Top 10 Budget-Friendly Marketing Strategies

Whether running a small business or thinking of launching a new venture soon, having a solid marketing strategy is essential for your small business’s success.

Launching a small Business is a whole new experience – packed with dedication, dreams, motivation and endless opportunities. Expecting your new business to grow, thrive and shine is natural. Remember that there is no secret formula or a specific strategy to take your business to new heights of success. Furthermore, you don’t need hundreds of thousands of dollars to find new customers and promote your business. You can still get the desired results and keep your business growing with a smaller budget. All you need to do is to make smarter choices and the safest decisions to drive brand growth and engagement.

Fortunately, several free digital Marketing tools, low-cost advertising techniques and strategies help startups and small businesses stand out on a budget. You can jumpstart your online marketing efforts with little knowledge, effort, and determination.

Here are some budget-friendly marketing ideas for your small business to build a robust online presence and enhanced outreach.

What is Small Business Marketing?

Small business marketing refers to adopting the best ways to advertise your products or services using tactics and tools. Small business marketing involves many steps, from understanding your target audience to creating a solid brand message, choosing the proper marketing channels, and reaching the right customers. You can always stay in front of your customers using multiple platforms and tools.

Successful marketing for a small business involves a combination of strategies – tailored to the business's unique needs, goals, and resources. It involves regular tracking and measuring all marketing processes and incorporating adjustments to ensure the efforts align with the intended outcomes and generate a positive ROI.

Why is Small Business Marketing Important?

If used well, small business marketing will be able to meet your brand’s message to prospective customers who may not be aware of your reach. Maximising marketing tools and tricks can better capture customers’ interests and grow sales. It also helps you establish an online presence and work around your product authority.

Small business marketing is essential for driving growth, acquiring and retaining customers, and staying competitive in today's dynamic marketplace. It helps businesses build brand awareness, attract leads, generate sales, and achieve business goals.

Here are a few reasons why small business marketing is essential for your small business:

• Increase online visibility and brand awareness
• Give your brand a competitive advantage
• Help acquire more customers
• Increase customer retention
• Increase revenue and growth
• Adaptation to market changes
• Building trust and credibility
• Supporting growth and expansion

10 Budget-Friendly Marketing Strategies

Adapting the online strategy and integrating the most recent digital technologies, such as AI, will be crucial in authentic connecting with people. Startups and entrepreneurs often mix traditional and digital business marketing approaches. Let’s check out some of the best marketing strategies for small businesses that you can implement cheaply to survive in the competitive digital marketplace.

1 – Influencer Marketing

It is one of small businesses' most effective and affordable marketing strategies. With influencer marketing, you can reach your target audience and build followers. However, if you think influencer marketing requires a heavy budget, think again. Well, celebrities indeed charge significant fees. Small business owners and entrepreneurs can tap into the power of influencer marketing at a low cost.

Working with micro-influencers or brand ambassadors is an excellent choice for small business owners and startups, as they are relatively affordable compared to mega-influencers. Many micro-influencers and bloggers are open to collaborations in exchange for complimentary products. If you are all set to collaborate with influencers, you must know how to find the right influencer for your business. Different influencer marketing tools can help you connect with influencers, ambassadors, and affiliates.

• Klear
• Upfluence Inc.
• Traackr, Inc.
• BuzzSumo
• Heepsy
• AspireIQ
• CreatorIQ
• GRIN
• Hypeauditor

2 – Video Content

Video is undoubtedly one of the most effective marketing strategies that create an impactful way for small businesses to connect with their audience. You can convey the brand’s message more engaging and digestibly with videos. However, many business owners hesitate to use video marketing as they have no prior experience and think it’s too complicated yet time-consuming. Many entrepreneurs believe that video is too expensive. However, this is not the case.

Investing in video content is a popular yet budget-friendly marketing strategy for your small business. Approximately 90% of online consumers said they want more video content from brands they like most. According to Video Marketing Statistics 2023, 26% of video marketers believe videos are less expensive and encourage most marketers to set aside a budget for video marketing.

Fortunately, there are many types of videos that you can use for your small business. It’s worth checking different styles of video content that you can make to promote your business.

