35 Budget Friendly Marketing Ideas For Small Businesses

When we talk about ROI, we usually think big. Sure, a marketing overhaul can give you immediate returns but is it really worth it? What about the little details that can help you boost your business? Often overlooked and underrated, we came up with a list of some things you can do to make small changes that will result in significant differences.

What happens when you have some spare time on your hands? It’s time to pick apart your marketing plans and strategies. Below are some low cost marketing tactics that can give your business that little extra fuel.

Low cost marketing ideas for small businesses

Achieving results with a low budget is possible. It’s all about how you distribute your funds and the priorities you set. We don’t know what they are, but we’ve categorized the ideas based on different marketing activities. Pick and choose, but start today.

Planning

1. Polish up your marketing plan

Are you on the right track? Staying organized pays off in the long run. It’s worth your time to go over things once again and polish up that plan!

2. Dig into competitor research

That’s right. You have to track your competitors because you want to exceed all expectations and do things better, don’t you?

3. Narrow in on your target audience

Talk to your clients, do some research, run some surveys to really get to know your target audience. From this research, you can see where you need to devote most of your time.

4. Draft up pitches

You know when you’re introducing your company and you try to get creative every time? What if you had one excellent pitch that you could copy paste?

5. Celebrate little milestones

Here are some great occasions to celebrate. You can really turn things around for your social media pages and more. Put the ‘fun’ back into your marketing.

Design and print materials

1. DIY business cards for everyone!

Have you tried Crello yet? It’s a simple online graphics editor that allows you to create all sorts of advertising and print materials as well as social media posts. Everyone could use a new business card, so get your team involved in creating their own!

2. Website redesign brainstorming session

A website redesign certainly takes a toll on your budget, but it doesn’t hurt to brainstorm. See where you can improve and if there are cost effective ways to maybe use crowdsourcing resources to initiate a redesign. Depositphotos is a great source of images at an affordable price.

3. Design promo products

Again, Crello will be most useful here. Every business, no matter how small, should have available handouts. If you don’t have them now, know they’ll come in handy later. You can design them yourself using Crello’s suitable formats.

4. Elevating corporate branding materials

Corporate branding might need some more advanced skills. Again, consider crowdfunding or if you have design enthusiasts on your team, get them to propose their versions for corporate branding materials.

5. New holiday promo materials

I know, you’re thinking it’s too early for Christmas music but we’re more than halfway through the year. Aside from little celebrations, you can start preparing in advance for some of the biggest holidays that bring you new waves of clients.

Networking

1. Rewrite your brand pitch

Not to be confused with regular pitches. A brand pitch is how you introduce yourself to other companies when you’re building up connections. Create an irresistible pitch and paint your company with colors.

2. Apply for relevant events in your field

Depending on your field, you will find an abundance of relevant events you can attend. Apply to as many as you can, it’s really worth your time and money for the sake of making the right connections.

3. Get to know local businesses

This is a good idea because many choose to branch out in markets that are beneficial to them in the long run, but consider making connections locally. Those contacts might be helpful for future events.

4. Webinars, conferences, talks

You’ve started a business, which means you can call yourself an expert in some field, so speak for your industry! Branch out and attend conferences, talks, host webinars. It does wonders for discoverability.

5.Sponsor a small event

You don’t have to go all out, but you can afford to host a small event to help yourself and others network. Invite your local business buddies!

Email marketing

1. A/B testing with emails

It’s no secret that your subject lines determine the success of open rates. A/B testing doesn’t take much, but it’s one small detail you can take care of and test for some time to find your ideal subject line length and the phrasing overall.

2. Start a newsletter or redesign the existing one

Keep people posted about your business. If you have a blog, it’s a good detail to include into your newsletters. You can also experiment with layouts and try different formats to see what works best.

3. CTA experiments

Like subject lines, CTA buttons can throw people off or actually make them want to click. Here is a little nudge in the right direction about CTAs that convert.

4. Opt-in email

With GDPR affecting every business, see if you need to do a new round of opt-in letters and do look into the new laws if your business deals with countries within the EU.

5. Get creative with your email headers

Once you’ve experimented with subject lines, and you get more people clicking on those emails, surprise them with a new header. Here are some email header design tips.

Advertising

1. Create/design a mascot

By all means not a necessity, but a company mascot can really overhaul all your marketing activity if you find creative ways to include it in online and print materials.

2. Infest into fun stuff like stickers and stationary

They’re not expensive, and certainly something people will want to keep. If you have a designed mascot or graphic design is remotely relevant to your business, create branded materials and give them out at events.

3. Ads in local newspapers or magazines

Nobody reads newspapers? Wrong. Although we live in the digital age, you can reach out to a different segment of clients by buying some ad space in local newspapers or magazines.

4. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram ads

If you’re leaning more towards digital advertising, these 3 social networks are your best ads. What’s more is that you can create animated designs and ads to run on those networks.

5. Buy ad space on websites

Google ads are the next best place to look. Likewise, you can create the banners yourself or put some budget aside to get a designer to do them for you.

Social media marketing

1. Switching over to business mode

If you don’t already have an Instagram account, you should get one. If you don’t have an Instagram business account for your company, it’s really time to get on that train. You can get unique insights into posts and track your progress.

2. Create a Facebook fan page

A Facebook fan page is a great way to create a sense of an online community. This can be a place where your customers refer to for answers but also helpful feedback.

3. Get your business to Google Places

If you’re not in ecommerce, your business needs to be discoverable. It won’t take long to get onto Google Places and is well worth your time (and about 0 of your budget).

4. Collaborate with influencers

Influencer marketing is huge in 2018. You can reach out to influencers for collaborative projects on social media.

5. Ideas for UGC

See if your business can inspire a wave of UGC. UGC is most helpful for social media activity and spreading the word about your business.

Content marketing

1. Start a blog if you don’t have one

A company blog can be a great channel to keep your clients up to date with what’s going on but also to branch out to reach more people online with useful tips, inspirational and relevant content that makes you a specialist in your field.

2. Got updates? Work on press releases

Anytime you have major updates, and you know what those will be in the near future, you can work on press releases to really keep it on point and inform others through new channels.

3. Give podcasts a shot

Podcasts can be like an extension of your blog. What do you specialize in and what value do you bring to your clients? Can your own channel be effective?

4. Invest into SEO services

Search engine optimization is about your discoverability online. It’s worth your time and your budget to make sure you’re doing everything you can with website and blog SEO.

5. Form a content marketing team

PR and copywriting should ideally be working together to promote your company or brand. If you don’t have a functioning team already, plan to see how many individuals and professionals you’ll need to take care of your content marketing.

It goes without saying that there are a million things you can do today to help your business. We put together some of the more important marketing ideas, areas of interest and tasks that you can take care of even if you don’t have a big budget right now. Have we missed anything? Let us know in the comments section below.