One thing that delineates a company from key industry players is an operative marketing strategy. Setting up brand identity takes showcasing the product or service you offer. This includes both traditional and modern marketing techniques, including ways to start online marketing campaign.

In recent years, more brands turn to martech or digital marketing as their main strategy to endorse brand awareness. In fact, a whopping 44% digital marketing growth in United States and Britain last year alone was noted. As global spending approaches $100 billion, it’s high time to delve on martech for your brand, too.

It’s understandable if you hesitate on switching up marketing techniques. However, digital doesn’t always mean expensive. Low budget marketing is possible if you know the facets of online promotion.

How To Start Online Marketing Campaign

Digital marketing is really diverse and is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Like any campaign, you have to perform initial steps to come up with a customized strategy tailored to fit the brand.

1. Outlining your goals

A company cannot flourish without a goal. It shapes up your entire online marketing efforts, so it’s the fitting first step.

You may have heard of SMART goals, which means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. This means that your vision should be achievable and on time. For instance, you aim to increase the campaign’s conversion rate to 50% in the next three months. This means that out of the readers you tap, half of them should become leads.

2. Choosing your targets

There are two phases in this step: determining your target audience and choosing where you are going to distribute your marketing materials. Which group do you want the brand to appeal to? It could be by demographics, online behavior and other metrics that you think would work best.

When you have chosen your ideal customer, you have to determine the appropriate channels where you can connect with them in an instant. For example, if your prospects are millennials then you should definitely use social networking sites.

You may want to consider performing market research to obtain precise data you can base on.

3. Determining the budget

There’s no standard value for the marketing budget due to variables like industry type and business size. On average, businesses can spend around 7-8% of their gross revenue on marketing. New companies can cut as high as 12-20% off their revenue.

Since marketing is an umbrella term, you’d have to cover factors such as content, branding, advertising, website and social media networking profiles, among others. Now some may say 50% of the budget should go to digital approaches, but cheap marketing campaign can be done online.

3. Creating the content

What is promotion without content? The heart and soul of any marketing campaign are excellent content. This will define your brand’s mark. It is a powerful tool that sets your identity in stone and aids in generating leads for you.

You can write it yourself, or outsource to a freelancing agency so you can concentrate on other business matters. Just make sure that every content you put out is consistent with your brand’s voice.

4. Distributing content and monitoring them

You have to be prompt in distributing content since the online platform does not sleep. Whether these are forums, blogs or emails, timing your delivery to target channels is crucial.

It also follows that you monitor your tactics and ensure that they remain operative and consistent. You have to be flexible since trends and buying preferences are ever changing. You should be available to answer any queries from prospects. Being active online is as good as ensuring you don’t miss out on leads.

Planning Your Marketing Budget

It’s easy to set a marketing budget without basis, but that’s tantamount to splurging. A wise businessperson would set a realistic financial plan within the set limits. Remember, it involves both traditional and digital aspects, so you have to allocate accordingly.

Basically, you will come up with the right budget only when you’ve fixed the other aspects in place. What comes after goal setting is allocating the total allowable spending for advertising. This big number varies greatly and depends on factors such as your industry, company size, and brand awareness.

Budget allocation is perhaps the most complicated part, especially for new businesses and existing companies starting a new approach. You have to weigh in the categories that need attention. Is it paid advertising? Website development? Branding? Content creation? Whichever strategy you deem necessary, include it in the allocation.

How To Start Online Advertising For Less

Companies starting from scratch might have limited financial resources. However, there are so many low budget marketing strategies out there. You just have to find which ones work for you.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is an effective tactic for businesses of any size. You need to make relevant, consistent and sensible content people relate to. Content creation can help you save up a few bucks because there are so many distribution channels to use. Most of these resources don’t even require steep fees.

Email Marketing

Be aware of the power email marketing holds. It’s one of the most cost-effective techniques in online advertising. It’s a direct way of nurturing leads and building a lasting relationship with them. An email listing should be your priority in achieving a cheap marketing campaign.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a budding technique you definitely need to delve in. Spend time in curating your brand’s profile page, since most people check out a company’s social media during the buying process. It’s free to register to user-heavy sites like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Your social media profile can easily drive traffic to your website if it’s visually attracting and informative to prospects.

