Both startups and SMEs – small and medium-sized companies – have a significant challenge in getting their business idea off the ground. A reduced budget for digital marketing leads them to do magic.
If you are the owner or the promoter of a new startup or small or medium-sized company, you know what I’m talking about, but I want to tell you that even with a small budget, you can achieve the goals you have set for yourself—fixed on internet marketing. Remember that it is not about how much money you have but how you invest it—knowing all the digital marketing tools to design an effective campaign strategy.
Marketing spending, even in the digital age, needs to be diverse
Remember that we are still real human beings, made of flesh and blood, that we walk down the street, that we see and listen; we have a life offline.
I am not telling you that you forget digital marketing, but rather that there must be an association of elements for the marketing campaign to be effective. Of course, in some companies, the tendency will be to go digital because that is where their centre of operation is, their forte, but think about it, if you stop advertising in media other than the Internet -offline- wouldn’t you be losing a good opportunity? Sure you do; in fact, the first thing I want to encourage in you is the concept of your company’s omnipresence; your brand and business proposal must be seen everywhere.
So, marketing must have a holistic approach, that is, it considers the whole, but that presents a challenge because if we want to be everywhere, we must have a large budget to do so.
What I am going to tell you now are considerations you should make when requesting a budget for your website or organizing your budget for marketing. Still, since I know that you have a small business and that money is not what you have leftover, I want to tell you to cover as much as possible, regardless of whether details are left to be done or polished. Later, when your company gains more strength, you can include what has been pending.
Multimedia marketing; everything counts
As I told you, you must integrate all the means you can into your marketing strategy and web design; here, we will divide it into the physical and the digital.
It would help if you gave your company a presence on a physical level, which involves interaction in the real world with your customers and potential customers. In that sense, printed material is essential.
As printed material in which you can invest, we have business cards, advertising posters and pamphlets or flyers.
All your employees, even when the only employee is you, must have business cards that can be given to potential clients. Remember that no sale is closed in the first meeting. Therefore you must provide some way for people to communicate with you. Yes, you may have a web page you can give them as a reference, but generally, people tend to need to remember that information, whereas if you give it to them in written form, they are more likely to get in touch.
At the promotional posters and flyers level, the most important thing is how your business offer is exposed. Keep the information simple, and only try to load your informative elements with some content; I invite you to see it like any other element designed for customer conversion. Set a conversion goal with each printed element and base it on it; for example, you may create your flyers with the intention that your potential customers enter your website and find out what your business is about.
Note that it is not about investing for the sake of investing
Instead, it is about justifying the investment with a strategy that works. Even to create business or presentation cards, you must consider aspects essential for them to be successful, such as design, font type (typography) and others.
An issue that I want to talk about separately from printed material is the issue of packaging, which applies to products.
Remember that packaging is part of your identity as a brand
Therefore you must offer a positive experience in that sense. Of all, the packaging is something you will need regardless of the marketing strategy you prefer because even when it comes to an online business, the products sold are delivered packaged, right?
The same thing happens at the digital level; your website exposes your offer, and it deserves to be representative of what you want to sell. Investment in the Internet is not limited to the page; there is an investment in digital advertising and others, but here I want to reinforce the idea that a well-designed Web page is attractive for your customers.
Again, web design is more than just web design colour and shapes. Instead, web design is about the customer experience and how well you approach your market.
Differentiate yourself from the rest
I have already told you what you must invest in for the marketing strategy to be successful, but for it to work, I must tell you about “how”. Remember that I have already told you that the amount of money does not matter, but how it is invested.
The most significant investment you should make at the marketing level is to find what differentiates you from the rest and exploit it. It is something that all companies achieve since many make copies of others and end up being generic companies.
How you address your audience is one of the first steps to defining your personality as a company; of course, it is not an involuntary act; it must be well studied. The expressions you use, the language, the tone, and the image representing your company must be consistent with what you want to sell; otherwise, you will not make your proposal attractive.
It is different from wanting to sell a product or service to an adult population segment to doing it to the youngest. Here, the investment is based more on the knowledge of your target audience of SEO and other marketing strategies, tastes, and preferences to establish a relationship based on affinity.
Now, since it is about promoting the omnipresence of your business, you will need to ally with some companies so that the diffusion is greater. In this case, the investment is about knowing which companies can serve as a springboard for your business to grow. Remember that when it comes to alliances, there must be a situation that benefits both parties and, without a doubt, must be planned.
In all this, there is a common factor that I want to highlight: creativity. Although you have fulfilled the task of knowing how to do things, the execution mustn’t present errors, you must hit your objective, and for that, indeed, you will have to give it several turns before reaching the final and optimized result.
Work philosophy for effective marketing
We can only talk about investments for marketing strategies in startups and SMEs by touching on the issue of work philosophy since this philosophy is part of marketing itself. It is as simple as that: no matter how much you invest, you must learn how to adapt to the market’s current expectations to succeed.
Let me remind you that there are currently many companies like yours and that you are the one who must capture the attention of the market with an attractive proposal.
That said, I invite you to adopt the work philosophy where the customer is given priority, not the product. We have already talked about that; in marketing these days, it is not so important to talk about the product’s characteristics but how those characteristics satisfy the market’s needs to which it is directed.
Humanize your company
You must invest in the humanization of your brand; this means having a person who becomes an ambassador of your product, although that may be outside the advertising budget or the online marketing company today if you are a small company. This is one of those things you have as a pending task but can promote by treating your customers.
If you reach your customers as a human being and not as a corporation, the human character in your company will likely be noticed. Social networks are often used precisely so that contact with the market is much closer and thus humanizes the company, but without a doubt, the fact that people can put a face to your company is an important step.
Create bilateral communication channels
Continuing with the theme of work philosophy, you must create bilateral communication channels with your market. Before marketing, the company talked, the customer listened, and there was no feedback. This model is doomed to failure because people want to be heard; you must invest in that sense. Social networks have positioned themselves as the most intelligent investment when it comes to creating channels of communication.
Maintain a strategy of promotions and discounts
This point touches on a significant issue because it is about maintaining the relationship with the client. In your marketing plan, and therefore in your budget, the actions that seek to reward the loyalty of your customers must be contemplated.
On certain occasions, and to a select group of customers, you can offer a special promotion or discount that makes them feel special; indeed, they are.
This is a strategy that, as I told you before, strengthens ties with your customers, but, above all, it is beneficial if we understand that these people who receive the benefits become ambassadors of the brand and are capable of doing word-of-mouth advertising. Mouth; is a potent type of advertising.