If you are fortunate enough to be a big company and have the budget to match then your options are endless when marketing online. Every option is available to you and you don’t need to be as worried about a direct return on investment, you can afford to invest in PR and aim to get your companies brand out there before actually trying to selling products and services directly. We’re going to take a look at what smaller companies with lower budgets can do to reach the most people and get the highest return for their spend.
Social Media Advertising
Social Media has grown rapidly in the last decade and due to the increase in different platforms there are now ways to target different people cost effectively. The beauty of Social Media is that you don’t even need to pay for advertising to reach people, if you good enough at creating and sharing content then you can build a following and sell without even needing to spend a penny. If however you are in a sector where realistically you aren’t going to be able to generate a following because it’s simply not interesting enough then your only option may be to pay for sponsored and boosted posts. The good news is that even if this is the case it is still very good value for money when compared to other channels like Google Ads. If you were to get for example, a Digital Agency Manchester to run your campaign for you it would cost you more than running it yourself but would in all likelihood yield better results.
With Social Media it is important to analyse the different platforms and decide which is best for your brand. Every channel has a different customer base, some are broader than others but in general you’ll be targeting a different demographic or interest on each one. For example, TikTok tends to be for the 18-24 market who like bitesize clips and don’t have to pay attention for too long. This demographic also use Snapchat as their chosen messaging platform. For slightly older people in their 30’s you would be looking at Instagram and Facebook with WhatsApp being the main messaging platform. Sites like LinkedIn and Pinterest aren’t so much based on just age, it is more to do with lifestyle. LinkedIn is obviously more of a professional platform and Pinterest is for people who tend to be interested in arts, crafts, creativity, weddings, interior design and is mainly used by women.
Search Engine Optimisation
The other great option for smaller brands which provides the best return on investment of all digital marketing options is SEO. The main negatives of SEO are that is can take longer to achieve results and also that it can cost a lot if you hire a good agency to do it for you. For example, a Manchester SEO agency will charge potentially thousands of pounds per month for a campaign, which is still much cheaper than a London agency but is quite a bit more than if you could learn to do it yourself. If you are really on a shoestring budget then it would definitely be worth putting a bit of time in to learning SEO basics.