Building a strategy that works for your business and budget is an essential, yet challenging, part of marketing your business successfully. Your marketing strategy must be as unique as your business, and molded according to what you can afford, while ensuring you’re hitting all the crucial components you need to grow.
How can you have an effective marketing strategy on a budget? Working your plan through a series of phases can help you accomplish your goals step by step.
PHASE 1 - THE ESSENTIALS
Start with what you absolutely need in order to function as a business and be found by customers. Every business will be different, and your plan will be determined by the number of resources available to you through your marketing budget.
Typically, this would include a website, social media, basic SEO, and maybe some office essentials like business cards.
The key to phase one is to have a foundation that opens the lines of communication between you and your target audience. If your budget is a little bigger, the first phase of your strategy may reach far beyond the few aforementioned components. If your budget is on the smaller side, maybe you’ll be able to start with one or two of these and build on them as your company grows.
Wherever you are, start with the essentials your customers will need to find you and learn more about your business.
PHASE 2 - ENHANCE
As your company grows, so should your marketing budget and strategy. Enter phase two! Break through the plateau at the end of phase one by putting more of your budget into expanding on what your current strategy includes.
Maybe your initial budget only allowed you to have a one-page website with a company description and phone number, but you’re ready to transform it into a several-page site complete with a blog, photo gallery and product videos.
If you started with a Facebook page to establish a presence on social media, enhance your strategy by increasing the frequency of posts and activity, and exploring other social media platforms on which to create business pages to increase your reach.
Look into upping your SEO game in phase two if your initial budget in phase one only allowed you to do the basics. This will help you be more easily found by potential customers and like-minded audience members across the web.
PHASE 3 - EXPAND
Continuously reshape your strategy to expand and cover more bases as you grow. Use phase three as a time to continue to expand your current efforts, while also exploring other marketing avenues to research and invest in that will allow you to reach more of your target audience.
Again, every business’s strategy will be different, including its timeline from one phase to the next, level of growth and avenues for marketing. Start where you can and always be reworking your strategy so it’s in line with your ever-developing company.
At Stray Media Group, we work with businesses of all shapes and sizes to help them find the marketing strategy that best fits their needs while being conscious of their budget. Our goal is to help you succeed within the means that you have, so you can work on growing your company to its full potential.
Contact our team to learn more about how we can help you define and execute a marketing strategy for your business today.
