Marketing is crucial to the successful growth of any business, and when marketing is done well, it can be the difference in taking forever to get your new company off the ground or having to decide to close the doors.
Where many business owners run into difficulty is that marketing isn’t their strong suit, so they either throw lots of money at someone else to do it for them without really understanding what they need in terms of marketing, or they try and go it alone, which also isn’t great when this isn’t an area of expertise for them.
Marketing is definitely something that should be invested in, though it’s also something that can take a lot of time to learn to do properly, and can also be expensive, so it’s important to be able to strike a balance with it and learn to get the best of both effective and budget-friendly marketing.
So, to help you avoid some of the mistakes that many other business owners make when it comes to marketing, we’re sharing some of our top tips on effective ways to market your business on a budget:
Blogging:
If you run a business that has any kind of presence online, then blogging is something you should absolutely be including in your overall marketing plan.
Although it may take a while to see the desired results with your blogging efforts, it really is one of the best ways to get your name out there and start building trust and authority through your content.
You may feel like you have no idea where to even start with blogging, and that’s fine, because starting small and simple is really the best way forward.
Setting yourself a goal of writing one post per week, or even two per month is so much better than going straight in and trying to write 5 posts per week and then burning out because you’re not able to keep the pace.
Start with what you know people in your industry are interested in reading about and what kinds of content will help them, and keep a list of ideas that you can work from as and when needed.
Social Media:
Regardless of whether your business operates online or offline, social media is something that can help you hugely when it comes to marketing your business – especially if you’re on a budget.
When it comes to social media, you need to make sure you have a good strategy and plan in place otherwise it could work against you, but when done right, it really doesn’t have to cost anything to see results from your efforts.
Of course you can also invest in things like Facebook ads, but this should only be done when you can justify the expense and also understand how to use these properly.
In the meantime, you can post from your own business page or even create a group for your business to help you build an engaged audience who will become your customers over time as you show up consistently.
PR:
For many business owners, PR seems like something that only massive companies do in order to get their name out and market their business, but this can be a hugely effective strategy to have in place and it doesn’t need to cost an arm and a leg either.
Of course, it will always depend on your business and what you’re in need of PR for, but you could, for example, hire a local pr photographer to help you with a promotional photoshoot that you’ve arranged yourself or even just for some pictures of the product you’re planning to promote.
Events:
Although for the time being, in-person events are put on hold thanks to Covid-19, they will be back at somepoint, and are definitely something to consider using as way to market your business.
Events can also be held online, and in some cases, these are even more powerful because if you’re a small business or a solopreneur, then all you need to do is set this up from your computer and you can potentially have your business in front of thousands of new people.
Nowadays, there are so many ways to host an event for your business, from Facebook lives, webinars or even full-blown online summits where you can invite guest speakers to come and share their expertise on a particular topic.
The great thing about online events is, they really don’t cost much to host, and they’re extremely powerful, so they can definitely be effective for marketing when you’re on a budget.
We hope these tips have been useful in helping you to identify some marketing ideas for your business if you’re on a budget. Of course not all will apply to you, but it’s certainly good to have a foundation to start from.