Digital Marketing on a Budget: Where is Your Time Best Invested?

For 21st century businesses, the emergence of digital marketing has come as something of a godsend. Where traditional marketing can often be expensive, complicated and time-consuming, digital marketing can be, by contrast, relatively inexpensive, effective and efficient.

When we talk about digital marketing, however, we could be referring to any number of different online marketing activities, each with their own distinct advantages and associated problems. Take a look at our guide to digital marketing on a budget: where is your time best invested?

Social media marketing

The emergence of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram has provided marketers with new ways in which to engage with their customers. Striking up a conversation with your company’s customers and potential customers can be notoriously difficult, but social media acts as a facilitator to make this process all the more simplistic. Clever and effective social media marketing can be a great way to help increase brand awareness and brand loyalty amongst your client base, but it is also possible to undo all of your good work with an ill thought-out campaign. Social media marketing can backfire, so the utmost care is necessary from your end, and you’ll need to approach it with a strong marketing strategy to measure your likely outcomes.

Text marketing

Today, very few people leave the house without taking a mobile device with them. We’re all deeply attached to our mobile phones and tablets, and ultimately, this attachment can work in a marketer’s favour.

While your customers can often ignore a print advert or turn off the TV during a commercial break, a text message will always end up in your customer’s hands.

Many companies now use text marketing to contact large volumes of customers with offers and promotions, a move that frequently proves effective in the quest to increase sales. As with all written marketing, however, content, wording and approach are vital if your text marketing efforts are to prove effective.

Digital advertising

While traditional advertising saw companies parade their wares on TV screens, through radio waves, in newspaper print and in magazines, digital advertising takes place exclusively in an online environment.

Pop-up advertisements, banners, and sponsored links may prove more cost-effective than their traditional counterparts, with pay-per-click services meaning that you’ll pay a charge equivalent to the success of your campaign. Caution is advised, however, as many customers have expressed an opinion that digital advertising can prove irritating or even off-putting if not executed carefully.

Viral marketing

In many ways, ‘going viral’ is the pinnacle of achievement towards which all digital marketers ultimately strive. The best viral marketing campaigns cost little to produce and effectively sell themselves, being shared and distributed amongst internet users with scarcely-credible speed and breadth.

Generating an idea with the power to go viral, however, is easier said than done. Few people have the ability to pen an idea that will be shared and enjoyed by thousands without a team of marketing experts behind them.

All of the above digital marketing outlets have the ability to attract a great deal of success to your company at comparatively low cost, but none of them are particularly easy to execute without a wealth of knowledge and experience behind you.