When you’re working with a small marketing budget, you have to be conservative with the services you choose. In addition to using lower-end applications, you need to watch your budget when it comes to marketing strategies like PPC ads, SEO, and link building. These are staple strategies, but they can really consume your marketing dollars if you’re not careful.
There is a fine line between saving money on marketing and sacrificing on quality. If you don’t spend enough money on certain services, you won’t get results. For example, when you run PPC ads, you only get traffic when you pay for your clicks. The smaller your budget, the fewer clicks you’ll generate.
Although a large budget goes a long way, you can still be successful on a small budget. If you’re looking for ways to max out your marketing dollars on a simple budget, try these tips first.
1. Use Smart Bidding with your Google Ads
Are you running your own PPC ad campaigns? If you’re still figuring out how to optimize your pay-per-click ads, try using the Smart Bidding feature. This feature automates your bids in a way that increases your chances of getting clicks based on past data for ads that did well with your target audiences.
The benefit to using Smart Bidding automation is huge. Instead of trying to optimize each keyword bid manually, which is time-consuming and can be frustrating, your bids will be adjusted automatically. It’s a truly effortless way to optimize your bids.
2. Utilize local SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a requirement if you want to be found in search results. Professional SEO services can be quite expensive, however. The service is worth the cost, but if it’s not in your budget, you won’t have a choice.
Are you struggling to justify the expense of SEO services? If you’re looking for ways to optimize your website for search without breaking your budget, take advantage of local SEO.
Local SEO combines on-page optimization with PPC ads and local business listings in order to snag organic traffic even when your website doesn’t rank on the first page of search results. For example, the right PPC ad will show up above Google’s organic search results. This gives you a huge advantage in snagging traffic from searches even when your website isn’t anywhere to be found.
A well-optimized Google Business Profile also has the possibility of being displayed above organic search results. Formerly called Google My Business, Google is launching some new features with the rebrand, including call history (in the US and Canada) and allowing users to message you directly from search results. If you own a local business, you definitely need to claim and optimize your listing.
3. Avoid hiring a jack-of-all-trades
Hiring a jack-of-all-trades is the number one mistake to avoid on a small marketing budget. Although it seems like a good idea, it will most likely backfire. Individuals who learn only a little bit of marketing don’t get big results. They might know their way around an AdWords account, and they can probably do on-page SEO. However, a jack-of-all-trades lacks the one thing that makes a marketing campaign successful: expertise.
Digital marketing is a profession just like any other. It takes a significant investment of time, money, and experience to master. In some areas, a lack of experience can actually hurt you, like with content marketing and SEO. For instance, an inexperienced marketer might end up getting you thousands of spammy backlinks, not understanding that those backlinks can harm your rankings and may get you blacklisted from Google.
You always get what you pay for and that includes marketing services. If you find someone offering their services for a price that seems too good to be true, it’s probably someone with limited experience. Don’t let someone experiment and learn with your money. Hire a professional from the start and get your marketing done correctly.
Small budgets can generate big results
Let’s face it, when you don’t have a multi-million-dollar marketing budget, you need to be strategic. However, you can still get big results with a smaller-scale marketing strategy. Every large company had to start somewhere, and they were exactly where you are at one point.
You won’t be stuck with a small budget forever. Over time, a solid marketing campaign will help you increase your revenue, and then you can increase your marketing budget accordingly.
