When someone mentions the word marketing, the first thought of many is usually a TV commercial or a sponsored article – two strategies that usually cost a lot

Because of this, there is often the opinion that an effective marketing strategy necessarily requires a rather generous budget, but this does not have to be the case.

Marketing is a very broad term and there are plenty of different methods, and many of them serve precisely to increase the success of your business with a small budget.

In this blog, we will single out 5 marketing strategies that do not cost much but are effective for the growth and development of your business.

1. Marketing on social networks

People’s lives today mostly take place online, and social networks have become the center of interaction. Namely, more than half of the world’s population actively uses social networks on a daily basis, and during the past year, 44.8% of Internet users used these platforms for information about brands. So, if you want to improve the visibility of your business, you will certainly not go wrong with marketing on social networks.

This marketing strategy involves two different approaches, one of which is completely free. It is, therefore, about publishing content on different social networks. This shows that you care about the reputation of your brand, as well as the interaction with people who follow your profiles, that is, potential customers.

Publish content that your followers might find interesting and/or useful, such as blogs on your website. Also, share their good news and updates from your company or industry in general, and break up the monotony by uploading a picture or short video every now and then. It’s also good sometimes to make a poll or a status where you invite your followers to a discussion.

There is no business without customers, so it is very important to show them that you care about their opinions, needs, and questions. And, finally, never ignore the private messages that your followers send you and try to answer them as soon as possible.

Another approach is paid to advertise, and we’ll talk about it in the next item on our list.

2. PPC marketing

One of the most important factors when it comes to the success of your brand is visibility on web browsers. For that, you need a good SEO optimization strategy, especially when you aim to increase organic traffic to your website. But you can also improve online visibility through paid traffic, which is most often achieved through PPC marketing.

PPC, i.e. pay-per-click, is one of the most profitable strategies today. Basically, it’s about your ad being shown to a large number of Internet users, and you only pay for clicks on that ad, as the name suggests. Therefore, PPC marketing is a technique that costs little and pays off big, especially when you keep in mind that it can bring a return on investment of up to 200%.

You can do PPC advertising through different programs: Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Microsoft Advertising, etc. Google Ads is the most popular way, and the goal is to have your website appear as an ad at the top of the search results on Google when certain keywords/terms are typed.

In this way, you can attract the attention of web browser users and increase traffic to your website, which ultimately contributes to, among other things, brand visibility, generating qualified contacts, and increasing sales. You can achieve all this by advertising through the Microsoft Advertising program, which is generally more favorable than Google Ads, and in this case, you reach a completely new group of potential customers (those who use Microsoft Edge, Yahoo, and Xbox).

When it comes to PPC advertising on social networks, the most common way is Facebook Ads, and the main reason is that Facebook is still considered the most popular social network. An advantage worth emphasizing when it comes to Facebook Ads is that its algorithm allows you to determine the target audience based on the smallest details – behavior, location, languages, contacts, gender, age, etc.

3. E-mail marketing

Regardless of the multitude of new trends and techniques in marketing, good old e-mail marketing continues to hold the position of a cost-effective and effective strategy for connecting with customers and increasing sales. Nevertheless, it is still one of the communication channels that are in daily use, so there are high chances that customers will notice you there.

Many businesses underestimate email marketing. They consider it unprofitable because they think the tools needed for it are very expensive and the profit is little or no. However, there are many cost-effective tools available today, and research shows that as many as 80% of companies claim that email marketing improves customer retention.

In order to get the most out of e-mail marketing, it is important to research the tools and choose the one that will best suit your business and budget. It is worth noting that many of them have free versions. They have some limitations, of course, but they’re great to start with. By using the free versions, you can test the tools and their features, examine the advantages and disadvantages for your business, and build a strategy slowly but surely.

Let’s look at two examples of cost-effective email marketing tools:

Sender

The sender is one of the most popular tools for e-mail marketing, i.e. automated sending of e-mail messages. It is used by some of the world’s most famous companies and organizations, such as HP, WWF, and Pizza Hut. Sender allows you to create interesting newsletters based on available templates, and also offers options for personalizing the e-mail content. You can also see data about who opened your email, who clicked on links within it, and so on.

The free version is limited to 2,500 subscribers and allows you to send up to 15,000 emails per month, while the paid version costs $11 and up, depending on the options you want.

Mailchimp

In addition to automated sending of e-mails such as welcome messages, reminders, news, and similar, Mailchimp allows you to analyze your audience so that you can build the most effective strategy. The free version is limited to 10,000 emails per month and 2,000 subscribers, while the paid version has far more options and a starting price of $9.99.

Some other tools you can consider are HubSpot, Omnisend, SendPulse, Benchmark Email, etc.

4. Telephone conversations with clients

More than two-thirds of the world’s population actively use mobile devices, the popularity, and variety of which are growing day by day. Today, this is the easiest way to reach potential customers and build a close relationship with them, as well as ensure brand visibility. Therefore, many companies are trying to implement conversation-based strategies, such as conversational marketing.

However, one way you can take advantage of the ubiquity of mobile devices is through the traditional tactic of phone surveying. You don’t need a big budget for that.

Of course, the simplest option in today’s age is to implement a survey on your website and social networks, but you must always keep in mind who will see it, how many people will fill it in, whether it will be your target audience, what benefit you will get from that, and so on.

The advantage of surveying by phone calls is that you will reach directly to customers/customers, and those you have previously determined as part of the target audience. That way you can be sure that you are surveying the relevant people. In addition, word-of-mouth contributes much more to building a close relationship with customers/clients, and you also have the opportunity to receive additional feedback that can help you improve your business, in addition to answering the questions from the survey.

It is true that not all of those you invite will be willing to spare a few minutes to talk with you, but considering the advantages mentioned above, it is definitely worth a try. In addition, you can always leave the same survey on the website or social networks as an alternative option for those who prefer forms over phone conversations.

5. Recommendations of customers and companies

Customer recommendations can be extremely useful for your business and their importance should not be ignored. Namely, as many as 92% of consumers trust brands recommended to them by someone they know, so this is definitely one of the most profitable marketing strategies for your business.

It is important to remember that it is necessary for customers to immediately see what benefit they have from recommending you. Therefore, this strategy is based on the principle of “service for service”. After completing a successful transaction with the customer, ask him to recommend you to others in some way, and in return offer him certain benefits, e.g. coupons, free items, or a personalized discount plan.

Whether it’s through word-of-mouth referrals, online reviews, social media posts, or some other form, referrals will benefit your business.

In addition to individual recommendations, the recommendations of companies you have worked with or are working with will certainly mean a lot to you, so it is worth planning a strategy that will be somehow profitable for both parties.

Of course, not everyone will always agree to your offer, but it costs you nothing to try. In the event that a customer or company refuses to recommend you, we advise you to thank them for their cooperation and not continue with persuasion attempts, because otherwise you could damage the reputation of your brand and lose the respect and trust of those clients.

Conclusion

Misconceptions that large amounts of money are needed for successful marketing often leave businesses without hope, and eventually, the business remains at a standstill or is doomed to fail. However, with enough effort, you can even with a very small budget build a marketing strategy that will do wonders for your business, so keep in mind the methods we have listed and contact us if you want to learn about other effective techniques that do not require a large budget.

If you need help creating a cost-effective marketing strategy, Dejan Marinkovic provides services that will improve the visibility of your brand and position on the market.