Whether you’re a brand-new company or simply looking to expand your existing business, marketing can get pretty costly. On average, businesses spend nearly as 7-8% of gross revenue on marketing.
Let’s face it, one of the most important aspects of running a prosperous business is marketing your products or services. Without promoting your business, you won’t be able to increase brand awareness and acquire new customers.
But even though marketing your business is vital, you should be careful that you aren’t overspending on marketing costs. If you’re devoting a large amount of money to marketing projects that aren’t earning your substantial sales, then you might want to consider this….
For affiliate marketers, it can be difficult to find the balance between investing in marketing efforts and being frugal so that they can afford other necessary operational expenses.
Don’t fret, though. It is possible to cut down your marketing budget without sacrificing the quality of your marketing initiatives. In this post, we’ll provide you with a clear strategy so that you can determine which marketing costs you should cut from your budget while providing free or low-cost ideas to replace them with.
Target the Right Customers
It doesn’t just cost money to acquire new customers, but to actually retain them as well, right? Study your customers’ behavior and find ways how to make them stay. Use tracking and create promotional offers that will persuade them of buying your other products. Taking the opportunity to upsell is crucial to your business success.
The more you track, the more you’ll learn. The best bang for your buck is going to come from targeting customers that have already bought from your company (preferably more than once). When you focus your budget to those that are actually buying what you have to offer instead of the higher maintenance customers that cost a fortune to get their wallet open, you’ll see a big difference in your ROI.
Start with the Easy Cuts
We know that narrowing your marketing expenses can be challenging. But if you’re ready to reduce your marketing spend, start with the projects that aren’t producing sales. It might be disappointing to admit that a bright idea didn’t perform the way that you had anticipated, but it is better to accept defeat and save your business’s money.
Whether this is paid social campaigns that aren’t receiving clicks or print ads that aren’t generating leads, you should rid yourself of these projects.
Use Google Analytics or any of the platform-specific analytics programs like Clickmagick to determine which marketing schemes are low producers so that they can be the first to go. You’ll be better off making the easy cut firsts and using this money for other areas of your business, such as inventory, bills, and other necessities.
Distribute your Marketing Campaign across Different Mediums
If you haven’t brought your content marketing to the next level, you need to! Content marketing is one of the fastest growing ways to reach your target audience. But remember, it’s not all about pumping out blog post after blog post.
Consider diversifying the way in which you deliver content so your readers can consume it in different ways. Whether it’s turning a series of blog posts into an eBook or creating Facebook posts that recap the most important talking points, repurposing your content for distribution across multiple mediums will help to save you money.
Make the most out of the FREE Tools
Thanks to this modern day technology, there are dozens of marketing tools that are available to use. And the good thing is, they usually comes FREE. One of the best ways to make the most of your marketing budget is by learning more about your target audience.
Website analytics should be the bread and butter, capable of providing your business with valuable information that you can exploit to create more effective marketing campaigns. On top of that, utilize keyword tools, social media, retargeting and targeted ads to optimize your strategies for the best results.
Once you have the content squared away, there are plenty of free stock photos and design tools that you can use to create stunning images for you to create traffic generating views.
Encourage Your Customers To Generate Word-of-Mouth Referrals
If you’re cutting down your marketing budget, another effective marketing strategy is word-of-mouth referrals. You can do this by forming strong relationships with your customers. This should always be a priority, as your small business cannot survive without loyal customers who believe in your company.
There are many simple ways that you can get to know your customers and get their insights, such as creating a loyalty program or offering discounts for referrals. You could also hold a contest or giveaway with a prize on your Facebook page in which participants must get the most amount of likes on their post submission to win.
Wrap Up
Cutting your marketing spend is never easy. The process of reducing your marketing initiatives and having it negatively affect the success of your business can be frustrating. Hopefully with this guide, you were able to get some ideas and ways to save money and increase the efficiency of your marketing strategies. By being careful about the tactics and tools you use, you’ll be able to better control your spending and stretch your dollars the furthest. It is important to remember that your business’s needs will fluctuate over time. Your current marketing budget does not have to be permanent; if you get rid of an initiative, you can always reintroduce it into your budget down the line. Whichever cuts you decide to take, make sure that you’re investing wisely in your business’s marketing!