Marketing on a budget

However, some marketing techniques are exorbitant in cost making marketing seem like a daunting task. Luckily there are a few ways that you can increase your marketing efforts while keeping costs at a minimum. Here a few tips to help you market on a budget:

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1. Publish great content. Creating interesting and informative content is imperative to achieve any form of marketing success. Individuals desire content that is valuable and noteworthy. You can help increase your companies content exposure through blogs, newsletters, and social media platforms such as Facebook (sharing status updates) and Twitter (tweets about your products and services). Make sure your content is a true representation of your brands voice and product/service. This will help you gain credibility.

2. Videos. There are numerous live-streaming services available in South Africa, including Facebook Live. Companies must use these services to their advantage. Facebook Live, for example, enables users to communicate and connect with their fans and followers in a unique way. Through Facebook Live, users are able to share real-time videos and engage in real time feedback.

This is expedient for brands seeing as content will not be tedious and monotone. Businesses and companies can use tools such as Facebook Live and YouTube as a sales tool where they can enhances their presentations, events, workshops or conferences.

3. Become a social networker. Through creating business accounts and participating in social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ you can establish strong networks within your industry. You can then form a mutually beneficial relationship with these networks. For example, if you provide student accommodation and your residence is fully occupied, you could always refer students to another residence in your network and your networks could do the same for you.

4. Create infographics. Infographics can be an extremely powerful marketing tool. This is because they are usually easy to understand, contain relevant information and they are easy for your audience members to digest and share.

5. Make use of LinkedIn. One of the top social media sites is LinkedIn. Use this platform effectively by joining groups and sharing your blog posts. This will help you promote your content and enable you to gain more exposure for your brand.

6. Implement a customer referral program. Offering existing customers some form of reward if they refer new customers to you can be an effective way to build your clientele. Word of mouth is extremely powerful so don’t forget about this form of marketing when trying to promote your product or service.

7. Competitions. Competitions are a great way to increase your brands visibility and get people interested and talking about your brand. If your budget is very tight, you can be creative with the prize. Everyone loves a free gift, even if it is just a t-shirt, backpack or water bottle.

8. Email marketing. Email marketing is an effective way to generate new visitors engaged with your business. It can also help you maintain relationships with your existing customers.