Blog Post | Oct 08, 2024
8 Surprising and Budget-Friendly Marketing Ideas
You don’t have to spend a lot of money on your marketing to get results. In addition to your existing campaigns, these inexpensive, low-impact tactics can help raise your profile in unexpected new ways.
Whether you’re running a start-up or your tried-and-true marketing tactics aren’t performing as well as they should, sometimes you just need some quick, cheap, and easy wins to get back on track.
We’ve compiled a list of nine creative and low-cost tactics to help you get exposure for your brand. In some cases, you may even be reaching a whole new audience.
1. Take Speaking Engagements
Promote your expertise and your company’s offerings at speaking events. Local libraries, industry associations, chambers of commerce, and colleges frequently need expert speakers. In addition to getting a platform that enables you to establish your expertise, speaking engagements give you a valuable opportunity to network within your local community.
Don’t forget to take business cards and even collateral like brochures to use as leave-behinds.
2. Repurpose Existing Content
It’s hard to overstate the impact great content can have on your business. Consider creative ways to repurpose some of your existing, high-performing content to help you stretch your budget. For example:
3. Include a Branded Email Signature
Why simply sign your name to an email when you can make a big impression and strengthen your brand? You can easily create a lock-up that includes your name and relevant personal information, your company’s URL, and a logo or other brand elements. You can do it yourself or find a free template. You can also call us and find out how cost-effective it is to have one professionally designed for you.
4. Engage Online
Engage with followers and would-be customers in relevant social channels and not just on your feed: follow industry-specific and relevant hashtags (e.g., #portlandphotographer, #DFWentrepreneurs) and look for opportunities to converse with a new audience. Don’t stop on social: if your customers have left reviews on third-party sites like Yelp or Amazon, try interacting with them there without being aggressive or forward.
5. Seek Out Business Awards
It only takes a little Googling to find dozens of business awards in many different industries for customer service, communications, innovation, among other categories. Winning a reputable award can raise your profile professionally, and you can create a campaign announcing your win.
6. Ask Your Best Customers for Referrals with a Hand-written Note
What could be simpler than asking someone who loves your products to recommend you to their colleagues—or even ask them to provide an introduction? A personal note, hand-written on a quality card, will stand out. Follow up with an email or phone call.
7. Write and Distribute a Press Release
A press release can get your business, brand, product, or service in front of a wider audience. Local journalists are always looking for newsworthy stories, and a concise, well-written press release may attract their attention. Additionally, if you distribute your press release online via a platform like PR Newswire, you could see a significant boost to your website traffic.
8. Run a Contest on Social Media
According to recent research, Instagram accounts that hold contests grow 70% faster than other Instagram accounts. Even simple contests like the ones listed below can lift engagement and help you gain new followers:
Keep Thinking Out of the Box
Low-cost tactics like the nine mentioned above are great places to get creative with your marketing and try new things.
However, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your current campaigns. If you’d like a professional perspective, contact us. We can help you fine-tune what’s working and eliminate what’s not to help maximize your marketing results and budget.
We’ve compiled a list of nine creative and low-cost tactics to help you get exposure for your brand. In some cases, you may even be reaching a whole new audience.
1. Take Speaking Engagements
Promote your expertise and your company’s offerings at speaking events. Local libraries, industry associations, chambers of commerce, and colleges frequently need expert speakers. In addition to getting a platform that enables you to establish your expertise, speaking engagements give you a valuable opportunity to network within your local community.
Don’t forget to take business cards and even collateral like brochures to use as leave-behinds.
2. Repurpose Existing Content
It’s hard to overstate the impact great content can have on your business. Consider creative ways to repurpose some of your existing, high-performing content to help you stretch your budget. For example:
- Use short, 15-second clips from a webinar to create social media stories
- Leverage brochure content to create product descriptions for your website or online store
3. Include a Branded Email Signature
Why simply sign your name to an email when you can make a big impression and strengthen your brand? You can easily create a lock-up that includes your name and relevant personal information, your company’s URL, and a logo or other brand elements. You can do it yourself or find a free template. You can also call us and find out how cost-effective it is to have one professionally designed for you.
4. Engage Online
Engage with followers and would-be customers in relevant social channels and not just on your feed: follow industry-specific and relevant hashtags (e.g., #portlandphotographer, #DFWentrepreneurs) and look for opportunities to converse with a new audience. Don’t stop on social: if your customers have left reviews on third-party sites like Yelp or Amazon, try interacting with them there without being aggressive or forward.
5. Seek Out Business Awards
It only takes a little Googling to find dozens of business awards in many different industries for customer service, communications, innovation, among other categories. Winning a reputable award can raise your profile professionally, and you can create a campaign announcing your win.
6. Ask Your Best Customers for Referrals with a Hand-written Note
What could be simpler than asking someone who loves your products to recommend you to their colleagues—or even ask them to provide an introduction? A personal note, hand-written on a quality card, will stand out. Follow up with an email or phone call.
7. Write and Distribute a Press Release
A press release can get your business, brand, product, or service in front of a wider audience. Local journalists are always looking for newsworthy stories, and a concise, well-written press release may attract their attention. Additionally, if you distribute your press release online via a platform like PR Newswire, you could see a significant boost to your website traffic.
8. Run a Contest on Social Media
According to recent research, Instagram accounts that hold contests grow 70% faster than other Instagram accounts. Even simple contests like the ones listed below can lift engagement and help you gain new followers:
- Branded hashtag
- Trivia questions
- Photo captions
- Ask followers to submit photos
Keep Thinking Out of the Box
Low-cost tactics like the nine mentioned above are great places to get creative with your marketing and try new things.
However, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your current campaigns. If you’d like a professional perspective, contact us. We can help you fine-tune what’s working and eliminate what’s not to help maximize your marketing results and budget.