How to Plan a Digital Marketing Strategy in a Low Budget?

Using Social Media to its Full Potential

Do not limit your promotion campaign to one social network.

Make use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google My Business, Twitter, Youtube, TikTok and more.

Do not only make your own social media pages but also groups to keep your audience engaged.

Through your social media, post your blog posts related to their business and share them across all socials.

This will drive traffic to your website as the audience will interact with the posts.

Other than that you can directly engage with your audience.

Always reply to their comments and queries.

In fact, also ask for their feedback and run polls to get an overview of what you are doing.

Actively interact with your audience because that only increases engagement but also leads to brand awareness.

However, the audience is not the only person you should be targeting.

Tagging Brands and Influencers on Social Media

Use your platforms to reach a greater audience as well as popular influencers.

Send your products to influencers and tag them if they or your audience posts any user-generated content.

What’s more, you can tag your loyal customers and even other companies that align with your values.

This will help their audience to become yours as long as they tag your business in their posts.

Post Content on LinkedIn and make Facebook Groups

Maybe your business consists of lots of aesthetically pleasing products that you only limit to Instagram.

However, that way you only let go of several other opportunities to interact with a different audience.

Making connections is not the only way to use LinkedIn, rather engaging in a conversation with like-minded people.

Share your content as well as post others’.

Become a part of forums and reply to your connections.

This way you are letting people know about you and your business, even if rather slowly.

Another way to get to know and engage with like-minded people is to use Facebook groups.

You can either set up your own or join related groups to your niche.

For instance, if you are an event planner for birthdays then you may want to join mommy groups or event planning groups.

This way you can reach your target audience by advertising your small business without spending a dime.

Also, you do not necessarily need to spam them with promotional material, rather you can post helpful blogs and more informative content to drive them to your website.

Also whenever you post on any of the socials, do not forget to write hashtags.

Having your unique brand hashtags, as well as those largely searched for, are both going to benefit you.

Keep up with the trends related to your industry and create content plus include hashtags that are relevant to that.

Chances are that when your target audience searches for the hashtags, they land on your business.

Alongside these, setting up a Google My Business account can help people reach out to your business through maps.

It will show when they search for businesses in that area and that can also be achieved through Local SEO.

More on that below!

All these ways are completely free and hardly require any time setting up.

However, the results will not be seen immediately.

Be patient and regular with using these social media marketing tactics.

You will keep receiving audiences organically even if gradually without spending a dime.

Starting a Blog and Guest Posting

Did you know that 20 billion WordPress pages are viewed by 409 million people in only… a month?

This overwhelming figure is not to discourage you from even trying but motivate you that yours could be on the future list too.

But also you need a quality blog in order to stand out from the competition.

Hence, you should focus on providing value to your readers that fit your niche.

This way you can drive traffic from your socials and even searches on SERPs to your blog.

Furthermore, it strengthens your SEO and results in a significant improvement in your ranking as well as visibility.

So is starting your blog free? Yes, there are ways to make a separate blog for free but if you run a website then you can simply add another blog section.

However, it takes time and effort.

Writing a good blog can take up to 4 plus hours.

Hence, it does require effort and time but once you get a good readership, you will see fruitful results too.

Once, you have a credible name in the blogging world and regular visitors, it is time to start guest blogging as well.

Send your pitches to some industry blogs.

In the end, they link up your website which can lead more people to your business.

Implement SEO

When writing blogs, you will also have to work on SEO.

This is only how your website can rank higher and become visible in SERPs.

Thus, begin by implementing On-page SEO on your blogs.

When you will start guest blogging, you can get quality backlinks that work for your Off-page SEO.

Other than that, you should work on Local SEO for your business especially if it targets the locals.

All you need to do is:

• Include the keyword i.e. your business name in the headings as well as the body
• Publish blogs that specifically identify with your target areas
• Make sure you are part of online directories and all the contact information si the same online
• Doing so will get you into Google 3-pack whenever someone searches for similar terms to that of your business

Other Tactics

Email Marketing

Setting up a regular email newsletter isn’t easy.

However, the ROI from email marketing is the highest.

Hence, carefully draft an email that will encourage people to take the next step.

But first, you will need signups.

In order to bring them to become subscribers, offer a small discount or an incentive on their signup.

Then keep sending them creative and engaging emails until they are ready to become paying customers.

Apply for Business Awards

If the industry recognizes you, there is a chance your audience will too.

The online badge may not look like something big but actually, it generates credibility.

Hence, people are more likely to purchase from a business with credibility than one with none.

Therefore, there is no harm in applying for one of these.

That said, if there is none in your business, then start one.

But how can you? Yours is a small business, after all.

You certainly can.

In fact, this way you will get more attention from industry businesses and this can be a growing opportunity to develop contacts that can come in handy for future collaborations.

Make Video Content

Besides blogs and emails, you can always look up to engaging your audience with something more.

Video content is considerably easier to consume than reading a blog.

So keep coming up with new video ideas for your audience.

What’s more, you do not need to make videos directly related to your business.

For instance, the makeup conglomerate Amore Pacific promotes its products indirectly through an ASMR channel Beauty Point.

Similarly, the clothing brand ODG features young children interacting with local celebs to promote their products.

Other than promotional videos, you can also post videos that add value for people.

For instance, make videos of product demos, how-to’s, showing the BTS of your business and staff interviews to show your work culture.

As the audience gains more trust in your business, they are more likely to make purchases.

Plus, all of this is for free, just requires more time and effort but will also produce better results.

Host a Giveaway

You must have heard of giveaways and there are chances you even participated in one.

The expenses for a giveaway are all in your control but there’s much more to get from these than give.

You get tonnes of followers, increase engagement and get noticed thanks to the rules of the giveaway.

You can set rules like:

• Tag 5 friends in the comment
• Make sure they all follow and like
• Post this on your story

The engagement increases thanks to the comments and likes plus posting story helps you gain more visibility and brand awareness.

So it is an effective way to get your name out there with minimal cost.

Hosting and Attending Events

Spending time on events will help you to interact with like-minded people as well as potential clients.

Thus, do not skip an opportunity to meet people for future collaborations and expand your network.

What’s more, you can also plan and host events on your own.

Not only that, but you can give classes in your area of expertise.

Post that on community bulletin boards to reach more people.

This way not only will you spread the word about your business, but also give back to the community.

Hence, these are the several ways in which you can reach out to your audience in the digital world.

Finally,

A low budget should not be a barrier in formulating a digital marketing strategy.

Basic use of the digital and social world is free.

You only need to spend time and effort in making an effective promotional strategy.

Once, you do, you will see an increase in sales and a rise in visitors benefiting your small business.

So, start first with fast, free and easy tactics but slowly make your way ahead to other more advanced strategies.