Link-Building

SEO is indispensable in digital marketing. Blog posting and article sharing comprise a big chunk of it, but don’t forget to build links to your company site. This is when trusted and authoritative websites create links redirecting to your website’s landing page. Quality and quantity of links both matter and will ultimately improve your brand SERP ranking.

Optimizing Your Online Marketing Budget

If you are low on FUNDS, there are ways to maximize the digital marketing allocation you can afford.

Highlight the methods that work

You can implement all the low budget marketing tactics, but not all of them would work on the same level. Once you determine which one generates leads more effectively and funnels to higher conversion rates, focus on it. Allocate more to it because it will surely yield more favorable results.

Take control of your budget

Not all approaches allow full control of how much is spent and how often. Shift your focus and budget on platforms that give free rein on how you market the brand. For example, using Facebook ads can be more lucrative than spreading the budget thin on multiple platforms.

Scale only when it’s profitable

It’s okay to be ambitious, but when it comes to marketing on a tight budget, it is better to be modest. Start online marketing campaign on a small scale, and if you can see an improvement in sales, then you can work on expanding. This is to ensure that you do not hurt your ROI and incur more loss than gain.

Treat marketing techniques equally

Even if you can market in some sites for free, it does not mean that you prioritize it less than your paid channels. Every effort you make in digital marketing counts. Don’t ignore platforms like Instagram or Twitter, because these sites can help you drive traffic at the same rate as paid advertising.

Cross-channel remarketing

Another smart way to optimize your campaign budget is to remarket but on different platforms. For example, if a user clicked on your Facebook ad but did not become a customer, you can retarget them by placing ads on other channels. This increases the chance for lead conversion and boosts your campaign effectiveness.

Cheap Marketing Campaign Tips And Tricks

Publish content and make it well: Online users only take a few seconds to form an impression. You only have a small window of opportunity to engage them. Put out interesting, creative and informational content that they can use in real life.

Instructional videos are valuable in martech: A tutorial for your product or service can pique the interest of users, and can potentially encourage them to buy from your brand.

Be a social networker: Take time to create social media accounts for your brand. You can also hire a branding agency to do this, but if you’re short on resources, making one yourself is a start.

Navigate your way in Reddit: This site is a landmine for savvy users. If they stumble upon your content and like what you publish, you’re likely to gain valuable user-generated content from them.

Make Infographics: Another visual tool that reels people in is infographics. These are challenging to make, but ultimately rewarding in referral traffic and backlinks. They make information simple to digest so they are shared easily, too.

Update your content: Who says recycling can’t be done in online marketing? Your outdated content sometimes just needs updating to keep up with trends and the time. Make the effort to edit and republish with more relevant facts.

Customer referral programs: Encouraging your existing customers to bring in new clients by offering them freebies (free product or service for a limited time). Word-of-mouth advertising is still effective, and can now be done in social media as well.

Build meaningful partnerships: Industry competitors can actually help you launch a successful (and cheaper) online campaign. This can help you both meet a new audience within your niche.

Run contests: Social media is a wide-reaching platform, and holding contests in it can create a boom on your marketing efforts. It’s a great way to engage more people to your brand.

Venture in guest blogging: Putting up blogs on your site is a must, but it does not mean that your long form content should stay there. Guest blogging on different sites can help you reach a new audience. Always make sure that your published content is consistent with your brand voice and is of good quality.

Marketing Your Business Online For Free

Here are free ways to make the most out of online marketing campaign.

• Email data capturing from web visitors
• Email marketing
• Facebook posts
• Talk to Twitter experts and users
• Video marketing
• Instagram curation
• Network building in LinkedIn
• User-generated content (forums, reviews, testimonials, etc.)
• Social influencer engagement
• Monitor marketing strategies in Google Analytics
• Get involved in online discussions
• Offer customer service online
• Content creation
• SEO and keyword research

There are so many reasons to opt for digital marketing, and you don’t have to pay exorbitant amounts to succeed. By implementing the ways to start online marketing campaign, your transformative marketing will help you conquer the online platform.

Helpful Resources:

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2. 16 Best Free SEO WordPress plugins for your Blogs & websites in [2019]

3. 5 Hottest Social Media trends that are must watch in [2019]

4. 5 Successful SEO Link Building Strategies

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6. How Can You Improve The Web Ranking For Your Website?