How To Run A Web Marketing Campaign When You Have Bupkis For A Budget
Theres a right way and a wrong way to run a Web marketing campaign, and unfortunately, the right way can cost a LOT of money. For some entrepreneurs, money isnt just a factor in deciding what to do with their Web marketing. It is THE factor, and the right way just isnt an option. They have to find a middle ground; an option that works but that doesnt cost an arm and a leg.
As long as you have realistic expectations, you can do it, and you can be reasonably happy with the results. You wont get the same results as you would if you did it the right way, but what youll get will be better than nothing, and for some, thats good enough. Here are some tips for running a Web marketing campaign when you barely have two dollar bills to rub together.
Step 1: Begin Like You Have A Million Dollars
One thing that the pros do is plan, and planning doesnt cost any money. The time that you invest in planning out your Web marketing campaign will make your efforts more organized and therefore more effective and productive. If you try to rush things, youll only wind up wasting the meager resources that you spend on the campaign.
Step 1.2 Identify your goals. You cant achieve your goals if you dont have a clue what they are. Are you selling something? If youre selling a variety of different products or services, and you realistically cant promote them all evenly, identify which ones are most likely to give you a return on investment, and focus your efforts on them.
Step 1.3 Identify the methods that you will use. Will you build a custom website or will a template design work just find for your purposes. Usually a template will work fine as a temporary solution.
When it comes to search engine marketing, you have to make a roadmap to success and stick to it. Formulating a search engine strategy requires some more advanced knowledge, and you should try to learn as much as you can before you get started. Read books, read blogs, and try to get some free consulting from Web marketing companies.
Consider the industry that your business is in as well as where your business is located. If you're a law firm in Denver, SEO is going to be a more cost effective search engine marketing technique than pay-per-click.
One tip: Dont spread out your time and resources over a whole slew of Web marketing techniques. Be realistic. You dont have the resources to do it all, at least not well, so do one or two things extremely well and youll get much better results.
Step 1.4 Identify your assets. Do you have a website? How usable is it? Do you have ready-made content? Do you have a friend that can host the website for free? One of your biggest (or in this situation, the littlest) and most precious resources that you have is money. It is obviously in short supply or you wouldnt be reading this article. You have to plan out exactly how you are going to allocate these funds, otherwise you might end up blowing it all on some random directory website listing and then not being able to afford more substantial SEO or pay-per-click efforts.
Step 1.5 Identify the players. Who do you have that can work on the project for free or little cost, and which roles will you have to pay to fill?
Step 2: Go Bargain Hunting
Dont even bother beginning Step 2 if you havent truly devoted a significant amount of time to Step 1, otherwise you wont know what youre shopping for. Once youve done your planning, you should know exactly what you need and what kinds of funds you can devote to these items/services.
When you do have a shopping list, be systematic is your shopping. Identify the most high end option for what youre looking for and then look for two or three lower cost options. You want to try to compare apples to apples, but you have to know that as you go down in price, youll lose options/features. Dont just by the cheapest option. Choose the lowest cost solution that will meet your needs. If somethings cheap but wont work, its a waste of money, and you dont have any money to waste. Dont buy if you cant find a solution that will actually work for you while also fitting in your budget. This includes hiring people who actually know what theyre doing. Instead, go back to Step 1 and do more planning to find a Plan B that will help you achieve your goals while costing less money.
IMPORTANT: there may not be a viable Plan B. You may just have to put your Web marketing plans on hiatus until you have enough of a bank roll to make it work. Dont make the mistake that so many who have come before you have made and get half-way into the implementation of a Web marketing plan and then run out of money. Web marketing is all about momentum. If you have to back off on the efforts, when you come back youll usually find that you have to start over, and all the money that you spent on it previously has gone to waste. Wait to pull the trigger on Web marketing until you can launch a campaign that you can see through to completion. This doesnt mean that you have to wait until you can do Web marketing the right way. It just means that youre smart enough not to completely waste your money, having to stop things half-way into them.
