How to achieve big results on a small marketing budget ??

It's no secret that marketing budgets are often the first to be cut during a downturn. Marketer Lara (Vandersluis) Barnett discusses the importance of doubling down on your brand in a tough economic environment—even if you have limited resources at your disposal.

Marketers everywhere face the same challenge: Achieving measurable results with limited resources. “I’ve been there in the past,” says Lara Barnett (nee Vandersluis), Head of Marketing for Logicalis Australia . She has a few ideas for marketers working with tight budgets—and how to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of their efforts. More than anything, “it’s about getting creative” and working with what you have to strengthen your brand presence.

“If you look at the businesses that have succeeded during periods of economic uncertainty and made it to the other side in a really strong position, they are the ones that didn't lose sight of their marketing as a valuable piece of the puzzle," says Lara. "I’m a demand generation marketer. I love metrics. I'm commercially minded. But a lot of marketing teams are constantly being asked to focus exclusively on the lead generation and revenue aspect of marketing, and while that’s definitely a priority, you shouldn’t lose sight of the brand and the power it has in driving business growth.”

How do you double down on your brand while on a small budget? “It's about getting creative and working with the tools you already have—and have fun with it! In the past, some of the most creative ideas and best campaigns I’ve come up with have been when I’ve been thrown a curveball like limited budget at the last minute,” she says.? “You do think ‘How am I going to tackle that?' Once I was working on a campaign with no budget, but we created some excellent content with our content writer. We've managed to achieve amazing results from that, with downloads, demos, and sales inquiries.”

Another creative way to overcome budget constraints? Give your team members the opportunity to expand their skill sets.? “If you don't have the budget to go and create a video with an editor, for example, empower someone in your team to learn how to use simple video editing tools,” she says. Not only does this expand the resources available within your team, but it also gives employees “a skill they can move forward with”. “There’s definitely an opportunity for people to learn.”

Lara shares her advice for maximizing a small marketing budget and discusses the importance of proving the ROI of your marketing activities >

Lifecycle marketing lessons: Marketers discuss overcoming lifecycle marketing challenges

Whether you’re building your first lifecycle campaign or your hundredth, there are always improvements to be made—and even the most experienced marketers can make mistakes that hinder the effectiveness of their lifecycle marketing efforts. We asked marketers to share the biggest mistakes people make when building lifecycle marketing campaigns and their advice for overcoming them.

"The biggest mistake we made was being too information-driven. The natural default is to talk about your product. Still, in most cases, people falling into the lifecycle bucket either don't want to hear about your product or are fully activated. We focus on broader industry education through webinars, community through our private Slack channel, and entertainment with memes or cheeky newsletters. — Zachary Murray , Founder of Foreplay.co

"Trying to build a full-funnel campaign right away. My recommendation is to identify the most problematic stages and start removing the bottlenecks first. Similarly, not giving yourselves enough time to see the results. This is especially relevant for channels like SEO and organic social. — Yulia Olennikova , Head of Marketing, N.Rich

"Not having a unified view of customer data. Overcome this by integrating your marketing platforms and using a CRM to centralize data. Many marketers also make the mistake of sending generic content—you can overcome this by leveraging your data to personalize content to each lifecycle stage. — Aaron Gray, Founder and CEO of Pursuit Digital

Check out all of the advice, and learn why a lack of segmentation and personalization and neglecting your customers post-purchase could be holding your marketing back >

Editor's spotlight

TikTok search ads are here: TikTok has 100 million U.S. monthly active users, which means there is a big opportunity for your brand or business to be found. Even Google has acknowledged TikTok search is a legitimate threat?to its search business. >> Search Engine Land

The Demand Gen Playbook Course: In this free course, Cognism shares their proven DG framework, which helped generate 55%+ of new business since 2021.