If you’re like most small business owners, you’ve got a hefty list of goals to achieve with very little to spend. By the time you’ve covered your expenses, there may not be much of a marketing budget left over.
Luckily there are ways to stretch a marketing budget further. Follow the five guidelines below to ensure you get the most bang for your buck when maximizing your marketing budget.
Develop an overall strategy.
Before you start spending that dedicated ad budget, take a step back to ensure your tactics are part of a big-picture marketing strategy. And if they’re not—it’s time to create one. There needs to be a process like anything you would approach with a limited budget. There is a lot to consider, starting with:
- Your location
- Segmentation of your customers
- Creating buyer personas
- Targeting and position
- Promotional tactics
- Monitoring and evaluation
Not to mention the time you’d spend price matching and considering how these pieces will work together! Even doing something as minor as posting to your Facebook page can waste marketing dollars without a solid strategy. Neglecting to flesh out your corporate voice, your target audience, and social media goals first—you’re wasting valuable time. Deciding upon these factors before posting will help you determine which content to share and how often.
Hone in on your target audience.
If you’ve spent time developing customer personas for your business, you’ve probably identified the one(s) who are most likely to purchase your products or services. It’s a worthwhile investment to spend considerable time researching this group. In doing so, you’ll reach and connect with potential customers more effectively and hopefully bring in the most ROI.
By considering their overall lifestyle, values, and buying habits, you’ll develop a marketing strategy to grab their attention, relate to them personally, and, ultimately, fulfill their needs with your product or service. It’s best to spend your precious time and energy on the lowest hanging fruit—don’t waste it on those who are less likely to buy from you.
PRO TIP: Creating a content calendar is crucial for your marketing strategy. Click for ideas on how to create one in four steps.
Prioritize your keywords.
Every company has a list of terms that closely relate to their business—these are keywords you’ll want to utilize. Keywords are critical, whether investing in a long-term content marketing strategy for organic search or hoping to be found quickly via pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns.
Developing a prioritized list of keywords will give you a great idea of where to start spending time writing quality content for your site. And rather than putting your dollars toward a slew of keywords in PPC, you’ll know which ones to expand on—only those most essential for your business. A highly targeted PPC strategy is most likely to result in the acquisition of natural, converting customers. One of our least favorite jobs as marketers is telling clients their budget isn’t high enough for their long list of keywords.
Do your research.
If any of your customers are purchasing online and you don’t know where they’re coming from—there’s no excuse. The amount of information available in tracking tools, such as Google Analytics, is overwhelming. We’re talking data and numbers here:
- Percentage of new vs. repeat customers
- Highest ranked pages, most visited pages
- Highest traffic days/times
- Most popular search terms
- Most popular social media/other referral pages
Not to mention the data related to your site’s visitors. You can find out:
- The average time spent on your overall site and specific pages
- Bounce rates
- The most popular devices used
- Geographical locations
- And even user behavior flow (the order of pages they visited on your site and which page they exited on)
Measure your data.
You can also measure specific data in your other marketing efforts, such as social media and email campaigns. Take advantage of any metrics offered by providers, like Facebook Insights, and note your most popular content. You can often identify the best type of content to share and when to share just by keeping track of this valuable information.
As a local marketing agency, one of our primary goals is to provide the best ROI for our clients. If you’re having trouble meeting your goals or just don’t know where to start, let Sage Island take control of your marketing budget. Our savvy team of account managers, designers, programmers, and writers can help ensure your dollars are put to good use.