Learn the 5 Keys to Stretching your Marketing Budget and Getting More Leads
When you lead a small business, you often are facing a tight, limited budget that leaves you to make tough decisions on where to put your money.
When this is the case, it’s essential to spend more time planning and researching at the start of your marketing program to make sure you choose the right strategies for your business.
When marketing with a small budget, there’s 5 key things you should be focusing on:
- Using the right channels
- Creating engaging content
- Optimizing your website
- Leveraging social media
- Keeping a close eye on performance
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1. Using the Right Channels
With a limited budget, it’s essential to utilize the most effective channel for your marketing efforts – especially if you want to appear on any form of paid media, like Google search ads or ads on social media.
In these situations, you want to make sure you’re getting the most out of the channels you use. Make sure that the people you’re targeting are using the platforms you’re advertising on. Think: are your potential customers using that social media platform, are they using these websites or are they searching these topics?
2. Creating Engaging Content
A small budget makes the content you use on your website and selected channels even more important. When you don’t have a large budget to use on ads, you need to make sure you have strong content to capture potential customers the first time they come across your business, giving you the best chances of turning them into a lead.
To do this, focus on creating creative ways to share relevant information. This can take the form of blogs, infographics or other quick pieces of information that customers are looking for.
It’s an even bigger budget saver when you figure out ways to reuse content across different platforms, using the same content in several places to capture more leads. This is like when you make an infographic and use it both on your website and post it to social media.
3. Optimizing Your Website
Most people won’t go past the first page of Google, or even past the first 5 results. To gain site visitors and potential leads, you need to be among those results. Optimizing your website to be found on search engines (like Google) is the trick to getting there and being found by potential customers.
The 5 key steps to follow:
- Perform an audit of your website so you’re aware of the pages you have and how they’re connected
- Conduct keyword research so you know what terms potential customers are looking for on Google
- Improve your web pages to include these keywords
- Continuously review your website’s performance
- Make adjustments and additions regularly to your website
The key is to continue working. Once you’ve seen that your website is showing up higher on search result pages, you have to keep working. It’s just as easy to fall down the pages as it is to climb them.
4. Leveraging Social Media
Social media marketing is essential for small budgets. Not only is posting free on these platforms, but there are millions of users – and potential customers – on each platform. Social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are great places to connect with current clients and further develop your brand.
To get started, pick one platform to start posting. Do this by understanding where your target audience is most likely to be. For most home service businesses, Facebook is the place to be.
For more information on getting started with social media marketing, check out our blog about the best platforms to use.
5. Keeping a Close Eye on Performance
No matter the size of your budget, it’s essential to keep an eye on how your marketing efforts and website are performing. This will give you a clear idea of how many leads you’re getting from these efforts and seeing the return you’re getting.
Start by looking at the:
- Organic Keyword Rankings
- Overall Site Bounce Rate
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
- Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Reviewing this data monthly will allow you to stay on top of your efforts and make improvements when necessary. It will also help you learn which channels are the most effective.
For more information on which performance numbers you should be measuring, check out our blog post dedicated to the topic.
Make the Most of Your Budget & Start Generating More Leads Today
Start making the most of your limited budget today by focusing on your website. See what really works to attract customers and see your lead volume increase. If this overwhelms you, or you don’t have the time, call in the experienced pros at ThreeSixty. We’ll be happy to help you craft a marketing program that works for your needs and your budget.
