There are signs that the UK economy is slowly picking up, but in the meantime how can marketers get the most from a limited – on in many cased TINY – marketing budget? Here are our top tips:

Spend plenty of time planning, so that every marketing activity carried out really will be effective.

Invest in content and use it multiple times – a print article, which can also be used on your web page, outreached as a blog post on other sites, included in email, and edited down for use as social media posts

Use social media to grow and communicate to your audience at low cost. Put in place a strategy to build and constantly engage with your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn followings. This really is a cost-effective way to market products and services, but you do need to track results over time and find out what works best for your market.

Always perform a marketing audit on the previous year. This way you can make sure your spend is working as hard as possible for you.

Put in place sharp KPIs to measure the success or otherwise of your marketing activities.

• If your digital marketing skills aren’t up to scratch look online for help from specialists who cater specially for SMEs – for example, www.leadspring.co.uk. An area you may need help with is SEO (search engine optimisation) with a focus on being optimized for local search.

• There are also free or low-cost marketing training schemes for small businesses. For example, the National Skills Academy for Environmental Technologies has produced a free, online sales and marketing plan generator. http://www.nsaet.org.uk/news_events/free-sales-and-marketing-tips-for-smes

Hit the phone to boost your B2B client base. It may sound like an old-fashioned option, but there can still be value in making a list of companies you’d like to work for and contacting them directly.

Browse our marketing jobs today on www.simplymarketingjobs.co.uk

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