Marketing Your Business on a Tight Budget

There's no way around it, marketing your business is essential for its success. In fact, successful marketing can provide your business with a significant return in a very short period of time -- even on a tight budget. In the past the only choice a business had to market their business effectively were outbound marketing tactics such as advertising, direct mailing, cold calling and so on. Outbound marketing can still be a bit expensive, but there are so many over avenues that you can take today that are much more affordable.

The article below discusses some ideas for marketing on a shoestring budget:

1. Start small. Set aside a small budget to begin with. Re-invest some of the dividends from these campaigns into further marketing.
2. Leverage free tools. Social media tools and many free online tools can help you do marketing well. Build a following on free social sites, create profiles on professional business sites. Submit your business to local online business directories.
3. Shop for discounts and coupons. Many marketing tools and programs will offer you a free trial. This can translate to profit before you spend any money. Google Adwords is a good example of this as Google will often give people a $50 or $100 Adwords coupon to start their paid search engine advertising campaign with. (Tip: Do some extensive research about effective Adwords campaign before using your free coupon so you can increase the chances of getting good results with it)
4. Try tier two advertising programs. If you think a search engine marketing advertising campaign sounds too expensive, consider doing an ad campaign on a specific site, instead. Facebook advertising for instance, can be less expensive than many other online marketing campaigns and can provide you with laser targeted focus to geographic areas, age groups, gender, interest levels, and so on.

You can read the rest of the article here.

If you're a small to medium sized business that has yet to implement a successful marketing campaign, it's due time. Both inbound and outbound marketing is a way for you to build relationships with your current or prospective clients and grow your business -- faster than many of your competitors. Today there are many companies that you can hire -- and for a reasonable price -- to manage your marketing campaigns, like Classic Image.

These companies will handle the day-to-day marketing needs of your campaigns while you can focus on what matters most... growing your business. In many cases you can get a reasonable quote to jump start your campaign, ensuring that you don't break your bank.

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Content Marketing: How to Grow Your Business With Content

Content is King...it's Just the Way It Is

As a small to medium sized business you might have heard the phrase "content is king" somewhere along the line. It might seem crazy, but the truth of the matter is that content IS king and content marketing is something that small to medium sized businesses will need to take advantage of at some point or another, especially if they are looking to grow their business. 

We have worked with hundreds of clients who have been working on building their business for years only to find that their marketing campaigns have lacked a few major key factors that are simply imperative if you're looking for profit, growth and wealth. 

As a small to medium sized business it is very important that you include these factors within your marketing campaign: 

1. Strong Brand (one that will stand out from your competitors) 
2. Marketing Campaign that includes Social Media Marketing and SEO
3. Content Marketing

With these three key factors incorporated into your marketing campaign you will see that the growth you're seeking will hit home. You might want to consider looking for a company to help you with your marketing needs so that they can focus on marketing your business while you can focus on what matters most -- growing your business.

Content marketing is extremely important and it isn't something that just anyone can succeed in. It takes time and skill, and yes, a little bit of strategy. In a recent article (below), Joe Pulizzi talks about the top ten content marketing strategies from the last 15 years: 

1. There is no silver bullet
Regardless of what anyone says, there is no silver bullet when it comes to content marketing strategy. So many marketers are looking for the perfect dashboard, system, process, and distribution plan for their content marketing. It simply doesn’t exist. We’ve worked with hundreds of small and large brands around the world, and only one thing has been consistent: Every plan we developed was different. Why? It’s simple: The mixture of communicating what your business offers, delivering on your customers’ informational needs, and sharing your own corporate story is impossible to duplicate —  the output from your particular blend of attributes and goals should always be different and unique. 

As Don Schultz, the father of integrated marketing, has always professed, competitors can copy everything about what you do… your pricing, your product, where you promote it… but they can’t copy exactly how you will communicate. 

2. You can play offense or defense 

One of my favorite basketball players of all time is Julius “Dr. J” Erving. I’ve heard many interviews in which Dr. J talks about two ways to look at basketball offense: You can impose your will on the defense, or you can take what the defense gives you. Dr. J always chose to exert his own will, and that worked for him (quite well, in fact). LeBron James, on the other hand, usually takes what the defense gives him, which is why he racks up so many assists.
Both strategies can be effective. At CMI, we decided to exert our will with the term “content marketing.” In 2007, we popped onto the scene and started using the term like it had been around for years. Through lots of planning, strategy, and luck, it worked, and now content marketing is the defacto term for our industry. (Incidentally, HubSpot did the same thing with “inbound marketing.”) 

But imposing your will is just one way to do it. You could also choose to ride the waves of others and pick your sweet spot. A great example of this is Social Media Examiner. When it launched in 2009, many thought it was late to the party… but it rode the social media wave and executed a content marketing strategy second to none, growing into one of the most-trafficked B2B marketing sites on the planet. 

3. Content marketing is the great equalizer 

“David vs. Goliath” is alive and well in content marketing. Large budgets don’t always win; actually, the smaller players usually come out on top because they are equipped to move more agilely and quickly than their larger competition. For instance, CMI had a smaller budget than almost every marketing media company on the planet, yet we came out on top through focus and hard work. I’ve never seen a bigger company move faster than a smaller organization. OpenView Venture Partners is, relatively speaking, a small VC company compared to its peers. On the web, though, it dominates. 

4. You don’t have to be on all platforms 

In many cases, it’s smart to weave your story onto multiple platforms. It’s entirely possible to have a killer webinar series, amazing blog, outstanding video program, and cutting-edge digital magazine all at the same time.
But there is another way. You may decide to focus and work to dominate one platform. How about a killer podcast series? What about an amazing print newsletter? Maybe a blog is just the platform for you. 

Yes, you construct your strategy before choosing your channels, but don’t feel obligated to be active on every channel that your customer uses. The international travel magazine, Monocle, has just a print magazine. No iPad version. No Facebook page. It works for the magazine and its readers. 

Sometimes simple and focused is better. 

5. Subscribers rule 

If I have one regret as a content marketer, it’s that I didn’t focus early enough on generating subscribers. It took us years of experimenting, but we finally found our “Moneyball number:” the subscriber. We’ve found that once someone is a subscriber, they do different things than non-subscribers that lead to more revenue for us. Instead of converting from content to an immediate sales opportunity, we’ve found that converting from content to more content is the best way (for us). (For more on subscribers, please check out these outstanding reports from ExactTarget — a great example of content marketing, as well.)

You can read the rest of the article here.

If you or your business is in need of content marketing or general marketing assistance, Classic Image is a premier marketing and design agency that has helped hundreds of companies over the last decade. They are affordable, too, so you don't have to spend an arm and a leg while you're trying to bring your business to the top.

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