25 May, 2022
Alyssa Zacharias, Lead Editor at Clash Creative
Four-minute read
It’s common for small businesses to consider marketing a big-business endeavour. Often, they wait until they have expendable resources before investing in promotion. This is unsurprising as so many marketing agencies share outrageous prices and make it sound like a business is helpless without the help of an agency.
Thankfully, a small business can do many things to save money while still implementing a successful marketing strategy. In this blog post, we will outline three of our favourite marketing hacks – things a business owner can do on their own or with the help of an agency.
Create your social media content in-house
This is an excellent initial marketing tactic to take on yourself. For one, your target audience likely uses social media, so this is a great space to start promoting your wonderful products and services asap. And often social media created in-house is more effective than outsider-agency-created content anyways!
We recommend having your staff members take photos and write posts – personal, insider-based content is the most loved by viewers. If working with a marketing agency, meet with them regularly to brainstorm content ideas and then, once photos and posts are created, send these off to the agency to optimize and schedule.
Hot Tip: For the most effective socials content, follow the 90/10 rule: 90% educational and cultural material, 10% self-promotional content. People are on social platforms to connect with others, read interesting articles, or enjoy a good video; they don’t want to be constantly bombarded with sales content. Bring value to your audience as much as possible so they have a reason to keep coming back.
Post smarter, not harder
Check out our nifty infographic about how to easily optimize your social posting!
Inspire your team to share thought leadership
Search engine optimization (SEO) is hard to implement by yourself – it’s data and software-heavy and usually requires an expert. But one way you can save costs is by working with a marketing agency to create thorough content briefs that can be shared with members of your organization. Then, get a willing team member to write a rough draft of the piece (likely a blog post, article, or publication submission).
From there, your marketing team can fill in, edit, and publish the piece. This approach to increased thought leadership helps significantly reduce marketing spend; however, ensure you account for your labour costs. It likely takes longer for an out-of-house copywriter to research and write about a topic your subject matter experts (SMEs) already understand, but track hours to ensure this is the case for you.
Wondering if SEO is really worth all the buzz?
Check out our case study, which showcases an organization's success when prioritizing optimization!
Consider a website subscription service
For websites to be effective lead generators, they must be continually updated and optimized – this can take a lot of time and effort in-house. This is especially true if your current website is in no way successfully bringing in leads.
Managing your website on a subscription can save you the upfront cost of re-doing the entire thing (which can cost tens of thousands of dollars). This tactic also allows you to spread the bulky cost across months – with the added perk of being able to adjust whatever you want when you want.
We offer customizable website management packages geared towards small businesses.
If you’d like to discuss other ways small businesses can take on marketing tactics themselves or save money while leveraging the expertise of a marketing agency, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our experts would love to discuss how your business can save resources while scaling faster than you’d imagined!
Clare Tries is the Founder and CEO of Clash Creative. She is a creative copywriter and passionate marketing professional with over a decade of experience in the IT industry. Her company provides collaborative and rewarding marketing solutions for IT industry and small business professionals.
