Budget marketing strategies: 12 of the best

What is your favorite budget marketing idea/strategy and why? 

 To help you adopt the best marketing strategies at low cost, we asked CEOs and marketing professionals this question for their best advice. From creating an emotional connection with handwritten notes to applying the 10/10/80 rule, there are several ideas that may help you market your business effectively on a low budget. 

 Here are 12 best budget marketing strategies:

• Get Your Message Seen With Automated Handwritten Notes
• Give Away Free Products To Influencers
• Create An Unforgettable Unpacking Experience
• Adopt Text Messaging
• Connect To One Prospect Daily 
• Use Local SEO and Google My Business
• Engage Through Blogging
• Partner with Other Businesses On Social Media 
• Host Social Media Contests 
• Tap Into Your Audience With Tiktok 
• Offer Free Classes 
• Apply The 10/10/80 Rule

Get Your Message Seen with Automated Handwritten Notes

Handwritten notes are powerful tools for introducing yourself to prospects, welcoming new customers, and developing existing relationships. Not only do the forge stronger emotional bonds between you and customers, but they get opened — try finding a 99% open rate with any other tactic!  Best of all, you don't have to handwrite hundreds or thousands of handwritten notes yourself. You can leverage the same workflow automations you already use in the digital world with Simply Noted. We make authentic-feeling handwritten notes as easy to send as email. But unlike email, people will actually read what you send them! With the platform's low cost and high ROI, I can't think of a better way to reach your customers.

Rick Elmore, Simply Noted

Give Away Free Products To Influencers

Influencer marketing, in my opinion, is an enormous business. When it comes to purchase decisions, I believe the majority of consumers rely on the recommendations of social media influencers. It is no surprise that brands would spend $4.62 billion on influencer marketing by 2023. Instead of paying influencers to promote your product, a low-cost marketing strategy is to provide them with free stuff. Many bloggers have a separate PO box for press shipments. While it is not assured that the things you provide will be shared, the only expenditures you will incur are product manufacture and shipping fees, a modest price to pay if an influencer promotes your small business to their large audience. (However, if the unboxing experience is delightful, you can increase the chances of them opening your gifts.) More on that in a moment. 

 Gerrid Smith, Joy Organics

Create An Unforgettable Unpacking Experience

The unboxing experience, in my opinion, is a feasible approach to accomplish this. Every month, I believe more than 165,000 people search for "unboxing" on YouTube, with channels dedicated to unboxing experiences, such as Unbox Therapy, garnering more than 18 million subscribers. These videos are undoubtedly popular. So, if you have the flexibility to reduce your profit margin by a few dollars, go above and above to make your unboxing experience share-worthy, and believe me, it works like a charm. 

 Sumit Bansal, TrumpExcel

Adopt Text Messaging

Text messaging is a great option because most people are on their phones all the time. People can miss social media posts, emails, and print but they usually see their text messages. Text messages have to be concise so you can either give the important part of the advertisement and add a link to the rest or you can do the teaser method with the link to find out more. Both have worked for me in the past, but the important tip is to write in the voice that your audience is used to and your text marketing will have a better chance of being opened by your audience. 

 Aikyna Finch, Finch and Associates, LLC

Connect To One Prospect Daily

If you're an entrepreneur or business person in a hurry but on a budget, one of the best marketing assets you have is yourself. People value personal relationships - as the old cliche has it, “people buy from people, they don't buy from businesses.” But time is short and perhaps you don't have the funds for a marketing agency or expensive tactics like online advertising. So take 10 minutes a day and reach out to one prospective customer. You can do this on LinkedIn, by email or by phone. Find one thing that connects you to them - even something simple like a compliment about their website or a shared interest or connection - and a very brief pitch about what you think you can do to help them and then ask 'is this interesting? would you be open to a conversation about it?' In a year, you might have 240 working days so that's 240 meaningful connections a year but just 10 minutes a day. 

 Matthew Stibbe, Articulate Marketing

Use Local SEO and Google My Business 

Personally, my recommendation for a budget marketing strategy is to create a Google My Business account. The status quo we live in has us constantly checking for what we need at a hand’s reach, or in this case - a Google search’s reach. Having a Google My Business account drastically increases your credibility for your audience. It also creates a structured collection of all the information necessary for users to find you (and whenever applicable - locations are easier to find). Local SEO is one of the simplest budget marketing ideas that any startup and scaling business should make sure to maintain and keep updated, since it will without a doubt expand your reach and visibility. 

 Marco Genaro Palma, PRLab

Engage Through Blogging

Create a blog with engaging content. A blog is a great way for your target audience to get to know your brand, values, and mission as a company. This content can be informative, fun, educational, and more. The takeaway is that a blog is a budget-friendly way to engage with your customer base and allow them to learn about your products and industry. 

 Ben Hyman, revivalrugs.com

Partner with Other Businesses On Social Media

My favorite budget marketing strategy is to partner with another business on social media. These arrangements tend to be of mutual benefit since you can gain access to another organization's audience and they can tap into yours. This method tends to be a free and simple way to expand your following. Choose a non-competitor complimentary business that has a similar customer base, and ask your partner channel to cross-post and tag your handle, or use features like the add collaborator posting option. 

 Carly Hill, Virtual Holiday Party

Host Social Media Contests

A personal favorite, and almost free, marketing strategy of mine is to host social media contests. Everybody loves free giveaways and contests, especially live-streamed events on special occasions to really have mass appeal. By showing your company has a fun side, consumers will be more inclined to visit your website or explore your social media further. Best of all, minus the cost of what is given away, social media is free to use and reaches millions. 

 Kevin Callahan, Flatline Van Co.

Tap Into Your Audience With Tiktok

Leveraging TikTok to not only market your business but to create an engaged community around it. Small businesses or entrepreneurs must catch on to the fact that this social network can’t be reduced to dancing videos. There's a wide range of distinct communities and niches that have a way of reaching your target audience in a way a lot of other platforms or even traditional marketing strategies can’t. It’s one of the most cost-efficient ways to naturally grow your audience and reach potential customers. 

Follow accounts similar to your niche, see what content they post, how they interact with others, what gets the most engagement, and the kind of sounds and hashtags they use. Create your own posting schedule, and play around with it. You’ll find the algorithm does wonders. The growth you can get on TikTok is unparalleled to any other social media platform, so it really is worth trying out as a new marketing strategy. Pro tip: you can use similar ideas for Instagram’s new Reels feature. 

 Nicole Ostrowska, Zety

Offer Free Classes

My favorite marketing strategy is to offer a video class or tutorial on a subject for free. You promote it on social media and offer your products or services at the end of it. I tied it into my website and it boosted sales. The replay was the gift that kept on giving as it drew more people to watch over time. 

 Jessica Tasios, Ora Dental

Apply The 10/10/80 Rule

My favorite budget idea is a very simple one and that's why I love it. It's the 10/10/80 rule and it can be applied to business or personal budgets. You save 10 percent of revenue, invest 10 percent into something new for the business and use the remaining 80 percent for operations including salaries, your pay, and the rest of the bills. 

 If you follow this plan, you will always have money in savings, will always be creating moving your business into new areas with new products, marketing, or expansion, and will always remain balanced in paying your bills. 

 Bruce Tasios, Tasios Orthodontics   

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