• Product videos
• Educational videos
• How-to videos
• Social proof videos
• Behind-the-scenes videos
• Explainer videos
• Social media videos
• Video ads

3 – Blogging

According to recent blogging statistics, more than 77% of online users read blogs. Blogs are the 5^th trustworthy source to collect reliable information. Blogging is an inexpensive, budget-friendly marketing strategy for small businesses and startups. Having a clear plan and consistent execution can drive traffic to your website. The ultimate goal of a blog is to solve a problem and provide concrete value to your readers.

You only need to find topics you want to cover on your blog. When a consumer finds a topic and you have well-written, quality content on the blog, you will soon start building authority around the topic. When it comes to creating a blog for your small business, keep these tips in mind:

• Provide value by sharing how-to guides, tutorials, and tips.
• Allow guest posting on your blog to provide a variety of informative content on your blog.
• Increase readers’ engagement by allowing comments and asking questions.
• Regularly monitor and analyse your blog traffic to find out what interests your readers more.
• Attract external links from other credible online resources for your blog to boost your Google rankings.

All in all, if used correctly, blogging is a budget-friendly marketing strategy packed with several benefits.

4 – Host a Free Webinar

Believe it or not, fostering a real-time interaction with your target audience is the best small business marketing strategy that can do wonders. Hosting a free webinar is the type of event that can give you meaningful interaction with your prospects and establish a credible authority. It will help convert attendees into regular customers and help your startup reach a global audience quickly.

Whether you want to promote your product or service, educate your new customers about any particular topic, or build a meaningful relationship with your potential customers, hosting a webinar is great for your startup. The best thing about webinars is that they are an affordable and low-cost marketing tool that can help you reach a large audience without spending thousands of dollars.

Understanding the types of webinars is essential to make your online event a big hit. People don’t want to attend online events that they are not interested in; they only want to attend those webinars that increase their knowledge. Here is a list of different types of webinars; choose the one that perfectly suits your startup.

• Employee Training
• Product launch
• Educational training
• Customer webinar
• Customer Onboarding
• Fireside chat 
• Corporate Communications
• Lead Generation
• Live case studies
• Interview-based webinars
• Customer Retention and Nurturing
• Branding/Reputation Management
• Association Membership Content
• Panellist Discussion

5 – Optimise Your Website for Higher Rankings

SEO is about optimising your website to become more visible to search engines. With some extra knowledge and SEO tricks, you can increase your small business website in search engines. Remember that consumers are more likely to trust a website that ranks on the first page of search results than those that do not.

More than 53% of website traffic is generated from organic search results. A solid SEO strategy is necessary to improve your website performance and the quality of traffic it gets.

Learning how to optimise your startup website for search engines is the key to taking your website to the next level. Here are a few steps you need to follow to increase your website visibility organically:

• Use relevant keywords in your content
• Use internal linking
• Build backlinks to your website
• Write title tags and descriptions and include specific keywords
• Optimise your website loading speed for a better user experience
• Track your results with the Google Search Console
• Optimise images for SEO
• Prioritise mobile friendliness

6 – Leverage Social Media

It’s no secret that social media is the most powerful way to engage with your fans, educate customers on your products or services, and share your brand story. This type of marketing allows startups and small businesses to empower customers to share user-generated content and attract more and more customers towards your brand.

Interestingly, over 72% of brands use social media metrics to make critical business decisions. It is the right time for your startup to leverage social media platforms to reach a massive audience.

Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, X and Pinterest are the most famous social media channels you can use to promote your small business. You can partner with a digital marketing agency and learn how to build social media marketing. Depending on the product or service, you can choose the social media channel to help you reach your target audience.

7 – Invest in PPC Advertising

Yes, considering paid advertising is a great idea to supercharge your website traffic and conversions. PPC advertising is a marketing technique that allows marketers to pay a specific cost when their ads are clicked. This makes it a cost-effective marketing strategy for small businesses and helps them reach the target audience.

But what’s the point of using PPC advertising? This advertising technique is a great strategy when you want instant results.

