It’s more important than ever to reach your audience in today’s highly competitive market. How can a small company compete with larger companies that have bigger marketing budgets when they are smaller? The Essential Marketing guide for Busy Business Owners. We talked to her to find out more about inexpensive marketing ideas.
You might not have the budget for marketing of big companies like Sony, Apple or Google, but that doesn’t stop you from doing big things. It doesn’t take a large marketing budget to have an impact on your target audience. Sometimes the cheapest marketing ideas are the best.
What are these affordable marketing ideas, then? How can you increase your brand awareness, drive sales, and promote your business on a budget?
We share with you five marketing ideas for small businesses that will make a big difference, no matter what your budget is.
Skyscraper high with your content
You’ll want to share your skyscraper-style content across all of your social media channels. Canva’s social graphic templates are pre-sized for each platform. This makes it simple to customize them to match your brand and content.
Content marketing is one of the most cost-effective strategies to connect with your audience and generate leads.
Content Marketing is a Win-Win. You get to share and establish your expertise in your niche and your customers can access that expertise before purchasing your product or service.
When you are good at content marketing, your customers will trust you. Your content marketing has already made them feel valued, and they are more likely to trust your product.
Marketing will not be helped by a quick blog post that does not address the issues of your customers. You need to give your audience real value if you want your content marketing to be successful.
You can use the Skyscraper Technique to identify content that is performing well and then move that content forward to achieve better results.
It’s simple. First, do some Google searches to see what content ranks at the top for your industry or the keywords that you want to rank for. You can then create content that is similar to what has been successful, but on a higher level.
You can reach out to sites that link back to the original and tell them that you’ve made something better. It’s worth the time and effort, because once you get a response, you will have many high-quality websites driving traffic to your site, which can help you improve your SEO ranking and increase your visibility.
Lead magnet content
Skyscraper content can be a powerful content marketing strategy, but it is not the only way to drive results for your company.
Lead magnets, also known as lead capture tools, are pieces of content that you give to your audience for their contact details. They are extremely effective.
Lead magnets are limitless. Lead magnets can be anything from eBooks to How-to Guides, Checklists to Worksheets, Templates to Snippet Files. Lead magnets can be anything that your audience is interested in.
The for instance, created a guide to help entrepreneurs better understand marketing as part of her promotion business strategy. This is a strategy that works for everyone. The establishes herself as an authority, her audience gains access to the resource and, most importantly, it can build up her email list of qualified leads to continue marketing.
Lead magnets are effective for all types of businesses, industries, and niches. When done correctly, they will result in an email list with customers who fit your target demographic, to whom you can continue to market for many years.
Tell your story with high-quality graphics
Chances are that the market, no matter what your industry, is crowded with competitors. You need to use visuals to make your brand stand out and attract attention.
Good design helps people absorb your message. It makes people stop and take notice. Just as a child will stare longer at a beautiful picture, a customer is more likely to spend time on a well-designed graphic or website. When you combine good branding with good design, you have a winning marketing strategy.
In the past, brands who wanted to create an impactful visual brand had to hire a designer. Or they could work with a marketing agency. This expertise is not cheap. Quality designers and agencies cost thousands every month.
Great design does not have to be expensive. If you know how to use your resources, it is possible to build a brand that stands out without spending a fortune.
Start a social media conversation
Social media advertising is a popular choice for many brands. It can be very effective but it can also be expensive.
Use social media to engage in direct communication with your customers.
Start meaningful conversations across social media platforms. Search for the questions that your customers ask on Quora, and then provide meaningful and helpful responses. Find the most active groups on Facebook in your field and become a valuable resource. Make Instagram your place to engage with your customers.
Even if your budget is tight, you can still use social media as a way to interact with your customers. The more natural conversations you have with your customers, the stronger the relationship you will build. And the more likely it is that they will want to do business.
That building relationships is the best way to improve marketing. You don’t have to always be selling. When people know you better, they will feel more comfortable purchasing from you. They’ll also recommend you to friends and customers.
The best bang for your dollar
If you want to maximize your marketing budget, you should repurpose every asset that you create, whether it’s an infographic or a lead generator.
You wrote an ebook for the purpose of generating leads. Repurpose the content as a series of blogs by breaking it up. Create a video to be used on your website. Live stream a preview of your video on Facebook to get viewers excited about the final product. Have you created a great infographic? Post it across all of your social media platforms. Pull the information out and create a blog, or add it to your site.