Marketing Big When You're Broke: 23 Ideas

Marketing Big When You're Broke: 23 Ideas;

Have A Laugh Learn A Little

The wise old saying, “you have to spend money to make money” has frustrated me as a small business founder, a Millennial, a Marketing Specialist, and generally as a person. To be blunt about it this saying is plain wrong; well let me backtrack technically speaking just about every second you’re living costs you money but what I’m talking about is in marketing. Whether you have a teeny tiny budget or no budget at all marketing is something that can be done and done well. With a small budget we have to make sure we are being as targeted,  as creative, and as researched as possible. With no budget, we’ve got to be extra creative with the budget of $0 we have, be as educated as possible, and be willing to bootstrap it. I am not, I repeat am not, saying that a large marketing budget is not great, because it is; and in my opinion, setting aside all bias, marketing is the most important factor for a growing business. When we get the money we should use it, but if you think you cannot market effectively now, congratulations you played yourself.

Calculating Your Budget

So there are some rules of thumb for calculating your marketing budget, but let me say this here, it really comes down to your industry and your size. The typical rule of thumb is to spend 5% of your total revenue on marketing to maintain your current position, and 10%+ of your total revenue to gain market share. I actually do not have anything bad to say about this figure, I know surprise, surprise right? According to The SBA, it is suggested that for small businesses, under $25 million in revenue should spend 7-8% on marketing, but I’m going to continue to use the magic 10% number as just about everyone else does. This 10% of yearly revenue or projected yearly revenue should be spent on branding and promotions. Yes there are companies that spend more than this, for example in 2014 Twitter spent 44%, LinkedIn spent 35%, and Salesforce *drum roll please* spent a whopping 53% on sales and marketing. If your product/service sucks, invest more into it, because marketing a bad product is like a ball to the face of your consumers.

Market Research

Research is the Smitty Werbenjagermanjenson of Marketing. In layman's terms, it’s the #1 thing to do, large budget, small budget or no budget it is something that we have to do. The first thing to figure out is who is going to utilize your product or service? Whether your key demographic is women aged 18-34 who are travel enthusiast, or men and women, aged 45-54 who are technology snobs, we must figure that out.Once we narrow down who our target audience is we must focus on our customers experience. Questions you might ask is: what kind of experience do my customers enjoy. There are plenty of great resources free and cheap that provide some quality market research, many of the paid ones offer free trials; use these.

Resources: Qualtrics, Survata, Hoovers, MarketResearch.com this isn’t a blog promoting certain companies but I help out when I can't because research is #1.

Guerilla Marketing

Before I dive into my long list of Big Marketing Ideas for Broke Budgets I wanted to give guerilla marketing a section of its own. Guerilla marketing is a method of promoting your message using unconventional methods of advertising with small budgets, it involves high imagination and innovation. Actually, you know what I’m going to write an entire blog entry about that and reference it here, check it out: “Why You Need Guerilla Marketing.” This is important for all types of businesses and I’m excited to share some solid information.

23 Big Marketing Ideas For Broke Budgets

I chose 23 to give a shout out to Michael Jordan. Jumpman Jumpman Jumpman.

1. POST STELLAR CONTENT: Seems pretty abecedarian to even mention this here, but I’m doing it anyways. Start a blog, write kick-ass (not the movie) content, create it yourself it’s always cheaper.
2. ENGAGE WITH BLOGS AND FORUMS: Find some highly engaged blogs and forums that are similar to your website. Provide an insightful comment and, why not, leave a link to your website below it.
3. TEAM UP WITH RELATED BUSINESSES: Whether it’s co-op marketing, buying clubs, or partnered events spreading the cost over multiple companies makes it a ton cheaper. Little guys don’t just do this, huge brands do as well. 
   
4. SOCIAL MEDIA: Here are another one of those things that I’m putting on the list just in case one of my readers didn’t think of this. Get on social media.
5. NETWORKING: Yep, this one's a bit different, make sure you see what networking events are happening in your area and show up to them. I know mingling with people is scary but get out there and do it. You never know who may need your product/service and have not idea where to look. People buy from people they like, be sociable. Outside is not bad, the sun is not scary.
   
