How to maximize returns from your small advertising budget?

Creating a good advertising campaign does not always require a large budget, rather all it takes is smart follow-up and educated strategies. Every dollar spent towards advertising should earn you benefits of more than a dollar, whether that means expanding your brand presence or attracting more customers.

Higher expenditure on advertising and marketing does not mean you will get better results if you do not allocate your budget strategically. Efficiency in a marketing campaign can be achieved only if you get complete value of your spend – no matter what the size of your budget is.

Setting a budget for advertising and marketing campaigns is more of an art than a science. Following are some rules which will help maximize returns without spending a ton:

Use strategies that complement each other: A marketing budget will help achieve more if it is distributed among strategies that complement each other. Instead of investing in two totally different strategies, you should invest in ideas that enhance each other.  For example, SEO and content marketing are two strategies that should be invested in together to get better results.

Identifying the right customer: You need to identify your target customer base before launching an advertising and marketing campaign. Even the best of the campaigns fail if they do not reach the target customer. Before deciding on the amount of the budget, you need to find out whether your customers use social media platforms more or are responsive to pay-per-click or e-mail. The more you are able to find about the habits of your target customer, the easier it will be for you to decide how to use the funds of your budget.

Tailor ads according to time: In order to get better results, you should customize your ad campaign on the basis of the time of the day. Understanding which type of product will your customer be looking for at what time of the day will help boost returns. If you have an e-commerce site that sells household products, then morning ads should highlight coffee mugs, while Friday afternoon ads should feature cake stands.

Offer discounts: Offering a promotion in your advertisement like free shipping or discount code can help increase sales. By including an end time in the ad, like ‘ends at 20.00 hours’ create a sense of urgency, and raises the chances of making a sale.

Photos and their importance: An ad should feature good photographs to attract traffic. Bad pictures are always a waste of money. If you have a limited budget then you should create great-looking ads around a few products that offer the highest margins. This method will increase your return on investment.

Networking: Marketing at events like conferences and trade shows can boost your business tremendously as well as generate new leads. Try to get a list of the people who will attend the event so that you can short-list your target customers.

Develop a referral plan: Once you have a base of happy customers, you can use word-of-mouth marketing to expand your business.  You can ask for referrals from these customers, which can include friends, vendors, partners and clients. You can give reward points to those who refer and if the reference converts into a sale.

Create a LinkedIn profile: Lately LinkedIn has become a powerful social media platform for making business connections. You can create a page of your business on LinkedIn and work towards growing the network of your company. You will also need to boost the visibility of the page with regular updates like publishing relevant information.