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When you run a business, marketing should be considered an investment rather than an expense that you can do without. Without good marketing, you’re not going to be able to make the profits that you need not only to merely survive but to grow as a business as well. Do your marketing in the right way, and you’ll find that any money you put into the budget will come back to you with a good return, allowing you to then increase your budget and continue to grow.
However, this might be challenging at the start because you may not have a lot of money to spare. This is why having a marketing budget is important, to begin with, and why that budget needs to be used to its full advantage. Only when you do this will you see the growth that you need. Read on to find out some of the ways you can maximize your marketing budget and help you reach your ultimate business goals.
Use Complementary Strategies
If you only focus on one aspect of your marketing at a time, it will always be a lot more expensive than if you endeavor to combine strategies where possible. This is why you need to look at your marketing campaign as a whole, rather than as smaller parts, even though this is the right strategy to employ in most other areas of your business (and your life, in fact).
We mean that instead of using two separate strategies that each cost money individually, you can find one strategy that links the two ideas and only have to pay for one marketing route. These strategies need to be complementary for the idea to make sense and be cost-effective. For example, your strategy of blogging regularly could be combined with SEO, ensuring that you are noticed in search results. Your thoughts about a newsletter could combine with your social media posts. By combining as many ideas as possible to get to the same overall result, you’ll be able to fully maximize your budget.
Stop What Isn’t Working
The idea that when something isn’t working (in the case of marketing, that is, if it isn’t bringing a return on your investment by enticing more customers and ensuring more sales and therefore bigger profits), you should stop doing it makes a lot of sense. However, many business owners are not happy to ditch any campaigns that aren’t working. There are a number of reasons for this.
The biggest reason is that they simply don’t know that the idea isn’t working because they are not measuring the results. Unless you check to see what areas of your marketing are working and which aren’t, you’ll never know where you are wasting money and investing wisely. Always test and measure any campaign and if you find it’s not working, stop using it, as it’s a waste of money. If something is working, continue with it, but keep testing, and the moment you see it’s no longer bringing in sales, change it for something else.
Another reason why entrepreneurs can be reluctant to stop doing something or even make changes because they don’t want to admit to having made a mistake or wasted money. However, as much as your pride might tell you to keep going, the truth is that a good business owner will understand that mistakes happen and that it’s how they are dealt with that makes the difference. Knowing enough and being confident to change what needs to be changed makes for a much better entrepreneur than one who keeps charging forward out of embarrassment.
Use Your Skills
You might not have skills in marketing specifically, but you will have skills in a variety of different areas. Whether you attended college and gained an MBA, or you have an MA in education, or you never went to school and instead you learned everything first hand, there will be skills, talents, and information you will have collected as you went along.
When it comes to marketing, any and all of these skills could be important. It will depend on exactly what strategy you are employing as to what knowledge is required, but at some point, you are sure to know something that will help you. The more you can use your own skills, the less you’ll need to rely on others, and this will save you potentially a great deal of money. Of course, knowing the difference between having a skill and the competence to do a job and trying it out just to make your budget go further is a skill in itself, and sometimes professionals will certainly be required.
Shop Around
If you do intend to use any professionals, such as a marketing manager, a social media campaign creator, or an inbound marketer, make sure you shop around for the best price. Of course, the best price isn’t necessarily the lowest price; you’ll need to see exactly what you’re getting for the price you’re paying. It might be that a slightly higher cost will give you a lot more compared to the lowest cost, and therefore is much better value for money.
The best thing to do is speak to at least three different experts. Ask them all the same questions, much like you would in an interview, and think carefully about their responses. You should also check out reviews and look at their social media pages. Find out as much as you can about the experts you intend to use to help you, and by picking the right one or ones, you can certainly make your marketing budget go a lot further.
Experiment
We mentioned above how you should change your marketing strategy if it’s not working and keep it the same if it is, but that doesn’t mean that experimentation isn’t important. In fact, it could be seen as essential.
Even if things are going well, there is always the chance – a very strong possibility – that they could go even better. This is why experimentation is crucial; while something is working and bringing in the money you need, you have the opportunity to try new things as well. As we’ve said, measuring the results is vital, and once you do that, you’ll know what’s working and what isn’t and can continue to experiment as much as possible.
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