As a small business, you don’t need me to tell you how hard it is to ensure you’re managing and spending your budget correctly and in a way that gives you the best results. This is especially important when it comes to your marketing budget because if you spend it in the wrong way, that could be a huge amount of money lost.
With all this in mind, today, we’re going to explore five key ways you can look at your marketing budget while prioritizing and managing it the right way to deliver the best results. Let’s get straight into it!
1) DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS GOALS
Easily the best way to think about managing your marketing budget is to define what your business goals are and what kind of things you want to achieve. A lot of businesses would say ‘well, I want to reach as many people as possible to maximize my number of sales’, but is that really what your business wants to do?
Nowadays, the smartest business decisions are data-based, so take time to address and define your target market. Have specific goals, like the demographic you want to connect with, how many sales you want to make, and what kind of social media growth you want.
Be specific and concise for the best results that you can work with, rather than just shooting into the dark randomly while hoping to hit something.
2) MAKE THE MOST OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Alongside your goals, you need to make sure you’re using social media within your marketing tactics and strategy. Yes, you’ll need to invest money into these platforms through ads and content production, but you need to ensure this happens so you can acquire the data to help you make smarter decisions down the line.
“There are also free ways you can utilize social media, such as interacting with your audience, running competitions, and advertising events like promotions, discounts, and sales, which can help to grow your audience, give you more data and boost your reach,” says Tina Harper, a tech blogger at Originwritings and Academicbrits.
3) STRETCH YOUR BUDGET WITH INEXPENSIVE CONTENT
Sure, video marketing content is big business, and there’s no denying that video content is king, but if you have a small budget and spend 90% of it on one video, you’re not going to be able to diversify your content types, and you’ll be limiting yourself greatly as to what you can achieve.
Let’s be real, most people, read ‘all’ people, hate ads. Most people skip over them and ignore them, or proactively get rid of them with an ad blocker. Instead, produce content that people can connect with and enjoy, whether that’s entertaining them or educating them.
“For the price of one video, you could create so many blogs that can help you reach so many more people in so many more ways. This way, you also have room to experiment with what works, what doesn’t, and explore new ideas you come across along the way” shares Darren Brown, a business writer at 1day2write and PhDKingdom.
4) COLLABORATE TO MAXIMIZE AUDIENCE REACH
Collaboration is one of the best ways for a business to expand and grow its audience, and there are plenty of ways you can do this. Whether you’re partnering with influencers or bigger businesses, the experience of partnership can be invaluable, and you can maximize your budget.
This is because you’ll be spending less on content, and you’ve already got a guaranteed audience you’ll be reaching with the content you do produce. Working with charities and moral causes can be a great way to boost your PR while making a positive difference in the world.
5) GET INVOLVED WITH EMAIL MARKETING
We’ve spoken a lot about ads and social media, but don’t forget that email marketing is king. Try to avoid direct mail where you can because it averagely costs around 100 times more. There’s no denying that email marketing works, and the earlier you invest in it, the quicker you can grow and the more impact this will have on your overall marketing strategy.
