How to make your marketing budget stretch further

Marketing is essential for every business, but with rising costs and strict budgets, it can be hard to know what areas to invest in. Luckily, we’ve outlined the ways to strategically cut costs and make your budget go further.

Conduct An audit

Before you do anything, you’ll need to conduct a social media and website audit. This is an in-depth review of your business' analytics to assess stagnation, growth and opportunities for your social channels. This provides you with a basis of research which can help to determine where you need to allocate budget. For example, if your top visited landing pages are your blogs then you can use these pages to promote your other work by linking to them or including photographs. An audit will also reveal your most beneficial social channels.

Additionally, an audit ensures that your website and social media pages are up to date and there are no broken links or faulty pages living on your site. Want to know more about the benefits of continuously investing in your website? Check out our free webinar.

Reassess what you know about your customer

During economic downturns, consumers always change their behaviour. That means the idea you have of your current customer might need to change. Some people may not respond as well as they used to towards your messaging or their interests may change completely. Even small changes in your ad copy can put consumers at ease and make them more open to the idea of buying from you. Additionally, it’s good to continuously review your analytics and engagement to compare your content and get an insight into your audience’s preferences. According to Teradata, only 41% of marketing executives are using customer engagement data to inform their marketing strategy, so this will help you make more informed decisions. 

Additionally, you should be aware of the trends within your industry as a whole as these can be indicative of popular consumer buying habits. For example, did you know that historically, women would treat themselves to little luxuries such as lipsticks during economic hard times whereas men would often put off buying items such as underwear? These insights are vital to brands and can make you stand out from your competitors— opening yourself up to a new customer base. 

Test your content

 Before setting up any major campaigns you should always conduct A/B tests. This can be done across all major social media channels. For example, in any campaign, you can put forward two options for any variable e.g. creative, copy or audience to see which option gets better results. When conducting an A/B test it’s important to remember that the ads should be absolutely identical but for one variable. If you change more than one thing in the B version of the ad, then it will be unclear which variable caused the performance to increase/decrease. 

Testing ensures that your ads are more effective, minimises risk and ensures a more engaged audience. This valuable information can be used to make your budget go further. 

Diversify your social channels

If you aren’t receiving the same levels of engagement on your typical social channels then don’t be scared to diversify! New platforms can be scary—they require testing and time to adjust—but they also bring new audiences with unique spending habits. Did you know pinterest users have the highest buying intent and the highest disposable income of all social platforms? Plus, they've made it easier than ever for businesses to advertise and achieve their goals. We wrote about how you can reach engaged Pinterest audiences in our blog. 

And, no, it's not too late for your business to join TikTok. Did you know that TikTok users are 2.5x more likely to take future conversion actions with your brand compared to other platforms? It’s a common misconception that TikTok is only videos of teenagers and dancing influencers. Instead, it’s full of communities who love sharing information, hacks and product recommendations. Find out how your business can leverage the platform to raise brand awareness. 

Email Marketing

 Email marketing is seen to be the cheapest form of marketing, yet it can be one of the most effective methods of communicating with your audience. In fact, eMarketer reported that email can generate four times the ROI when compared to other digital tactics. What’s more, there’s plenty of email management tools available to help you on this journey. Read our blog about Klaviyo to learn how you can step up your email communications through automated flows and integrations.

Retarget your audience

To create a reliable relationship with your audience you need to check in with them at each stage of the sales funnel. Many brands miss the mark by continuously putting out different ads to a general audience. Instead, you need to retarget those who have previously engaged with your brand. This could be those who have visited your website, clicked on a previous post or are pre-existing customers. These types of ads serve as a reminder of your brand while creating familiarity and helping you stand out from the crowd of 10K ads that the average consumer sees daily. 

Best Free marketing tools/resources

Buffer - Buffer is a free social media scheduling tool which helps you build your following. They show you the best times to post and the right hashtags to use to open your account up to more users. Scheduling tools like this help you to save time and plan out your content in an effective way. 

Canva - The perfect tool for any and all visual content. You can upload your own branding and fonts or use their premade templates to stand out against your competitors. 

Hubspot - Hubspot has more free marketing tools, tips and resources than any other site. Not only is their blog full of information on SEO and analytics, they have plenty of templates and guides to help you learn more about the industry. 

Bitly - Bitly is a URL shortening application and it’s particularly good when you want to track your posts. UTM links are long and unattractive but with bitly you can shorten and include them in your copy. These are more attractive to users and they allow you to work around Twitter's character requirements. 

Also Asked - A very useful keyword research tool, Also Asked helps you to understand what users are searching for and the common questions they ask. This is not only helpful from an SEO perspective, but is also beneficial for content creation. 

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