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
How to craft a graduate CV
Creating your very first CV after university can be frustrating. You may feel like you don't have much to say, or that you don't have enough experience to share. It's easy to assume that you'll struggle to fill just one page of your first CV, so we've put...
Old school marketing tactics that work on social media
There is no shortage of social media platforms where you can post content and expand your brand. But not all of them work as well as others. If you’re looking for social media marketing tactics that are effective, we have listed a couple of ideas below to...
5 Skills You Need to Have to Break into the Digital Marketing Sector
Over the past decade, the digital marketing sector has become so buoyant and exciting that many people are now seeking to work within the industry. If a business has a website, then they will need SEO, in addition to social stature and paid campaigns in...