Step 3: Roll Up Your Sleeves
If youre the type of person that just wants to hire a bunch of people to do the work for you while you sit back and reap the rewards, then youre looking for a right way solution and maybe even then are destined for disillusionment. Web marketing takes a lot of work because successful Web marketing campaigns are usually customized for every organization that wants to promote itself on the Internet. Customization means your involvement, i.e. WORK.
So, be prepared to pick up a shovel so to speak and contribute to your own Web marketing success. Your time is valuable, of course, but its also a free resource that you can use to achieve your goals because you dont have to pay yourself an hourly rate. But youre an entrepreneur. You already know that.
Some ways that you can contribute to your Web marketing:
Write content in the form of new Web pages or blog entries
Learn to manage your own pay-per-click campaign
Learn to do your own simple website updates (especially with a content management system website)
Consider (carefully) doing your own SEO
Step 4: Monitor Your Results And Change Direction If Necessary
Because your resources are as scarce as water in a desert, you cant afford to waste a drop. Monitoring your Web marketing results is critical so that you dont end up wasting money, time, and opportunity costs on a strategy that isnt working for one reason or another. Give your efforts adequate time to prove themselves effective or not, but after that, be ruthless. Dont give cousin Joey another couple months to read another SEO book and try to get it right this time. Move on to someone else who can do a better job. If pay-per-click isnt doing well at the budget that youve set, up the ante for a few weeks and see if that does the trick. Or switch to SEO for the organic listings. (Ideally youd do both simultaneously.) Above all, dont take your eye off the ball even though youre busy with other aspects of your business. If you do, by the time you realize that things are broken, it might be too late to fix them.
Step 5: Become A Contender
You have to recognize that doing things on the cheap will not yield the same level of results that a right way campaign will, and with that in mind, your goal should be to eventually step things up and weigh in for the main event. Dont be satisfied with mediocrity any longer than you have to be. To a certain extent, cheaper options can be more expensive in the long run because they are less effective. You might tap into 30% of the market for $X, but if youd only spent $2X, youd have captured 75% of the market.
Still, 2X dollars arent always there to be spent, and 30% is better than 0%, so you have to be creative and figure out how to turn bupkis into big bucks. Who says you cant make something out of nothing?
As long as you have realistic expectations, you can do it, and you can be reasonably happy with the results. You wont get the same results as you would if you did it the right way, but what youll get will be better than nothing, and for some, thats good enough. Here are some tips for running a Web marketing campaign when you barely have two dollar bills to rub together.
Step 1: Begin Like You Have A Million Dollars
One thing that the pros do is plan, and planning doesnt cost any money. The time that you invest in planning out your Web marketing campaign will make your efforts more organized and therefore more effective and productive. If you try to rush things, youll only wind up wasting the meager resources that you spend on the campaign.
Step 1.2 Identify your goals. You cant achieve your goals if you dont have a clue what they are. Are you selling something? If youre selling a variety of different products or services, and you realistically cant promote them all evenly, identify which ones are most likely to give you a return on investment, and focus your efforts on them.
Step 1.3 Identify the methods that you will use. Will you build a custom website or will a template design work just find for your purposes. Usually a template will work fine as a temporary solution.
When it comes to search engine marketing, you have to make a roadmap to success and stick to it. Formulating a search engine strategy requires some more advanced knowledge, and you should try to learn as much as you can before you get started. Read books, read blogs, and try to get some free consulting from Web marketing companies.
Consider the industry that your business is in as well as where your business is located. If you're a law firm in Denver, SEO is going to be a more cost effective search engine marketing technique than pay-per-click.
One tip: Dont spread out your time and resources over a whole slew of Web marketing techniques. Be realistic. You dont have the resources to do it all, at least not well, so do one or two things extremely well and youll get much better results.
Step 1.4 Identify your assets. Do you have a website? How usable is it? Do you have ready-made content? Do you have a friend that can host the website for free? One of your biggest (or in this situation, the littlest) and most precious resources that you have is money. It is obviously in short supply or you wouldnt be reading this article. You have to plan out exactly how you are going to allocate these funds, otherwise you might end up blowing it all on some random directory website listing and then not being able to afford more substantial SEO or pay-per-click efforts.
