To state the obvious - every business needs marketing. Having said that, not every business can afford the various types of marketing that are on offer. Television ads are extremely expensive and have proven not to have a high return on investment (ROI). To achieve a higher ROI, you will have to turn to other tactics. But your overall marketing strategy does not need to change at all, just apply it to the word of digital advertising.
Let me clarify this.
According to this study by Forrester Research, marketers who want to make a switch from traditional advertising to digital will need to allocate only 10% of the overall B2B advertising budget for digital advertising. And digital can bring you so much more.
Social Media
If you are looking to save hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing, you should try immersing yourself in the world of social media. A great example of this is Cisco. They did not use traditional channels to market their new product, rather they used social media to save a staggering $100,000! Here’s what you can do with social media:
● Share company updates and news with your followers
● Give instant support and feedback to customers
● Create meaningful connections and partnerships with other brands and digital influencers
● Imitate traditional marketing by sharing news and unique content
And much, much more. When you activate your followers, they will act as your brand ambassadors and share your content, thus increasing your efficiency and digital reach. But you have to pay attention not to be a spammer because that plan might backfire.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is one of the most important factors in the digital world when it comes to spreading your brand all across internet and making it easy-to- find. SEO can help with attaining new customers by optimizing your website and content in a way that it ends up in front of the person searching for their relevant keywords.
Here are some of the free and affordable SEO techniques that you can start employing right now:
● Write all of your website content by having in mind all the correct keywords that the users are searching for.
● Use a plugin to help you with your on-site efforts. Yoast SEO, for example, is a great Wordpress addon that can help you to optimize your meta descriptions, headings, and much more.
● Invest in a link building tool that can help you to connect your website to other influential sites in your niche. This is off-page SEO and is most commonly executed through guest blogging in the goal of acquiring high-quality backlinks.
Other technicalities that you need to pay attention to is the user experience of your website, its load-speed, adaptability across mobile devices, fixing of the broken links to avoid being penalized by Google, etc.
Referrals
Of course, acquiring new customers should be a priority, but that can be achieved in more ways than one. If you focus on growing your network through your existing clients by giving them benefits for referrals, you might just hit it big.
Namely, only 39% of marketers use referral marketing on a regular basis, and the other 41% percent has seen a 35% increase in new customers. For example, Dropbox had their client base increase by 60% only because they created a referral program.
When someone refers their friend to your business, product or services, it is not just the referral that matters, nor the freebies you give them or anything of that sort. The importance lies in the fact that someone has put their digital reputation on the line by recommending you and if you keep that reputation intact, you will have 2 satisfied users who will keep returning for more and keep referring your business or product.
Put the users, leads, prospect, however you want to call them - first. Put them first because they will build your business for you. But remember, you have to offer them something in return.
Tip Of The Digital Marketing Iceberg
This post is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to saving money on advertising through digital channels. Think of it this way - once, we had radio and television, whereas now, we have television and the internet. Television is the radio of today - you switch through hundreds of channels and the commercials are bothering you, content is low-quality and basically it seems as though the medium is dying off.
Do Digital
Internet is the television of today, and all of its channels and like the television channels. YouTube Marketing is a perfect example of the evolution of TV advertising.
Find the digital platforms that appeal to your target audience and start engaging with these prospects regularly. You will see how this is much better than spending a small fortune on traditional marketing.
I hope you enjoyed this article about methods to save money on marketing for your small business or startup with digital advertising.
Interested in more articles about frugal marketing and digital advertising?
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