6. CREATE VIDEOS: Whether it’s and about, how to, or outlining steps video; video content works wonders. Teach yourself and do it yourself eliminates the cost and gives you a solid skill for your arsenal. My friends over at CoDe Lifestyle created a phenomenal introduction video by bootstrapping it and learning the programs.
7. CREATE INFOGRAPHICS: Infographics are the eye candy of marketing tools, they are simple to understand and quite frankly people love to share and repost them. You can make your own and for very cheap to free if you’re up for the task. Here are some free tools for infographics.
8. REUSE YOUR OLD CONTENT: During dry spells (we all go through those) *wink* feel free to fetch some of your old content and bring it back to life. Yes, I’m still talking about marketing…
   
9. DIG UP OTHERS CONTENT: When you hit a wall on what to talk about, do some research, target old studies and point out some points you find interesting. This old data and old studies may provide new life for your marketing initiative.
10. LET YOUR CUSTOMERS MARKET: Have you customers engage in what you and your business are doing. Ask them questions and be as transparent as possible. Also the word of mouth advertising fantastic for small budgets, so providing a great product/service will help this. Try this on for size, many of GoPro’s Videos are done by their customers, not them; I know you probably aren’t GoPro but you should catch what I’m putting out there if you don’t you can send it right back at me. 
    
11. CREATE A REFERRAL  PROGRAM: Encourage your customers to share what you do with their friends and colleagues. Enact a referral program; reward your customers with monetary or service based rewards for referrals.
12. OFFER DISCOUNTS: You love deals, I love deals, everyone loves deals, but be sure not to overdue this. Unless you have the desire to be a warehouse type store or wholesalers make sure you’re not offering discounts on a regular basis. Make your discounts actually mean something.
13. IN-KIND SPONSORSHIPS: Non-profits need your services and have a similar problem with money. Offer them free products or services in exchange for exposure and referrals, these are also tax deductible. I’m not a CPA or any of that, I’m in a whole different industry so don’t quote me or ask me how.
14. PARTICIPATE AS A SPEAKER: If there is ever an event, small or large where you get the opportunity to speak. TAKE IT! This helps establish you as an expert in any given field and increases exposure of your brand.
15. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: SEO is a long, tedious, and most times free process that constitutes big rewards. Start with a consistent Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP) and optimize your website for search engines. Here are a few resources.
16. SCORE SOME FREE MARKETING CONSULTATIONS: Let me say this first, anything that is labeled “free” is an opportunity to sell to you later, but take advantage of these free consultations. They actually give you a ton of useful information to help build your brand. If you ever get the money to afford their service in the future make sure to remember them.
17. LEVERAGE ADVERTISING PROMO CREDITS: Google AdWords offers a bunch of different freed AdWords credit for your Search Engine Marketing efforts (SEM). Facebook Ad’s do this as well. Leverage these free credits for specific marketing campaigns until you can afford to do it long term.
18. GET PRESS: Press Releases are your friends. If you’re hosting events, attending and event, introducing new products, opening, or have some news that is interested send your press releases to as many places as you can. It’ll be beneficial to get the in’s with people at the local paper as well. Channel that inner Oprah Winfrey you’ve been holding in “your get a press release, and you get a press release and you get a press release. Everybody gets a press release!”
    
19. ENTER CONTESTS: Whether these contests are online or local, make sure to participate. Whether you are participating for the prize or if you are offering a product or service of yours for the prize, local contest or events would love to have you and offer good exposure.
20. HOST CONTESTS: Business card drawing are great, collect business cards and give the winner a gift card to a restaurant. There is no reason to waste the other business cards, email thanking them for their participation, ask if they want to participate in the further contest, and offer them the opportunity to sign up for your newsletter/mailing list for future giveaways.
21. HOST EVENTS/CLASSES: Offer people free classes to learn more about something you want to show your expertise in. Post flyers on local community bulletin boards, schools, coffee shops, and adult education center; getting your name out to the public as an expert so you can be brought up in conversation.
22. HAVE GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE: Nothing hurts more than bad customer service especially in the beginning stages of business. Be sure to offer great customer service along with a great product.
23. MEASURE MEASURE MEASURE! Track what is going well for you and what is not. Measure everything that you have the capabilities to. This will help you in the long run, trust me.
    

Marketing with small budgets is a bit of a science and I’m certain many ideas have failed because of their lack of media attention and poor strategy, but that doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you have a small or no budget does not mean you don’t have the opportunity for exposure, if you follow some or all of these steps I am positive you will start receiving the attention you deserve.

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Stuff I Referenced

https://frog-dog.com/how-much-should-companies-budget-for-marketing/ 

https://www.sba.gov/blogs/how-set-marketing-budget-fits-your-business-goals-and-provides-high-return-investment

https://vtldesign.com/inbound-marketing/content-marketing-strategy/percent-of-revenue-spent-on-marketing-sales/

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/10/01/marketing-ideas-for-small-businesses

 https://vision-advertising.com/11-creative-ideas-for-marketing-on-a-budget/

https://blog.hootsuite.com/11-marketing-ideas-for-small-businesses/

https://www.quicksprout.com/2011/09/08/21-big-marketing-ideas-for-small-marketing-budgets/