“Advertising brings in the customers, but it is your job to keep them buying from you.” - Chet Holmes

Keep Your Digital Marketing on a Budget

As a business owner, digital marketing is the best way to connect with your customers, especially when targeting an international market. However, being the best tool comes with a cost. You’re probably aware that the initial expenses of digital marketing could be high.

You’ll need to spend on advertising, hire skilled professionals, and stay updated with the latest trends and technologies to ensure your campaigns are successful.

Many business owners dive into digital marketing because of its effectiveness but often do so without prioritizing their budget. Without proper financial planning, you might overspend on advertising and fail to generate the expected revenue.

We don’t want that here. Let me share how we plan our digital marketing to get the best results without overspending.

5 Digital Marketing Tips on a Budget for Small Business

1. Understand Your Audience

In every marketing effort, big or small, it’s crucial to understand who your audience is. If you enrolled in our six-week business course, the first module discussed it. We call it having a customer canvas.

Your audience is both your existing and new customers, whom hopefully you’ll attract with your marketing. You don’t market to anyone in the digital space. You have to study a specific group of people and identify if they can be your target market.

Who are they?

What is their interest?

Where can you find them?

How can you find them?

These may sound like simple questions without spending anything at all. You can do it yourself or ask someone with experience studying the market. There are also free online resources to understand your industry’s potential customers.

You won’t spend anything but your time. Considering your target audiences are the foundation of your marketing, at least spend time understanding who your customers are.

In that way, you can create a campaign that directly addresses their wants and needs, something relevant to their pain points, and in the end, provide solutions to their problems.

2. Leverage Social Media

After identifying and understanding your target audience, it’s time to think of which part of the vast digital space to run your campaigns. I’m sure social media is the first thing you think of in terms of digital marketing, and you’re not wrong. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok.

Half of the world’s population now has access to social media. Over 259 million users become part of it within the last year. That says a lot about the positive edge of social media in marketing.

Be where your audience is. Create a social media account for your business. Different demographics favor different platforms. Younger audiences are more active on TikTok and Instagram. Professionals prefer LinkedIn. You already know your audience. You should know where to find them.

3. Content Marketing On A Budget

There are two ways to promote your brand with social media: organically or through paid ads.

With organic campaigns, you don’t have to spend anything. Just keep your images ready for the graphic posts and captions. For beginners, use hashtags (#) to increase the visibility of your campaigns. They’re free to use. It can be keywords related to your industry, product names or services, or anything about your business for branding.

Paid ads are probably where you will first spend your digital marketing budget. Compared to organic campaigns, paid ads offer targeted reach with guaranteed impressions and clicks based on your budget.

There is usually a structured budget where you can set an amount for daily or campaign-long spending. Let’s say $1 a day for a whole week. Based on that budget, you can also see the number of your potential reach.

Can you use both hashtags and paid ads at the same time?

Yes!

But I recommend starting with organic posts. Once you establish your social media presence and are ready to connect with your audience, you can plan a perfect campaign to generate leads and increase leads.

You need to be ready before you start paid ads. You don’t want customers going to you after seeing your ads only to be disappointed because your existing social media presence doesn’t appeal to them yet. We’re on a budget so make sure every penny is well-spent.

4. SEO Basics For Small Businesses

SEO (Search Engine Optimization), is basically what helps increase the visibility of your digital marketing. This strategy mostly works with websites. The most basic part of SEO lies in keyword research or words your potential customers type in the search bar to find you.

There are several tools, mostly paid, to do this. Some offer a free trial to study the basics of how it works before going for a subscription.

Since we’re on a budget, the simple way to do this is to position yourself as your customer. When you look for a product, what exactly do you type on the search bar? Do it for your business and use it within your content, whether on your homepage, service pages, or blogs.

But it’s more than just keywords. You don’t randomly insert your keywords in your website. Each content should be relevant and helpful for your audience.

"Give them quality. That's the best kind of advertising."

— Milton Hershey

SEO is honestly but basic. It’s complex and relies on Google’s or other search engine’s algorithm, which regularly updates. It’s also a long-term strategy with results shown within 3-6 months or even a year. So, yes, it will require a significant investment, both in terms of time and resources.

5. Start with as little as $5 a day

Consider it a trial-and-error effort for your digital marketing. With a $5 allocated daily budget, you can determine if your campaigns are successful. Adjust it according to the results and gradually increase your budget once you see positive results.

You're still a small business, understandably, your steps will be small, too. That’s completely fine. What matters is you strive with continuous efforts while keeping a positive mindset to make your business better every day.

Start Your Digital Marketing With Us!

To grow your business on all platforms with a budget, join Meriflo Business Academy. It’s complete with valuable materials you need to start your digital marketing campaign, from a website, funnel, email builder, social scheduler, emails, forms and surveys, and more!

Get your 30-day free trial here.

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