[Declassified] Successful Online Marketing on a TIGHT budget

Finding it challenging to get your business services and products in front of your potential clients?  It doesn’t have to be too difficult – with a successful online marketing plan!

Even on a tight budget, you should still hire a professional digital marketing firm to – AT THE VERY LEAST – create a short-term (preferably, 90 day) custom online marketing plan for you.

The following are proven steps to take, leading up to hiring a proven expert, such as SME.Consulting, to develop an effective online marketing strategy on a tight budget.  *SME.Consulting provides their trademark 90-Day Online Marketing Strategy and Content Mapping Plan service*

Before you contact a marketing firm, please ensure to:

• ✔ Clearly define your target market

Regardless of what you’re selling, it’s important to clearly define your target personas and customer segments.  Who will buy your products?  What are their age groups?  Why should they buy the products?  What will they gain?

• ✔ Understand what problems you can solve

To clearly define your target market, you will need to understand the specific problems that your business can effectively solve.

• ✔ Think intimately about your target market

Nowadays different customer types can access nearly anything at their convenience.  The web has proven to be unique and fantastic at delivering services and products that cut out challenges that existed in acquiring them before.  That is why you should consider segmenting your target market based on how they consume your product.  E.g., women, men, age group and specific geographical locations.

• ✔ Set goals

What do you want to gain from executing a strategy?  Do you want to increase revenue or brand awareness?  Maybe you have multiple goals.  You should keep track of what your goals are so that you will be able to measure your success.  After reaching your initial goals, you should set new goals (scale) and your business will continue to improve.

• ✔ Set a budget

Now that you have set S.M.A.R.T goals and you have clearly defined your target market, you should plan your marketing budget accordingly.  One of the best things with online marketing is the fact that you can succeed even when you are on a tight budget.  The KEY is to have a plan that is written with cost-effective, customized short-term strategies that can be measured and scaled.  SME.Consulting’s 90-day plans are great value for the small investment required.  With that said, sticking with free, generic strategies is not the best online marketing strategy for your business.  Professionally written custom plans will get you the best results.

• ✔ Brand your business

Set your business apart from the competition.  Thousands of companies are already likely selling variations of your products and services on the web.  In this case, you should try to make your brand unforgettable.  If there are related companies with a similar name to yours, it’s best to consider changing your business name to avoid confusion.  There must be a look to tie your company and marketing materials together.  This may include in your color schemes, images, illustrations, infographics and other materials that reflect the personality.

With the above considered, you will be ready to contact a digital marketing firm, such as SME.Consulting.  Be prepared with as much info on your business as possible.  You will likely have to answer as many of the following questions as possible to determine how they will customize your plan:

1. 1. ..What general online marketing have you been doing and which areas, if any, have yielded some success?
2. 2. ..What online marketing tools, software or platforms, if any, do you currently utilize?
3. 3. ..Do you have a blog, write content consistently and share it throughout social networks? *Provide Social Network urls*
4. 4. ..Do you have a sales team and what is their best lead source/focus area?
5. 5. ..What do you think your competitive advantage/USP is?
6. 6. ..What percentage of your current leads do you generate online?
7. 7. ..Have you defined your target market or persona types in terms of their geography, demography & psychograhy?
8. 8. ..How would you define your actual existing customers?
9. 9. ..Do you do any SEO?
10. 10. ..Do you publish a newsletter, have an email chain, do any e-mail Marketing or any sort of drip marketing?
11. 11. ..Do you currently have any standalone landing pages or sales funnels for your service, that you direct traffic to?
12. 12. ..What is your primary product/service of focus?

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Read the next article in SME.Consulting’s small business education series:

The Hard Truth for Businesses without a Digital Marketing Strategy by Chrispen Pasipanodya –https://sme.consulting/the-hard-truth-for-businesses-without-a-digital-marketing-strategy/

Get a leap over the competition with an affordable, winning digital marketing plan that leads to more customers and increased revenue.   Speak with a Marketing Specialist.  Get in touch with SME.Consulting’s marketing team via phone, email or our contact form.

Written by Chrispen Pasipanodya

Senior Consultant at SME.Consulting

https://sme.consulting