Growing a small business is more a marathon than a sprint; long-term growth is only achievable when you learn to adapt your strategies to your company’s cycles. Unlike large corporations with near-limitless marketing budgets, small businesses often have to stretch their resources thin or forgo marketing altogether.
Enter low-budget marketing. Despite its cheap connotation, low-budget marketing can be quite effective without involving bottom-of-the-barrel tactics. Here are some low-cost marketing ideas that could offer immense ROIs for your business.
Content Marketing
Did you know that content marketing could cost up to 62% less than traditional forms of digital marketing while generating up to three times as many leads? The beauty of content marketing is that even the most ad-averse Internet users might be willing to check your content if it meets their needs.
For instance, blog content – the most common content marketing strategy – is informative, engaging and will cost almost nothing if you do it yourself. Even if you pay a dedicated blog writer, the potential upsides far outweigh the costs. Other forms of content marketing you should consider include instructional videos, e-books, sale announcements and white papers.
Referral Marketing
Nothing beats the goodwill of satisfied, repeat customers. Encouraging your existing customers to spread the word about your business is arguably the cheapest and easiest marketing strategy. What’s more, you will likely land highly qualified leads at below-average acquisition costs than if you acquired them on your own.
Social Media
Marketing on popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter has proven to be very effective. Nevertheless, it takes plenty of time and effort to build an online community, let alone a sizable audience interested in your brand.
A good workaround for this issue is investing in paid ads, and what better way to extract maximum value from your advertising budget than through an advertising agency. Media buying agencies, in particular, can eliminate all the guesswork from your paid marketing campaigns. They can offer you an unbiased perspective of your marketing strategy and reach the biggest target audience possible at the lowest cost.
Affiliate Programs
If you wish to market your business without incurring any advertising costs, look no further than affiliate marketing. Most affiliate marketers take the form of bloggers, content publishers and influencers. By incentivizing your affiliate programs through handsome payouts per lead or sale, you can acquire cheap, high-quality leads and boost your sales tremendously. Plus, you only reward your affiliates for successful conversions.
Final Thoughts
Even on the most modest of budgets, small business owners are spoilt for choice on what to include in their marketing plans. By using multiple affordable strategies that target different sections of your marketing funnel, you can attract repeat customers, build cash flow to reinvest in your marketing and hasten your company’s growth.