Step 1.5 Identify the players. Who do you have that can work on the project for free or little cost, and which roles will you have to pay to fill?
Step 2: Go Bargain Hunting
Dont even bother beginning Step 2 if you havent truly devoted a significant amount of time to Step 1, otherwise you wont know what youre shopping for. Once youve done your planning, you should know exactly what you need and what kinds of funds you can devote to these items/services.
When you do have a shopping list, be systematic is your shopping. Identify the most high end option for what youre looking for and then look for two or three lower cost options. You want to try to compare apples to apples, but you have to know that as you go down in price, youll lose options/features. Dont just by the cheapest option. Choose the lowest cost solution that will meet your needs. If somethings cheap but wont work, its a waste of money, and you dont have any money to waste. Dont buy if you cant find a solution that will actually work for you while also fitting in your budget. This includes hiring people who actually know what theyre doing. Instead, go back to Step 1 and do more planning to find a Plan B that will help you achieve your goals while costing less money.
IMPORTANT: there may not be a viable Plan B. You may just have to put your Web marketing plans on hiatus until you have enough of a bank roll to make it work. Dont make the mistake that so many who have come before you have made and get half-way into the implementation of a Web marketing plan and then run out of money. Web marketing is all about momentum. If you have to back off on the efforts, when you come back youll usually find that you have to start over, and all the money that you spent on it previously has gone to waste. Wait to pull the trigger on Web marketing until you can launch a campaign that you can see through to completion. This doesnt mean that you have to wait until you can do Web marketing the right way. It just means that youre smart enough not to completely waste your money, having to stop things half-way into them.
Step 3: Roll Up Your Sleeves
If youre the type of person that just wants to hire a bunch of people to do the work for you while you sit back and reap the rewards, then youre looking for a right way solution and maybe even then are destined for disillusionment. Web marketing takes a lot of work because successful Web marketing campaigns are usually customized for every organization that wants to promote itself on the Internet. Customization means your involvement, i.e. WORK.
So, be prepared to pick up a shovel so to speak and contribute to your own Web marketing success. Your time is valuable, of course, but its also a free resource that you can use to achieve your goals because you dont have to pay yourself an hourly rate. But youre an entrepreneur. You already know that.
Some ways that you can contribute to your Web marketing:
Write content in the form of new Web pages or blog entries
Learn to manage your own pay-per-click campaign
Learn to do your own simple website updates (especially with a content management system website)
Consider (carefully) doing your own SEO
Step 4: Monitor Your Results And Change Direction If Necessary
Because your resources are as scarce as water in a desert, you cant afford to waste a drop. Monitoring your Web marketing results is critical so that you dont end up wasting money, time, and opportunity costs on a strategy that isnt working for one reason or another. Give your efforts adequate time to prove themselves effective or not, but after that, be ruthless. Dont give cousin Joey another couple months to read another SEO book and try to get it right this time. Move on to someone else who can do a better job. If pay-per-click isnt doing well at the budget that youve set, up the ante for a few weeks and see if that does the trick. Or switch to SEO for the organic listings. (Ideally youd do both simultaneously.) Above all, dont take your eye off the ball even though youre busy with other aspects of your business. If you do, by the time you realize that things are broken, it might be too late to fix them.
Step 5: Become A Contender
You have to recognize that doing things on the cheap will not yield the same level of results that a right way campaign will, and with that in mind, your goal should be to eventually step things up and weigh in for the main event. Dont be satisfied with mediocrity any longer than you have to be. To a certain extent, cheaper options can be more expensive in the long run because they are less effective. You might tap into 30% of the market for $X, but if youd only spent $2X, youd have captured 75% of the market.
Still, 2X dollars arent always there to be spent, and 30% is better than 0%, so you have to be creative and figure out how to turn bupkis into big bucks. Who says you cant make something out of nothing?
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