How to Not Waste Money on Marketing
So you're new to marketing, and you don't know how to get people to buy your product. If you've got a tight budget, the last thing you want to do is waste money on ineffective marketing tactics that may not even work. If this sounds like you (or someone you know), then look no further — read our article on how not to waste money on marketing!
This post is full of tips and tricks for growing your business without breaking the bank. We'll show what's worked for us, as well as what never should be done again.
We'll start with the lessons we've learned the hard way. We'll discuss some of the basic marketing mistakes that we've made in the past — and what you can do instead, if you have a tight budget and aren't willing to compromise quality.
Then, we'll go into more advanced tactics that can help save money, while still getting results. We cover tools like Facebook ads and Google AdWords, as well as more offbeat methods you might try (we personally recommend using a couple of these). And throughout all this, we're going to make sure to put things in context for you, so you can make good decisions when it comes time for your business to be investing money in marketing.
Right off the bat, I want to make sure that we're clear about something — it's absolutely possible to get results with very little marketing investment. You just need to know what to do, and how to do it.
At the same time, you don't have to spend a fortune on marketing if you don't want to — there are simple methods of reaching more people without breaking the bank. It's just a matter of knowing what steps you can take and what steps you should avoid (or at least approach very carefully).
We'll show you the best practices for getting your message out there, while spending as little money as possible doing it.
Step 1: Focus on Quality, Not Quantity
This is probably the most important lesson we've learned. It's easier to be cheap and reach a lot of people (we'll cover the tools for this later), but the long-term effect is that you are spreading yourself too thin. There's nothing worse than seeing someone looking for what you have to offer, only to realize they've been bombarded with so many similar messages that they've become numb to it all.
Instead, we recommend focusing on quality over quantity when creating your marketing materials. Whether you're writing a blog post, designing a sales page or putting together an email, you want to be sure that it's unique and interesting.
It's amazing how many people put effort into creating something that looks just like the other hundred people who have done exactly the same thing — if you want to stand out from the crowd and get more people interested in your product, you need to do things that differentiate your product from others'.
Doing this isn't always easy, because it involves doing things differently from everyone else — but we've found that our efforts are rewarded tenfold when we take the time to be creative. For us, this has proven to be far more effective than simply blasting out countless blog posts or sales pages.
Step 2: Keep Marketing Short and Simple
How many times have you seen someone in marketing tell you to create a 20-page sales page? Or a 60-page PDF? Or a 200-page eBook?
Obviously, these are all terrible ideas — but they're conventional wisdom because they've been around for so long. Thinking that more is better is the single most common mistake that new marketers make. I've found that it's far better to keep things simple and short.
If you can keep your sales page to a single page (or less), then do it. Simple and focused is always better than lengthy and unfocused. When you have a short message that does its job, the people who need to see it will see it, and those who don't will ignore it or unsubscribe (you want to lose the wrong people).
Instead of trying to convince everyone that you're the best, focus on showing them why they should choose you over someone else — it's more effective, easier to write and easier for your audience to digest. It also makes things much simpler for search engines as well, which means more traffic as well.
Step 3: Use a Tool to Focus Your Efforts
If you have the time, there's no problem with doing everything yourself — but for most of us, this is simply not possible. That's why it's important to understand what's out there to help you streamline your marketing efforts. Tools like Facebook ads and Google AdWords can help you quickly and easily reach your target audience, saving you time and money in the process.
We'll discuss these two tools more fully in the next step — but we want to make sure that we're absolutely clear on how they work.
Step 4: Use Facebook Ads to Reach a Wide Audience
There are two major types of marketing you can do on Facebook: paid and organic. Paid advertising is where you pay for an ad to be shown to a specific group of users, as opposed to being shown on everyone's news feed (which, incidentally, is called organic). On Facebook, paid advertising works by letting companies create and run ads specifically for their audience — which means that they know who the people are they want to target, which can be very helpful when it comes time to selling your products.
Creating Facebook Ads
The first step in using Facebook ads to advertise your product is to create them. Unfortunately, this isn't always easy — Facebook ads are powerful tools, but they're also complex and confusing.
To get started with creating an ad on Facebook, you'll need to be sure that you have a business page for your company. You can claim your own current business' page or create a new one. Either way, you'll need to set up an ad manager account from the campaigns section of your business' page. From there, click on the small arrow on the top-right corner of the screen and select "Create Ad." This will take you to your new ad manager dashboard.
Don't worry — even if you only have a single "about us" page on your Facebook page, you can still create an ad to promote it. The ad manager will even give you a special ad so that others can see where you're located and reach out if they're interested in what you have to offer.
To set up your first Facebook Ad, click "create new campaign." You'll then be taken directly to your ad creation form. You'll need to choose how much money you want to spend with Facebook, as well as the demographics that you're looking for in your audience.
Conclusion
We've already talked about the importance of product improvement, but there's also the matter of how you communicate to your audience and what you do to advertise it. When it comes to Facebook ads, it's important that you do everything you can to be strategic. While writing is a crucial component of your marketing efforts, don't forget that creativity also helps you stand out from the crowd — no matter your niche.
Keep these three points in mind as we move on to Google AdWords next:
Step 5: Use Google AdWords to Spread Your Message One Targeted Audience at a Time
Google AdWords allows businesses to advertise their products or services through online search ads.