Many people think you simply post content and the world will show up.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case. You have to learn how to attract people, and that requires persistence and discipline every day. When marketing with a small budget, creating content and getting traffic can be challenging. If you establish a routine and commit time every day to research and content creation, it will make a big difference for your business very quickly.
Contrary to popular belief, your marketing strategy does not need to break the bank. Here are several tactics for marketing on a small budget while still ensuring that your message reaches your target audience.
Give Your Knowledge Away Every Day
If you’re a salesperson and solely rely on marketing to give you leads, you’re done for. You need to be proactive; consistently build your brand and network. Continue educating and inspiring people on a daily basis by curating and creating content. Use tools like BuzzSumo, Buffer, and Agorapulse to help discover and distribute content. Give your knowledge away every day.
If you’re passionate about what you do, you’re probably consuming content about your industry. When you come across something that inspires you, attribute it with a hashtag and share it across all of your social media profiles.
This is like dropping lures into the social river; people bite, and you can then reel them in. Once you do reel somebody in, you don’t tell them “hey, buy my product.” Instead, take a moment to listen to them and learn what they are all about. If you give somebody your full attention and just listen, they will tell you what you need to know in order to let them grow.
Don’t Just Talk Business
Back in the day when I was teaching people to sell, I taught them to go into their prospect’s and customer’s offices, look at their walls and at the knick-knacks they collected. Discover opportunities to start conversations, break the ice, and earn their trust.
Many people are scared to share personal aspects of their life on their professional social profiles. I highly recommend doing so. People start non-business conversations with me on a daily basis because I share content about things I’m passionate about like astronomy, baseball, genealogy, and food. Before connecting with anybody, I use Nimble to help me walk in their digital footprint and look for opportunities to engage with them. We all connect on what I call the “five F’s of life”: family, friends, food, fun, and fellowship.
Focus On Micro-Influencers
When identifying influencers you may want to work with, look for people who seek to make an impact — not just influence. People who want to make an impact will have a vision similar to yours and a vested interest in the success of their own community within social media channels.
It’s not a popularity contest; it’s about care and concern for your tribe. Micro-influencers usually have a direct and personal connection with their audience.
They have a following that tends to be fiercely loyal, and they’re typically eager to work with a brand as long as there is alignment between what that brand is doing in their community and what is important to them.
Recognize That Service Is The New Sales
I think that sales has become a four-letter word, but we’re evolving from the bag-and-tag mentality to a higher concept of service. Service is the new sales.
Whenever you enter any engagement, your job is to figure out how you might add value to that person — even if it means recommending somebody else’s products.
The era of bagging-and-tagging your customers is over. I think that our purpose on this planet is to grow our souls, and the way it’s done is by helping other people grow. In every single meeting, I’m looking for opportunities to serve people. Even if we don’t end up doing business together, the impression you make when you truly try to help the person resolve their problems goes a long way.
Dig Into Search Engine Optimization
The digital landscape has become more complicated. Search engine optimization requires not only great content, but an understanding of how search engines pick up and prioritize content. Optimizing your SEO strategy is a never-ending journey because the algorithms keep changing.
If you want to improve your search engine traffic, you may need to keep a specialist on retainer to help you. In addition, tools like WordPress SEO by Yoast can help you with keyword optimization. Keep in mind that search engine traffic won’t happen overnight; you’re competing against people who have been creating optimized content for years.
Regularly create relevant, SEO optimized content and continue to tweak what you’re doing until you find what resonates with your audience.
Repurpose Your Content
Repurpose your existing content and post it on different social platforms to drive even more traffic without reinventing the wheel. Our social media team uses a tool called Lately which helps you with scheduling across multiple platforms. They use Artificial Intelligence to create different versions of a social post saving you time while also optimizing it for the best reach.
Flipboard is a great site where you can post your content in your own magazine you create and share.
Another site to check out is Quora, a question and answer site where you can use your blog content to answer questions and link back to your original article. It’s also an amazing platform to use to build your personal brand by showing your expertise.
Conclusion
Marketing on a small budget can be challenging but it’s not impossible. Keep experimenting with different forms of marketing on different platforms. It’s always important to remeasure and grow your distribution. Small incremental changes can make a big difference. Creating and sharing content is not enough; if all you’re doing is driving people to your website, you won’t grow your business. You must engage with them and turn those conversations into mutually beneficial relationships.
Jon Ferrara
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- 6 Ways to Amplify Your Marketing With A Small Budget - October 23, 2019
