Most small business owners have a tight marketing budget. This forces them to be savvy about how they gain new customers. Maybe you, too, are in this boat. Fortunately, the internet has become the great equalizer in the world of advertising. If you’re searching for some ideas on how to save money on your advertising and marketing costs, then you’ll want to make note of the following three ideas.

Target Existing Customers

Marketing to existing customers is more cost-effective than marketing to new customers. You already have a relationship with them. You know they’re willing to buy from you. You may even have them on a mailing list, which means that you don’t have to spend money on ads to acquire them. You can just send them an email.

As for selling to them, it’s usually a pretty simple matter. Often the follow-up you need to do involves after care. Talking to them after they buy from you allows you to find out what needs your product or service filled for them. This follow-up, in turn, gives you ideas for related product lines down the road or repeat service calls.

Create More Website Content

Content marketing is a cost-effective way to get new customers. For example, paying someone to write content for your website may cost you about $3,000 per month or around $40,000 a year. On the other hand, sending out a direct mail package may run you over $8,000 per month or around $100,000 per year. That’s less than half the cost.

What’s even better is that leads received through your content marketing on your website tend to have a higher return on investment than most traditional forms of advertising do. The conversion rates for these customers tend to be higher.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is powerful. It allows you to reach your target audience, often for what it would cost you to research a hashtag on Twitter. (This doesn’t cost you anything but time, usually.) The benefit of Twitter and other social media platforms is that they allow you to converse with real customers in real time via Twitter chats, Facebook event parties and daily video posts. This kind of feedback allows you to tweak your marketing strategies so that they better align with the beliefs of your target customer. Finally, these media are free, which means you definitely save a bundle in the process.

Many small business owners are reluctant to use free or inexpensive marketing techniques, like social media and content marketing. This can be a huge help to business owners like you because they help you to save on marketing costs. What’s even better than this, though, is that these marketing techniques allow you to connect with customers in a personal way. This builds loyalty and creates future sales.

If you need help with your marketing plan, contact us here to get a free quote!