One of the challenges of small business marketing is promoting your brand effectively. Larger enterprises can afford massive media campaigns to build buzz and drive web traffic, but what about you?
Fortunately, with modern digital marketing methods, you can increase your reach without breaking the bank. With that in mind, we’re going to look at the top five sneaky low-budget tactics you can try.
Why Setting a Marketing Budget Matters
One reason why small businesses struggle with digital marketing is that they don’t focus enough time, attention, and money on their advertising. Even if you don’t have a lot of funds to spend on promotion, setting a budget offers a couple of benefits, including:
- Measuring ROI – If you don’t know how much you’re spending on marketing, how can you know how much you’re making from various strategies?
- Focused Attention – Marketing success occurs when you can maintain momentum. Without a budget, it’s harder to stay focused on promotions for the long term.
Top 5 Low-Budget Marketing Tactics for Small Businesses
The great thing about these methods is that you can increase your budget incrementally as you go. So, you can start with a lean expense list and add more funds as they become available. Overall, you need a foundation upon which to build, and these five marketing tactics can help you get there.
Start a Blog on Your Website
One of the best ways to increase web traffic is to create content that people want to read and share. Blogging as a business means that you can establish yourself as an authority within your industry. The more posts you create, the more you can share them with new leads and existing customers. Over time, you can build a substantial audience and get more traffic without having to spend a ton of money on ads and lead generation.
To create an influential blog, try these tips:
- Focus On Your Niche – Specific content will appeal to your audience much more than generic blog posts. Each piece can center around a specific keyword or component of your business.
- Quality Over Quantity – Don’t create content if you have nothing to say. Yes, it’s crucial to build an archive of valuable posts, but don’t stretch yourself too thin. Instead, it’s better to make fewer high-quality pieces that can get shared over and over.
- Don’t Keyword Stuff – Too many keywords will cause Google and other search engines to lower your site’s ranking. Your pieces should feel organic and authoritative, not spammy.
Conduct an SEO Audit
Is your website as optimized as it could be? If not, now is the time to clean it up. There are tons of SEO elements to pay attention to, including meta tags, title tags, meta descriptions, and more. Fortunately, you can use an SEO auditing tool to scour your site quickly and efficiently rather than go through it page by page.
Also, keep in mind that SEO tactics can shift with new updates, so don’t take a “one and done” approach to auditing. You should do a cleanup audit at least once or twice per year.
Engage On Social Media
One of the best things about social media platforms is that you don’t have to spend a fortune to get a good ROI. While most businesses focus on ads and posts, smart brands will engage with their user base. Unfortunately, many small companies forget the “social” part of social media, meaning that they don’t like, comment, and share material from their followers.
Users will pay attention if you’re interactive on your social pages, and they’ll respond in kind. The more you engage, the more feedback you can get, and the easier it is to convert customers into brand ambassadors. Here are some tips on how to make the most of your social media presence:
- Use Groups and Forums – You can either create a group or join one related to your niche. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t focus on your business. Instead, your group should be about something specific, such as a problem that most of your users encounter regularly.
- Search For Mentions – People are talking about your brand, but do you know what they’re saying? You can search for tags and mentions with your company name to get insight into your brand reputation. Also, check for misspellings, just in case.
- Use Prizes and Giveaways – Everyone loves free stuff, and social media is an excellent way to promote a contest or giveaway. Better yet, you can have users bring new people to your page to qualify, thus expanding your network.
Do More Keyword Research
How many keywords are you ranking for right now? Regardless of the number you said, chances are it’s not big enough. Fortunately, you can use sites like Reddit, AnswerthePublic, Quora, and Ubersuggest to see what people are talking about within your niche. From there, you can focus your attention on keywords that have substantial traffic without a ton of competition.
As with SEO auditing, you need to keep up with keywords as they shift and change with consumer attitudes. A keyword that’s popular today may not be tomorrow, so you have to anticipate new trends and capitalize on them as much as possible.
Pay Attention to Online Reviews
One element that Google looks at when ranking your website is how many reviews you have online. The more people who are talking about your business, the better your position in SERPs.
While you can’t solicit positive reviews, you can make it easier for users to leave a review of your business. Also, be sure to respond to reviews (both bad and good) as much as possible. People see those responses and take notice, making them more likely to leave one of their own.
