs $500 may save you money upfront but if you have a customer on the site and it doesn’t load properly or is too difficult to navigate through to make a purchase, than you have lost a sale.
5. Make friends: Businesses working together will benefit more than those who work alone. For example, if you own a t-shirt company and you love eating lunch at a certain restaurant, see if you can cross promote with each other. You tag yourself on social media at the restaurant for lunch and they can do the same by showcasing some of your merchandise and maybe even sell some of it in their store. Working together will improve results for both sides and doesn’t cost either of you any money.

Obviously if marketing on a budget was easy then every business would do it. Some companies will see better results from a social media campaign while others need to do more work on SEO. Understand where your customers are going to be and do what you can to put yourself in that area. Remember, your competition is going to be ready to outspend you so don’t be afraid to try different things, especially if they are affordable. That will improve your chances of getting a better ROI and help you build your brand the right way.