Not all effective marketing campaigns need to cost the world and take a huge amount of your startup budget. Christopher Bale, MD and founder of the Wiltshire Digital Marketing Agency Digiket Ltd., explains that there are a range of marketing campaigns that small business owners can set up and run on their own for little to no cost. Assisting small businesses looking to set up a low budget creative marketing plan in 2014, Christopher Bale, offers 5 idea:
Guerilla Marketing: Perhaps the most effective tact as reaching audiences of a younger generation is affectively known as Guerilla Marketing. Using various “Brand Ambassadors” communicating with the audience on a 1 to 1 intimate level, this tactic focuses on purely non traditional methods. Proven to have a significant effect on growing brand awareness and driving sales, apart from time, this tactic uses minimal resources. The very interactive nature of Guerilla Marketing helps a community create a lasting relationship with a product aiding in building an overall brand experience with an audience.
Product Placement: Product placement marketing is perfect for those without a massive campaign budget but looking to gain airtime for their products. Businesses can contact networks or production assistants explaining why their product is perfect for a particular audience. Product placement allows all marketers to spend the money and effort displaying their products, while ensuring the chosen channel reaches very important and influential demographics. This form of marketing has really opened up with the popularity of YouTube channels. Find a channel that is reaching out to a similar audience to you and offer them free product to be featured in their video casts. You will find these people a lot more receptive than the traditional TV networks and in some cases the placement a lot more effective.
Social Media Marketing: According to the Pew Research Center More than 75% of people between the ages of 30 and 49 use some form of social media. Since this is the age range representing the majority of those in a household with purchasing power, all small business owners should ensure they target their audience through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Just make sure you have an active audience listening to your message, unfortunately unscrupulous digital marketing agencies promote buying followers on these channels. Ensure to gain real followers otherwise your marketing efforts will be lost.
Video Marketing: With most small businesses being in possession of laptops with webcams and an internet connection it a relatively low cost step to posting videos online. The main marketing problem for any small business these days is getting your message heard, and online video is the solution. YouTube Video has been shown to move an existing site to the first page of a Google search within 30 minutes of adding it, and move it into one of the top two positions within a day. A study found that customers who see a video on your site are 172% more likely to buy your product or service.
Lifestyle Marketing: Small businesses that consider themselves a lifestyle brand should consider utilizing Lifestyle Marketing to reach their audience in 2014. Utilizing word of mouth Lifestyle Marketing places products or messaging at locations where consumers frequent, such as hair and beauty salons or popular lunch spots. These can carry a lot of influence with local audiences and a product or flier visible in these locations will help grow brand awareness for small businesses.
For help in implementing Guerilla Marketing, Product Placement, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing and Lifestyle Marketing please contact Digiket Ltd.
