Are you looking for a way to improve your marketing strategy, but you're working with a limited budget? If so, you're not alone. Plenty of business owners want to get more traffic to their website, email subscribers and customers.
The problem that many people run into is they don't anticipate the cost of running full-on campaigns across email, social media, and their site. As a result, they get hung up on where they should distribute their funds.
I am going to show you a few tricks you can use to market your website on a shoestring budget. You can pick and choose the techniques that work best for your brand based on your industry and audience size.
Work with influencers
First, let's talk about social media. You know that social media is one of the best ways to generate new leads for your business. The best part about platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Instagram is you can promote your brand without breaking the bank.
Across all of these different platforms, there are internet celebrities known as influencers. These people create videos or written content for their audience where they talk about products, brands, or simply provide commentary.
There are several different types of influencers. The classifications are based on the size of their following. Celebrity influencers have over 500,000 subscribers, while nanoinfluencers have between 500-5,000 followers.
You can hire influencers to promote your brand for fairly cheap. If you work with a nanoinfluencer, they will share a Facebook post promoting your brand for an average of $31. Compare that number to the average $2,500 cost of a celebrity Facebook post, and it's easy to see you're getting a bargain.
The key to finding the right influencer is in their content. Try to look for people that regularly post content that resonates with your target audience. For instance, a pet store would likely target an influencer that has a channel that covers animals.
Even if the influencer has under 5,000 followers, you have a much better chance of marketing to people that resonate with your brand message and can find value in your product.
Host a social media contest
Social media is also an excellent place for running a viral giveaway. There are over 3 billion people across all social media platforms, so you can reach your target audience if you have the right message.
Contests are excellent marketing tools because you can use something from your online store, or a subscription to your service, as a price to entice your followers.
You don't have to worry about spending a ton of money promoting the post either. When you create your event, make a rule that lets consumers share your event for a chance to enter. When people share your post, you'll get free exposure for your website.
If you want to get even more value from your giveaways, consider asking for email subscriptions as another entry method. Simply asking consumers to subscribe for future offers and promotions for a chance to win a prize is bound to help you add more prospects to your lead list.
Add an email opt-in
Email opt-ins can be an excellent way to encourage visitors to stay engaged with your brand. When someone lands on your website, is there something visible that encourages them to subscribe to your email list for deals and content?
It's worth thinking about creating a form like this for your website. A staggering 60% of consumers sign up for email lists strictly so they can take advantage of deals and promotions.
Once you get enough people subscribed to your list, you can start customizing your campaigns for different subsets of audiences. This practice is known as lead segmentation, and it's vital to creating content that resonates with individual consumers.
You can split-test different contact forms, calls to action, and placement when you create an email opt-in. Some people find that changing the color of their call to action was enough to boost their conversion rate, which leads to more subscribers and potential sales.
Master engagement
Getting consumers to engage with your brand can help your business grow, but engaging with your audience can exponentially boost your results.
There are countless ways to engage with your audience. The first, and perhaps the most powerful way, is through social media. You're likely posting content regularly for consumers to read and comment on, but do you ever comment back?
A response from a brand can help build trust and help those consumers remember you in the future. People want to buy products from businesses that show they care about what their customers think and feel.
You can respond to simple messages or even help consumers that have questions about your product. Research shows that 33% of consumers prefer to reach out to brands on social media instead of calling an office.
Improve your engagement by showing users that follow you on social media that you are interested in having a conversation and building connections.
It's also important that you talk to the people who visit your website. Check your blog posts for comments daily and respond to people that leave you feedback or ask for clarification on specific points. Responding to these subscribers will encourage those people to come back and read future posts because they know you will engage with them in the future.
The best part about marketing your business through engagement is it doesn't cost anything but time to talk to your fans and potential customers.
Ask for testimonials
While you're engaging with your followers, you're bound to get people that say good things about their experience with your company. These testimonials are perfect for marketing your brand.
You can share positive feedback on social media, which will help build social proof. Essentially, social proof is a phenomenon where people are likely to get interested in a product or service if they see someone else having a positive experience with that brand.
Sales pages are also excellent places for testimonials. If someone is interested in your company, but they're not sure if they want to buy something from you, feedback from others can change their mind. In fact, testimonials can improve your sales page conversions by up to 34%.
If you don't see many reviews from customers, consider emailing a feedback form. Let your customers know that you want to make sure you're doing everything possible to satisfy their needs and ask for their feedback. Once you start getting responses, you can start a conversation and ask if you can use the feedback on your website or social media.
Conclusion
Marketing your business on a budget may seem difficult at first. It takes practice to balance out your social media followers, email subscribers, and on-site visitors. With practice, you can learn to reach new prospects across all of these platforms.
The most important thing you should remember is new leads don't always pop up overnight. Sometimes you have to experiment with different aspects of your marketing strategy for maximum effectiveness.
As you gather information about your target audience, you can fine-tune your strategy for even more conversions and sales. Take the time to use these inexpensive marketing tricks if you want to reach new followers, grow your email list, or increase sales on your website.