How to make a big impact with a low budget

Sahail Ashraf posted on 23 July 2021

It shouldn’t cost the earth to make an impact on social media. And it doesn’t. We have three great ways to gain traction with social media marketing even if you don’t have the world’s biggest budget.

Running social media marketing campaigns on a budget can seem tricky. You have a lot to achieve with a smaller budget than you would like. However, there are some key principles that you can bear in mind that should make it easier to create successful campaigns with sensible budgets. Bear the following in mind and you should start seeing good results.

Ensure your target audience is hyper defined

Your target audience is crucial. If you know exactly who you are trying to reach, you will waste less money trying to reach everyone else. 

The biggest mistake a brand can make is thinking that social media marketing is about making a profit. Instead, it is about building trust and loyalty, so that customers return time and time again to buy. They will also make sure that they recommend your brand to others, and become ambassadors for your products and services.

This means that reaching the right people is important, because they are much more likely to be open to what you do, and to spreading the word. Carefully targeted work that sends the right message to the right people will build that loyalty and therefore create enhanced customer lifetime value.

Pick the right channel for your business

There are many platforms out there, but not every channel is right for you. And when you have a small budget you cannot afford to make mistakes. 

To understand the concept of ‘picking the right channel for your business’ think about Facebook. You can use it’s incredible features such as Custom Audiences to really drill down and target your marketing efforts to the right people.

However, with Facebook there is a bit of a catch. The budget required to really make an impact on the platform is considerable, and will soon be an issue if you are using the smaller budget approach. So Facebook has a great amount of potential, but it costs a lot to really get some traction on it. 

Contrast that with another platform like Instagram, or TikTok, where you can investigate micro-influencers, and you could potentially see a better ROI. It’s all about knowing where you can get the best value, and the flashier, bigger platforms aren’t always the answer. 

And while we are on the subject of Instagram, you may well find it to be a natural home for your business. If you sell products that are visual, in that they have visual appeal, Instagram is a perfect place to set out your stall. It really makes it easy to gain attention and engagement with products. Combine a well-taken photo with some help from a micro-influencer and you’re making the best use of the platform on a small budget.

Focus on benefit

Marketing, in the final analysis, is about providing value. If you are able to demonstrate to the person looking at your feed or your post that you have incredible value waiting for them, you are on to a winner.

This is actually easier than it might sound. All that’s required is that you work out one thing that will be of immense value to your specific audience, and then include that in your marketing. 

It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering either. Just valuable. So if you have an eBook that can really help your audience, that’s something that you could offer them as part of your social media marketing. The asset could be offered as a way to gain email addresses or to subscribe to updates on your feed. Whatever you do with it, as long as it proves valuable and attractive to your audience it will help to make your social media marketing more effective.

The basic principle revolves around the idea of differentiating your business from that of your competitors. If you can offer more value than them, you’ve cracked it.

Consider offering:

• An ebook that demonstrates your business expertise and experience
• A discount on your product/service
• Plenty of testimonials on your social channels, so people understand how valuable your offering is

The three areas above are ways to develop an approach that fits perfectly with a smaller budget. As always, we recommend testing your approaches until you find one that starts to bring in some ROI. 

Do you have responsibility for social media marketing? That’s great. We’ve got the perfect platform for you. Locowise is fantastic for keeping an eye on all the metrics you need to get your job done properly. We will even give you 21 days for free.