Budget-Friendly Tips for Small Business Marketing

You have big dreams for your small business. You built it from scratch and there are few things more rewarding than watching it blossom. Your small business marketing could make the difference between paying the bills and truly thriving.

Of course, you don’t have the million-dollar budget of larger companies. How do you get effective marketing without blowing your profit margin in the process? The key is to find the right marketing specialist and to remember these tips from our team at McCauley Marketing Services.

Find Scalable Marketing Options

A common concern among small businesses is signing a rigid marketing contract that stops fitting your business’s needs after a few months. As your business grows, you want to be able to grow and increase your marketing strategy with it. When you shop for marketers, find out how they plan to modify your strategy over time. Make sure you have the option to increase your budget as your business grows.

Our team at McCauley Marketing Services, for example, offers a range of small business marketing packages. Our clients sometimes start with a basic package, but we offer the flexibility to allow them to step up to a more comprehensive package to fit their growing or changing needs in the future.

Choose Marketers Specializing in Small Businesses

Just as in every other industry, each marketer gets used to a certain set of circumstances. It may seem like a great investment to hire a marketer who has worked with Fortune 500 companies. In reality, though, those marketers are used to handling much larger budgets. When they see your small-business-sized budget, they may not know how to make the most of it.

A marketing company that specializes in small businesses and knows how to choose the best campaigns for your company’s strategy will understand and maximize your budget from day one. Their expertise is working with diverse situations and they have the ability to design the most profitable marketing strategy possible. As an added bonus, these companies are typically smaller businesses too (like McCauley Marketing Services), so we can relate to your needs and your concerns.

Prepare with Brand-Focused Soul-Searching

A small business marketer can guide you through every step of building your brand, including defining that brand from the start. Of course, if you already have a firm picture of your brand, that’s likely to lower the amount of work you need from your marketer which cuts your cost.

Try to gather more insight into your brand in advance, starting with these questions:

• What type of feeling or atmosphere do you want customers to associate with you?
• If you had to describe your brand with 3 adjectives, what would they be?
• What is your mission statement? What about your positioning statement?
• What sets you apart from your competitors?
• If your brand were a person, what would they be like? Think about their age, their fashion sense, their hobbies, their favorite music, and more.

These questions will help you develop a clearer picture of your distinctive brand so your marketer can hit the ground running.

Rely on Your Marketer’s Expertise for Budget Allocation

To start your marketing strategy, you’ll begin with a total budget: usually 7-8% of your revenue. However, that budget needs to cover all your various marketing campaigns, materials, events, strategies, and more.

That is the tricky part: deciding what percentage of your budget should go toward social media marketing, web content, search engine optimization, paid search ads, and any other strategies you choose. In this area, rely on your marketer’s expertise. They know what allocation will give you the most “bang for your buck” and have the greatest impact on your business.

Managing your marketing budget is not easy, and you don’t have to do it on your own. The tips above can help you grow your business while keeping your budget affordable and effective. To get started on your maximized strategy, call McCauley Marketing Services today. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more marketing tips.