Low Budget Marketing Ideas For Cash Strained Businesses

Here’s how to get the most out of your marketing spend


In the current economic climate, a lot of businesses are battling with their budgets and seeking out the best ways to make their spend stretch that bit further.

Marketing is often the first activity to face cuts when times get hard but that shouldn’t be the case. The truth is marketing plays a vital role in keeping your customers and your business connected. And at no time has that been more important than now.

Although consumer sentiments have remained resilient, many are frustrated and concerned with the current coronavirus crisis, particularly in terms of safety. This is likely to deter people from traditional means of consumption and contribute to a preference for remote and online services.

Communication through thoughtful marketing activity can help settle concerns, encourage engagement and build trust. And, as the physical distance between businesses and customers is wider than ever before, marketing is one of the most effective ways to bridge the gap and lessen its impact on loyalty and confidence.

So, without putting too much strain on their budgets, how can businesses keep communication flowing and business booming?

Well, here are a few low budget marketing ideas…

Email marketing

Email marketing can have a number of benefits, including increasing leads, improving sales and providing an additional channel for self-promotion. But ensuring these benefits are achieved in the most effective and efficient way possible takes planning and a strategic approach.

Personalisation is one way in which you can guarantee better results from your email marketing campaigns, as those that include a recipient’s name in the subject line have a higher click-through rate than those that don’t.

You can take personalisation even further by automating campaigns that are sent based on customer actions. For example, a click-through of a certain email message can then trigger another to be sent. Or abandoned basket emails can be sent automatically to encourage consumers to complete a purchase.

Email marketing can also be flexible and reactive, unlike other tactics that require months of planning. As we’ve seen this year, things can change overnight, so your communications need to be able to adapt. While emails are quick and easy to set up and send, they are also a great way to keep customers informed of any changes to your business or service.

Making the most of your email campaigns in this way can help reduce budget being wasted on emails that no one will open or that do not encourage an action. Instead, it allows you to maximise the effectiveness of the communication technique and, in turn, your ROI.

PPC remarketing

While PPC marketing is an effective technique itself, you can get more out of your efforts through a remarketing strategy. Remarketing allows you to target users who have already interacted with your business.

It’s something an advertiser has done to us all at some point – you spend some time looking at a pair of trainers online and suddenly you can’t escape them. You see ads pop up as you’re reading a news article or perhaps as you’re scrolling through Instagram.

And we know what you’re thinking – why would you want to irritate your customers in the same way these advertisers have done to you? But then consider how many times have you gone back to make that purchase because you’ve not been able to get them off your mind?

That simply shows the power of remarketing. But as well as yielding effective results, it is a particularly beneficial tactic for budget-conscious businesses as it allows you to target customers who are already interested in your product or service, rather than wasting spend on reaching an audience you can’t guarantee are.

What’s more, with better PPC management practices, you can ensure even more effectiveness from your campaigns by collecting, analysing and then utilising performance data and insights to inform adjustments to campaigns.

Content marketing

Creating and publishing high-quality content to your website is another way to market your business when budgets are tight.

As experts in your field, you’re bound to have a thing or two to say or to teach your customers and audiences. Therefore, sharing this information through engaging content, whether that’s blog posts, guides, white papers, infographics or videos is a great way to show your expertise and build trust among your customers.

Not only this but, content can help with SEO rankings, whereby your website will begin to appear higher on results pages for relevant user searches. This is particularly true, if content is consistent, of considerable length and is underpinned by keywords that are related to your business, products and services.

No matter the form of the content you choose to produce, you should also ensure there is a clear purpose behind it, which is reinforced with calls to action. This may be to buy certain products or teach users of their benefits, for example.

You may also wish to reach out to blogs or websites that are relevant to your industry or customers and enquire about creating a guest piece of content for them. Many of these sites are happy to do this for little to no cost. Not only will a successful feature give you even more SEO points, if it backlinks to your website, it can also help raise awareness of your brand.

Marketing doesn’t have to be a strain on your finances, particularly in the digital world. While communication channels and distribution methods are plentiful online, the real sweet spot lies in the data available to us, which can inform decisions and ensure costs don’t skyrocket, while not compromising on effectiveness or return.

To find out how you can maximise your digital marketing efforts, get in touch with our team today.

Chester Yang is the Microsoft Program Manager at Diginius with a background in economics and quantitative research.  

At Diginius, Chester focuses on nurturing partnerships with PPC agencies and integrating marketing and sales solutions.