If you own or manage a business, you’re not alone — there are around 28 million small businesses in the country. But running a business is no small task and requires a lot of time, effort, and money. This is why it’s so important to be smart about businesses expenses, especially when it comes to marketing efforts. So let’s explore a few ways to save money on marketing for your business.
1. Outsource
While it may be more convenient to have an in-house marketing team, outsourcing can often save you money. You don’t have to train, pay salaries, or even invest in new equipment. Outsourcing your marketing efforts can be a cost-effective solution, even if it’s just short-term until you have more money to spend on marketing.
2. Utilize Influencers
There are probably thousands of influencers in your area — whether they’re on YouTube, Instagram, or another platform, you can try to reach out to local influencers to help promote your product or service. It’s important to choose someone who has a following that would be interested in your business. But by sending free products to influencers, they may promote your business and help expand your audience.
3. Pay for What Works
Most businesses have several marketing strategies in place at the same time. But sometimes, a marketing effort just simply does not work — and why should you be paying for something that isn’t working? If you’re seeing something like website bounce rate increasing by 32% because of a three-second page load time, then you need to make a change. Take a good look at your marketing strategies and figure out what is working and actually bringing in more money than it costs.
4. Go Paperless
Businesses go through a lot of paper on a daily basis. But with StopWaste.org showing that 17% of everything that’s printed is actually waste, it’s important to not be printing unnecessarily. Rather than spending a ton of money on printing flyers and signs and using paper, ink, and other equipment, it’s more cost-effective to stick to digital tactics. Unless you’re trying to hit a very small, very local audience, digital is going to help expand your reach, anyways.
5. Use Free Platforms
There are plenty of free platforms you can promote your business on — social media sites, like Instagram and Facebook, blogs, and local directories are all free and can be easily utilized. Don’t pay for platforms unless you’re positive they’re going to be worth the cost. While your marketing budget is small, make sure you’re using whatever free platforms you can.
6. Re-Use Marketing Materials
If you have bits and pieces from various marketing campaigns that seemed to work really well, don’t be afraid to use them again. While you shouldn’t necessarily copy a marketing campaign exactly, it’s perfectly fine to take pieces from some of your older campaigns. Graphics, paragraphs of copy, or promotional ideas can be used again so you don’t have to use time or money to create new pieces.
Saving money is important for any and all businesses, but especially for smaller and personal businesses. So keep these money-saving marketing tips in mind to spread brand awareness without breaking the bank.