While your grandparents never would have thought that a robot could read an article and understand it accurately, they did learn a thing or two about budgeting from one of the most difficult economic times in American history. Here are some ways to stretch your digital marketing budget with some financial wisdom from the Great Depression.
Make Do With What You Have
Don’t let a small budget intimidate you into doing nothing. You have a budget – that’s a good start. You also have the power of Google at your fingertips, there is some really useful tools for little or no investment you can use to improve your digital marketing presence.
With a simple Internet search, you will be able to find a plethora of useful tools for free. While it is to pay someone to help you, if you are on a tight budget start by getting the job done yourself and outsource only the items you can’t master.
Digital Marketing Homework
- Research tips and how to guides to learn digital marketing
- Use free keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner
- Create social media profiles
- Submit listings to free-to-join directory sites
There are a lot of things you can do to improve your digital marketing on shoestring budget when you do what you can yourself. In the days of the depression era, your grandparents built their own bedframes and invented their own toys because they didn’t have the money to buy them at the General Store and probably enjoyed them more because it was their own creation. In the same way, you can make a big change in your online presence from just the little you have.
Using the Digital Barter System
When money was tight or just not there during the Depression, many people resorted to bartering. If you were a piano teacher and needed bread, you would teach the Baker’s child piano in exchange for bread. Or you might run an errand for someone because you had transportation while that person other mowed your lawn because you didn’t have a mower.
The barter system works even within the parameters of the Internet, where you can exchange digital marketing “currency” in a number of ways. Such as:
- Commenting and sharing others’ website content in exchange for them doing the same
- Guest posting on each others’ websites
- Crosslinking related blogging content on websites
- Partnering on writing a whitepaper or eBook that is made available on each website
Stretching Your Digital Marketing Budget
So far, we’ve discussed how to get things for free, but, assuming you have some sort of a budget, here are some tips regarding spending of the budget that also comes from the wisdom of your grandparents.
- Content – Write the content yourself and hire someone to edit it / spiff it up only
- SEO – Determine the paid SEO services that get the best results and buy only those
- PPC – Run AdWords campaigns at the most optimal times of the day
- Social – Respond and monitor your social media presence, but hire someone to help you create the social media strategy
- Website – Only pay someone to do the things you can’t like make your website pretty and mobile friendly
And remember, frugality isn’t just for when the budget is tight. If you have the time and the skill do the work yourself. When your business picks up and your time becomes more limited allocate your time to the tasks that will make you more money. It will then be time to increase your digital marketing budget.
Do you have a favorite digital marketing money saving strategy has worked in your business? Please comment below and share!
