Do you have a tight budget – or even zero budget – for your next marketing milestone? That’s OK. We have all been there.
Marketing agencies often avoid small businesses with limited resources, but that doesn’t mean you have no options. Whether your sales funnel is B2C or B2B, all you need is a good marketing strategy and a solid understanding of your market.
I have worked as a marketing strategist for over ten different businesses, and I can say one thing with certainty: a lack of strategy always leads to unnecessary expenses.
Before you invest effort and resources in marketing, make sure you understand:
- your product-market fit hypothesis,
- your target customers’ needs,
- your business goals.
Then align these with your brand and positioning. When you start building your strategy, analyse the following.
Your target audience
- Who are your ideal customers?
- Where do they hang out and take in information?
- How do they interact with your business solutions or products?
- Why do they need them?
- When do they think of them?
- What problems do they have, and how do they describe those problems?
- How can you reach them?
Your business goals
Analyse your authentic, performance-oriented goals. Think about your mission and motto and your expectations for growth. Ask yourself: does your marketing strategy match your actual stage of business development? And does your marketing budget reflect your business needs?
Capacity
Define your and your team’s capacity: expertise and time. Prepare your team and tools, and work out what they will cost.
Marketers have identified some 19 channels you can choose from. Each requires its own strategy, techniques and tools, but all of them do one thing: grab your target customers’ attention.
Which marketing channels to avoid on a small budget
First, let’s break down the traditional options we recommend skipping if money is tight.
Public relations
The main goal of PR is to increase positive exposure for a business or brand. That is helpful, but it also demands long-term investment in relationship building, which does not necessarily convert into sales. PR is time-consuming and typically needs at least one full-time specialist, which small businesses often can’t afford.
Offline ads: newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards, posters, vehicle commercials
Outdoor ads are good for promoting your brand to hundreds or thousands of people at once, but they do a poor job of targeting specific people. They repeat your message to anyone passing on a road, riding the subway, watching TV or listening to the radio.
Ask yourself: how many of your target customers pass the sign you paid so much for? How many read the magazine where you placed an ad – and how many of those will stop to read it?
Another reason to avoid them is that purchase intent is too far removed from the audience. People who see offline ads are rarely moved to buy immediately. Through repeated exposure they may grow more favourable to your offer over time, but that is a costly route to take.
Trade shows
A Harvard Business Review article from the 1990s called trade shows a “necessary evil”, and not much has changed since. They are expensive and need lots of preparation time and connections to pay off.
Want a second opinion on your marketing plan? Book a consultation.