What is the affordable method in marketing?

Many types of traditional advertising, including television and direct mail, can be highly expensive. These advertising methods can be highly effective for larger companies, but they are often out of the price range of smaller companies. Consequently, small businesses and entrepreneurs look for more cost effective advertising methods--those that are relatively cheap and elicit a great return on the dollar. There are a number of different affordable business advertising methods if you know where to look.

Social Networking

1. Social networking is virtually free once you learn how to do it. One type of social networking is blogging, which is where people write about topics and get paid according to generated traffic. As a business person, you can join blogging sites related to your business and send emails and pictures of your products to bloggers, according to the article titled "4 Affordable Advertising Strategies for Small Businesses" at morebusiness.com. Alltop.com is an excellent starting point for finding blogging sites that sell similar products and services.

Online Video Advertising

1. Online video advertising is another affordable advertising strategy. Of course, you will want to target your online videos to certain websites that relate to your product offering. One suggestion for placing online video ads on various websites is keeping your video message to about 15 seconds, according to Entrepreneur.com. You can get help targeting your online ads through certain online advertising consultants, such as PlaceVine.com, LiveRail.com and YuMe.com.

Pay Per Click

1. Pay per click advertising is affordable in that you get to select how much you want to spend. For example, if you designate a cost 10 cents per click, you will only be charged 10 cents each time someone visits your website. You can put a certain dollar amount in an account just to test out certain pay per click sites. You will want to find sites that draw a significant amount of traffic. Bidvertiser.com and Google.com are a couple places to start.

Newspaper Classified Advertising

1. Though the circulation of large city newspapers are on the decline, small hometown newspapers and free publications, including Pennysavor and Thrifty Nickel, have a highly loyal readership base. Even some of the job recruitment magazines can provide a cost-effective way to promote your business through classified advertising. The key is to run a few ads and test the response. Gradually, build your total newspaper classified returns up by advertising in a number of these publications.

Flyers

1. Flyers will always be an affordable method for advertising your business. All you need to do is print up some one-page flyers and distribute them on grocery store bulletin boards, on car windshields or hand them out at fairs or large events. In grocery stores, many advertisers have their name and number listed vertically toward the bottom of the sheet, allowing interested parties to tear it off and call at a later date.

   Not all businesses have a big budget dedicated to their marketing efforts. Yet, you must allocate a sufficient budget to meet your marketing goals [see below for some thoughts about how much you should allocate to marketing]. The big question is how to get the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to developing a detailed marketing budget. Today we’ll discuss 5 affordable marketing methods that produce high returns on your investment.

   Below, you have some idea of how big a percentage of your revenue you should allocate to marketing depending on your industry. The highest percentage of revenue dedicated to marketing occurs among consumer packaged goods companies, while the lowest occurs in the energy industry (likely a function of the monopoly status of most energy companies around the country that eliminated customer choice).

   Although somewhat similar, further guidance on how much you should allocate to your marketing budget comes from Web Strategies:

   • Total marketing budgets range between 5% and 12% of the allocated marketing budget
   • B2Cs generally spend more on marketing compared to B2Bs
   • Smaller companies, especially start-ups, spend a higher percentage of their revenue on marketing due to their increased needs to achieve awareness and attract customers
   • Search and display ads through Google Ads (and similar products from other search engines) represent the lion’s share of a firm’s digital budget

   Regardless of your stage in the business lifecycle, from start-up to enterprise organization, determining how to spend your marketing budget isn’t an easy choice. Today, more money flows into digital marketing channels than traditional channels for the first time. It’s unclear whether this transition to digital marketing reflects an inherent value potential in this channel that is greater than in traditional marketing channels or whether increased spending reflects the ability of digital marketing to prove its connection to revenue or due to the general affordability of this method for marketing your brand. Below, you can see the transition from spending on traditional media to digital media.

   Image courtesy of Web Strategies, Inc

   Today, we plan to share our top 5 affordable marketing methods and offer some tips for implementing these tactics. So, read on.

   Affordable marketing methods that produce high returns

   1. Magazine ads and other types of printed materials

   You may think that print is dead, however, that’s not really the case, especially if your target market includes older consumers who are less likely to be on social media or use Internet search. Although magazine advertising is a highly targeted means of reaching a niche audience, such as hobbyists and those with interests that are off the well-worn path of the masses.

   Other forms of print advertising are also effective because they have more permanence and shareability than digital options. For instance, folks might keep your coupon tacked up on the fridge until the next shopping trip or share your printed menu with friends when ordering food. You might consider printing brochures, flyers, or even your own magazine distributed to customers shopping in your physical store using a cheap magazine printing company.

   2. Social media

   Digital marketing is a modern and effective way to drive success at a very reasonable price. Social media is an affordable marketing method that potentially involves $0. By creating a profile on platforms used by your target marketing and gaining engagement through content marketing on those platforms, you reach a large audience of customers and potential buyers.

