Working with a small marketing budget

Creating some noise about your product or services, when you’re a small business with a tiny marketing budget, can seem like an impossible task.
If it isn’t bad enough that you and your small team are already running around, juggling multiple tasks, it’s now becoming increasingly common for lead generating marketing activity to come with hefty price tags attached too.

But don’t lose heart!

We’re here to tell you that you don’t always need a huge marketing budget to make big bang. You just need to be smart when planning your marketing activity.

Check out our top tips for making big gains with a small marketing budget below:

Focus your efforts

The blanket approach may seem like a cheap and easy route when planning your marketing activity. If you tick ALL the boxes, you can’t go wrong, right?

Wrong (wrong, wrong, wrong).

A lack of understanding about your audience, their needs, their motivations and the best places for reaching out to them, are some of the main causes for losing money (and time) in marketing. What’s more, a blanket-style approach is time consuming and expensive. And most of all, their success rates are dubious.

Instead, focus your efforts to make the most of your marketing budget (and save the sanity of your co-workers) by getting to know your audience.

Utilise information about the customers you do have to help generate interest from similar people. Focus on the channels you know your audience group engages with most, and forget the rest.

After all, there’s no point in paying out bucket loads to advertise in Horse and Hound if your audience members are more likely to be clicking on the Heat World website.

Stick to your strengths

As keen marketeers, we would never put people off trying something new – whether it was to test new marketing tactics or reach out to new audience groups. But there is a time and a place for branching out into new avenues.

Save on your marketing budget and keep conversions rolling in by sticking to your strengths. If your tried and tested marketing formula is still working for you, generating awareness and creating those sought after conversions (as well as return sales). Keep using the content and methods that are generating interest and reactions, until your audience becomes tired.

And you can make your sales pitches go further too, by utilising your content across multiple channels. For example, share popular blog posts, email marketing content and brochure infographics on social media and your website too.

Be savvy with your social media

Once upon a time organic reach on social media could reach epic dimensions and creating brand awareness across these platforms, easy. Jump forward a few years, into the age of constantly changing algorithms, and the landscape is quite different.

Paid-for services are the norm. But social media activity with no real strategy guiding it is like trying to find your friend at a stadium gig with no mobile phone.

We’re not saying free social media isn’t worth it (dur – who doesn’t like a bit of social after all). But it is important to diversify your content. Video is king in the content stakes and a post without an image is like going to work without your trousers on (don’t do it).

Why not also utilise your postings to grow your mailing list, with whom you can converse with for free (thanks mailchimp), as much as you like (well, within reason. Because remember, no one likes a spammer).

To do this try promoting free downloads, run a competition or just simply promote your contact us page (see previous juicy blog for tips on making your Contact us page, super duper).

In addition, this new mailing list of yours can even be uploaded to Facebook so any paid-for advertising you do choose to do can act as a nifty little reminder to any recent mail out you might have just sent (and by saying might have – we mean you have). Just be careful not to blow your whole marketing budget on social advertising. Because remember, if done effectively, a little can go a long way.

Monitor and evaluate

Firstly, there’s no point putting in lots of effort to improve your marketing if you’re not going to check back and see how it is all working out for you.

Most people these days have a Google Analytics account. But how many of you regularly log-in and really take in what those Google graphs and stats mean for you and your business?

Luckily, the lovely Google have set up some free training (hello Analytics Academy) to help unravel the meaning of this website traffic tracking device. Meaning you will be able to translate the statistical feedback into useful information which directs your future marketing activity (i.e. if your audience reacts best to certain types of images or phrases, plan your future content to include plenty of this).

Don’t forget to do the same on your social media platforms too (see insights or analytics tabs) so that you can tailor your content to the appropriate mediums. If you do lots of offline marketing, try introducing feedback forms or hosting short social media polls so that you can learn more about campaign awareness levels as well as what has worked well, and what hasn’t .

Keep the faith!

Our team at DP Marketing Communications have backgrounds in small business, local Government, and even the charity sector. So we know all too well the challenges that small marketing budgets can bring. Keep the faith, however. Small changes really can make a big difference. Not just on time, but also marketing budget planning and overall results.

Need some help?

Do you need help getting your head around analytics? Or maybe you need some help refocusing your marketing strategy? We can help! We’ve got analysts, strategists and creatives raring to get you back on track. And of course, we can work with a small marketing budget.

So, why not book a FREE marketing strategy planning session using the form below?