Marketing is one of the biggest costs in the average business budget. It’s entirely possible to spend between 10% and 20% of your annual revenue on promotion tactics alone. And when you’re a small business with an equally small budget, that’s simultaneously both a lot of money and not much at all!

And that means getting your marketing wrong can have a very deep impact. You don’t have a lot to work with, and you’ve got some pretty big goals in mind. Can you actually make the two work together in the long run? 

It’s complicated. For one thing, your goals need to be realistic enough for you to hit. For another, your marketing budget can only get bigger if your original campaigns are a success. 

Does that sound like a lot to handle to you? It does to us too! That's why we’ve made a list of the best practices for making use of a small marketing budget for you to read through. Even if you’ve got less than $1000 to spend on marketing this year, you should be able to apply the tips below in a successful way. 

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Define Your Goals and Your Budget as Clearly as Possible

Goals help us by giving us something to aim for. In business, you should be setting goals for all kinds of things, including your marketing. But when your budget is small and limited, you need to know what they are without any room for query or quibble. 

You don’t have any money to waste here. You don’t have much ability to try one thing and then move on to something else when it isn’t quite working. You need to have a proper definition of what you’re trying to achieve and how you’re planning to get there. 

Factor in your budget as you make this goal list. If you can outline ahead of time what a certain move is likely to cost you, you can add up how far your budget is going to go before it’s been spent. 

Really, you’re giving yourself a chance to spot funding issues before they crop up, and you should never underestimate just how essential that kind of knowledge is. 

Guest post as Much as Possible

Guest posting is all about getting your name in relevant places, accompanying work that shows you for the authority you are, and then having a link just below your name for readers to find out more. 

If you’re working with a small marketing budget, guest posting is one of the safest routes for catching the attention of your audience. After all, you’re already working with an influential figure who shares the same audience, and they’re more than willing to provide a little bit of space for you to showcase your expertise. 

90% of the time, guest posting is free. You may even be paid for your post by the website you’re posting on, and that definitely helps to build up your marketing budget at this early stage. If they require a fee, take some time to decide if it’s worth it. 

Only Pay for Advertising When it’s Likely to Work

If you create a piece of content, whether it’s a short-form video, a blog post, or a podcast episode, and it does well, feel free to spend on advertising for it. 

You can do this via the platform it was posted on in the first place, or you can pay for sponsored placements on other platforms. 

For example, a social media post can easily be ‘boosted’ on its native platform, but you can also create a post linking to a blog article you’re proud of and advertise that as well. 

And how do you know the advertising you’re forking out for has a higher chance of bringing in a return? Because you’re promoting something that’s already received a good response. 

Your audience has already engaged with it and found it relevant, interesting, and informative. Now you’re just pushing it out to a larger portion of this audience so they can connect with it too. 

Stay Local

When you have a small budget, it’s often best to focus your efforts on the immediate area around your business. 

People get a lot of success from staying local, as it allows them to interact in person, provide a proper face-to-face interaction, and it’s ten times more likely to get you recognised for the good service you provide too. 

And when you’re just starting out, you can ask your family, friends, neighbours, and even coworkers to help you get the word out. 

These people already know and trust you, and they’ll be able to impart this impression onto other people in the area who know and trust them. Word of mouth is most effective when we actually are acquainted with the person passing on the review. 

On top of this, you can turn to the online world to grow your local visibility in effective, low cost ways too. Creating content that focuses on how you can help the local area is one great tactic, but you can also sign up for a Google Business Profile. 

Now, if anyone in the area or region looks for a product or service like yours, your website is in the right place to become a top choice. 

Have You Got a Small Marketing Budget?

Small marketing budgets may sound like a problem - and they certainly can be - but they aren’t immediate barriers to your advertising success. You can still get your business out there and make your name more recognisable in the eyes of your audience. 

You’ve just got to be more careful than most in how you go about it. Mistakes happen in any and all marketing strategies, but your room to make them is far narrower. 

Try to eliminate them from the get go by testing beforehand, investing your time and effort into free avenues of promotion, and being as consistent as possible with your online content. 

With inputs from agencies

Image Source: Multiple agencies

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