   Achieving success without using social media advertising on social platforms involves posting content of value to your target audience through a combination of videos, images, text, and links. The best social media users know that social media isn’t public relations or advertising, but works toward building an authentic relationship with your target audience by sharing content they find interesting, entertaining, or informative.

   Social media is free unless you decide to pay for sponsored posts or advertising that promotes your brand. The advantage of such advertising is:

   • Highly targeted reach to ensure your message meets the needs of your audience and motivates them to action
   • Relatively inexpensive
   • Advertising opens opportunities to increase engagement and 50% of consumers use this user-generated content to inform purchase decisions
   • Drives visitors to your website or online store via multiple options including coupons, contests, and other offers.

   3. Get a free Google My Business account

   For local businesses especially, a Google Business Profile is one of the most affordable marketing methods available, as well as an effective tool. Obtaining a Google My Business account requires a physical location for your business and Google verifies that location prior to activating your account.  This free listing allows your business to show up on Google Maps, the local section of Google Search which includes a map showing your business and links to valuable information such as your phone number, menu, and website. See below for an example appearing when I searched for shoes.

   Because local businesses enjoy a priority location on the search page and consume a large amount of that page, this strategy works well to drive local users to your business as well as reaching visitors to the local area. Of course, you need an effective local SEO strategy to ensure your business shows in the top local businesses displayed prominently on the results page. Google also encourages reviews of your business as part of their local strategy as you can see in the results.

   4. Utilize email marketing

   Email marketing is a great way to get new visitors to engage with your business and it’s an effective tool for lead nurturing. Email marketing also helps maintain relationships with existing buyers to encourage loyalty.

   And, though email marketing isn’t new, it’s still one of—if not the—most reliable ways to achieve a strong return on your marketing investment, as you can see in the graphic below.

   Image courtesy of Data Mentors

   Here’s how to ensure you optimize this affordable marketing method:

   • Put thought and creativity into your subject lines.
   • Make sure every email has a call to action (CTA) that encourages your readers to take the next step.
   • Track your performance and run A/B tests to see what copy and offers resonate with your list.
   • Clean your list to keep it fresh
   • Create a lead magnet to encourage visitors to subscribe and upload owned lists such as customers, webinar attendees, etc. (New laws in the US and EU make it a punishable offense to purchase or rent lists)
   • Test different frequencies for sending campaigns. Some lists respond well to daily emails, others to weekly, or bi-weekly messages

   5. Create a blog

   Like social media, a blog offers a totally free tool for marketing your brand online. You can build a basic blog as a section of your website and use that tool to sell your products, share new releases, offer answers to questions about your products, distribute explainer videos showing how buyers can get the most from their purchase, engage customers, and more.

   Almost every major brand operates a blog as part of their digital marketing strategy because they produce a high ROI through a combination of increasing awareness via SEO strategies designed to drive more visitors to your website and lead nurturing through content that drives visitors toward conversion.

   Creating A blog can cost as little as $100 or $200, depending on whether you already have a website or not (if you need help creating a new website and blog, check out my free ebook on creating a DIY website). If you don’t have an existing website, you need to purchase a domain, arrange for hosting, buy a theme, and start creating content. If you already have a website, it’s relatively simple to add a blog to your existing site at no cost whatsoever. Due to the low start-up costs, blogs are one of the most affordable marketing methods you can use to drive revenue.

   Blog content is a great way to improve your SEO, while also providing value for your leads and customers. The more quality content you publish, the higher your content appears on the search engine results page (see below), thus garnering more clicks. By writing about valuable topics that are important to your audience, you can work to build trust and credibility with your leads and customers.

   Image courtesy of Moz

   Conclusion

   I hope you found this discussion of affordable marketing methods valuable. I’d love to hear your feedback or answer any questions you have about employing these affordable marketing methods. Just reach out using the comment section below.

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   What is the affordable method?

   The affordable methodA budgeting technique whereby companies spend what they think they can afford promoting a product., or what you think you can afford, is a method used often by small businesses.

   What is the affordable method of setting an advertising budget?

   Due to its simplicity, the percentage of sales method is the most commonly used by small businesses. When using this method an advertiser takes a percentage of either past or anticipated sales and allocates that percentage of the overall budget to advertising.

   What are the 4 methods of advertising budget determination?

   decisions pertaining to the amount to be allocated to advertising expenditure in a given period; common approaches to advertising budget determination include arbitary allocation, percent of sales, competitive parity, objective and task and budgeting models.

   What is the best advertising budget method?

   Percentage of Sales Method This is one of the most preferred methods of advertising budgets. Under this method, the promotional and advertising expenses are forecasted on the basis of the last year's percentage of sales.