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You do not need to spend a lot of money to drive sales and conversions; You just need the right content, strategy, and connections

Don’t have the funds to spend lavishly on digital marketing to promote your startup? Don’t worry, you can still win the race with these three budget-friendly marketing strategies.

1. Content marketing

Create and share valuable content.

According to eMarketer, 60 per cent of marketers and businesses create at least one piece of content each day.

Why do they do it?

Because content marketing delivers exceptional ROI. The average cost per lead is way lower than paid search.

Content isn’t just text.

This is where most of the businesses get it wrong. Content includes text, videos, images, infographics, podcasts, eBooks, PDFs, case studies, FAQs, reports, graphics, and more.

No, a blog isn’t enough. Content marketing isn’t about posting articles on your blog. This is just the beginning.

Also read: 5 questions to ask yourself before you reuse content

You have to share and distribute content.

• Convert your blog post in a video and post it to video streaming sites like YouTube.
• Convert it into a PDF and share it on document sharing sites like Scribd.
• Make a compelling slide deck from your recent article and post it on SlideShare.
• Syndicate new blog posts on it.
• Use Buffer to schedule a series of tweets and social media posts from your blog posts. Take a small portion of your blog post and use it as a social media post.

You get the point, right?

Daniel Wallock, a digital marketer, says:

“You are missing out on a ton of possible traffic if you don’t re-post your content on other networks. Not only are you missing out on traffic, but you are also missing out on a ton of potential social media shares and links back to your site. It’s an absolute must to distribute your content beyond your blog.”

Distribute your content. Use every word to its fullest. Make sure every word counts and is read by as many people as possible.

2. Get social

Use social networks to promote your startup.

Use social networks to make an impact.

A simple tweet or a Facebook post with a killer image won’t do much. Your target audience is used to seeing such posts.

This is not how social media marketing will work.

You can keep posting about your product, startup, latest posts, and the photos of your office on 33 social networking sites for a few good years, and trust me, it won’t do anything ‘great’.

Here is an example of how to use social media to drive sales and boost awareness.

Diamond Candles ran a weekly sweepstake. The prize is their own candles. The company acquired over 30K leads, 40K repeat participants, and over 148K fans in as low as six weeks.

You have to use contests, engaging videos, scholarship programs, discount coupons, or offer something extremely valuable to the users to make social media work for your startup.

Get Best Mattress has a dedicated scholarship page where it accepts articles, infographics, and other types of content from college students. A winner is selected every two weeks who gets US$1,000 scholarship.

This has worked great for the company because they get tons of high-quality content every week with a boost in engagement, traffic, and leads.

Also read: Effective e-commerce: How better customer engagement wins you loyalty and satisfaction

A similar scholarship program can help you push your startup to a whole new level.

3. Target an influencer

Boxed Water partnered influencers like Jaime King, Aidan Alexander, and Megan DeAngelis for its Retree Project. For every photo on Instagram with hashtag #Retree, Boxed Water planted two trees.

The campaign did exceptionally well on Instagram. There were more than 2,600 photos on Instagram with #Retree in a month.

Instead of targeting your target audience, target influencers who control and influence your target audience.

Influencers have the potential to reach 85 per cent of your entire target audience.

It seems to be an easy marketing technique but in reality, convincing an influencer is challenging.

Influencer marketing is a three-step process:

1. Find influencers. This shouldn’t be hard because influencers are easily identifiable.
2. Reach out to them. Engage. Try building a relationship.
3. Compensate them. Yes, do it. You don’t have to necessarily compensate them financially. Maybe partner with them or cross-promote.

Riding an influencer seems to be a decent approach to startup marketing.

Conclusion

Content marketing, influencer marketing, and social media marketing are the three cost-effective marketing strategies for startups that deliver results. You can drive massive sales and ROI without spending a lot of money.

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The views expressed here are of the author’s, and e27 may not necessarily subscribe to them. e27 invites members from Asia’s tech industry and startup community to share their honest opinions and expert knowledge with our readers. If you are interested in sharing your point of view, submit your post here.

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