Contrary to SEO, which takes a lot of effort and time to generate organic traffic and leads, PPC can provide immediate website traffic to your small business website. Whether it’s time to launch your new product or offer a special discount, running a PPC campaign is worthwhile to get the desired outcome.  With a PPC campaign, you can tailor your advertising to a specific group based on location, interests and demographics. This targeted approach allows marketers to show ads at the right time when users are more likely to click the ad and convert. 

Here are some easy yet practical PPC advertising tips small businesses should try:

• Start with a small campaign
• Focus on specific keywords that your potential customers are more likely to use
• Use attention-grabbing and vital action verbs in your ad copy
• Use local keywords in your ad copy to target the local market
• Use negative keywords to increase your chances of getting more relevant clicks.
• Schedule your ads to target customers when they are more likely to be online.
• Pause the PPC campaign when not needed
• Track and measure the results of your PPC campaign to refine your campaign
• Regularly review and analyse search term reports
• Perform A/B testing to check which ad copy is better   

8 – Focus on Email Marketing

It’s no wonder that email marketing is the most effective way to generate traffic to your website and build brand awareness. According to recent email marketing statistics, over 89% of marketers believe email is the best lead-generating marketing channel to help you find quality leads for your small business. Moreover, you can establish and maintain a strong customer relationship with exciting emails.

Email marketing allows you to send personalised and targeted messaging to your subscribers. This way, you can foster a sense of connection and trust, eventually increasing customer loyalty and repeat purchases.

If truth be told, email marketing is an effective and budget-friendly marketing tactic that can deliver a higher ROI due to its cost-effectiveness and personalisation effects. Many marketers find email marketing a result-driven technique for retaining customers.

There are a variety of emails ranging from welcome emails to win-back emails, cart-abandonment emails and reminder emails – emails will be one of your best low-cost marketing strategies. If you send it to your potential customers at the right time, they will likely buy your products or services.

Don’t know which email marketing platform to choose for your next email campaign? Here are some of the best email marketing platforms you can try to grow your small business:

• Mailchimp
• MailerLite
• Moosend
• GetResponse
• Constant Contact
• AWeber
• Sendinblue
• ActiveCampaign
• HubSpot

9 – Offer Coupons and Discounts

People love discounts and promotional offers. Buying products from a special sale or promotional offer determines their eagerness to invest in discounted items. For your small business, offering the best coupons and significant discounts can increase your business' profits. A good promotion campaign and discount strategy can strengthen customers' loyalty to the company and encourage them to keep returning for repeat purchases.  

Here are some significant reasons to offer huge discounts and sale offers:

• Invite more and more customers to purchase your products
• Excite existing customers to return and purchase
• Increase overall customer spend
• Build your email marketing list
• Strengthen your relationship with your customers
• Clear out your sales items by offering a coupon for the particular product

10 – Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is about creating quality and relevant content to attract, engage and convert the target audience into paying customers. It is a proven low-cost marketing strategy that can help your small business to foster a deeper relationship with your audience. Content marketing provides value to customers by offering informative and entertaining content.

Choosing a suitable medium for content marketing is the key to making the most of this budget-friendly strategy. Let’s check out some of the most popular content formats you can use for content marketing for your small business.

• Articles
• Blog posts
• White papers
• Emails
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Infographics
• Quizzes and assessments
• Webinars

It is always a great idea to experiment with all these content formats to ensure a successful content marketing strategy for your startup. Continual refinement is the best way to make your content marketing strategy more successful. Startups operating in a dynamic business environment should carefully analyse what works for their business and make data-driven decisions accordingly. Don’t hesitate to tweak your content marketing strategy to fit your audience’s interests and use more engaging content.

By executing a successful content marketing strategy, your startup will be able to meet the audience's unique needs and stand out in the crowded market. 

Concluding Thoughts

It doesn’t matter what strategy is the most popular or cheapest. Choosing the right marketing strategy only matters for your small business’s success. You may sell unique products or outstanding services, but what’s the point when no one has heard of it? Marketing your small business on a budget is challenging and requires a willingness to try different things. You can promote your small business without breaking the bank by leveraging those mentioned above budget-friendly, low-cost marketing techniques. Stay determined, engage with your target audience, and build strong relationships, and you will take your startup to a whole new level of success.

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The post Top 10 Budget-Friendly Marketing Strategies is by Stuart Crawford and appeared first on Inkbot Design.