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Marketing is an important element of any SME operation – especially if you’re just starting out.
Marketing is a way to get your name out there, attract new customers, convert browsers into buyers, and build a loyal customer base that will support your business no matter what.
Overall, marketing is worth doing—and it’s worth doing well. But of course, marketing comes with its own challenges, not least the fact that it can be expensive.
Many SME owners are willing to grit their teeth and pay top dollar for great marketing. After all, marketing campaigns can have great ROI in terms of profit generated. That said, if you’re concerned about cash flow, it’s worth trying to make your marketing as cost-effective as possible.
With the right marketing strategies and the best software to support you, it’s possible to make your campaigns more efficient without spending a lot. You can generate significant campaign results for a relatively low outlay through clever, targeted strategy and consistent engagement with your user base.
How? let’s take a look.
Partner with influencers and brand ambassadors
In terms of marketing efficiency, influencer marketing has a huge advantage over branded posts. Why? Influencers have incredible reach and committed followers who trust their recommendations.
The best influencers are also adept at digital storytelling, which enables them to create compelling, engaging content that connects with audiences.
That said, it is essential that you approach the right influencer to be your brand ambassador. Choose someone who can attract your target customers.
To do this, dig into your customer metrics and establish what (and who) your customers will likely find engaging, informative or simply entertaining. View your marketing data, CRM, and customer service records to better understand who your customers are and what they want.
it is also worth investing in ERP system, as it can connect all your data repositories, making it significantly easier to collect, aggregate, and understand your customer activity in a meaningful way. You can then use what you’ve learned to identify the right influencer for your brand and what products they should focus on.
Encourage training and upskilling
Your staff is your best resource—and a more efficient marketing team means more efficient marketing.
Training and skill upgradation can seem costly, but it is well worth the investment. A talented, well-trained marketing team can increase your marketing ROI exponentially.
Training should also not be a one-time event. Marketing is constantly evolving. That’s why marketers have to keep their fingers firmly on the pulse of industry trends and happenings.
Regular retraining and upskilling will keep your marketer up to date with current marketing trends. This, in turn, will enable them to operate at a leading level in their industry.
Focus on SEO
SEO is a highly efficient, cost-effective way of promoting your business’ online presence. You can reach the top of Google’s search rankings with relative ease by using an effective SEO strategy.
It’s a simple equation: Since Google is often the first place people turn when looking for a product or service, the more your business is available on Google, the more leads you’ll bring in.
To boost your SEO, you need to think about the following:
- high quality content production
- connect with online audience
- having a solid, reputable online presence
- keeping your social media up to date
- Using keywords in your online content
- Staying on Top of Algorithm Changes and SEO Trends
Partner with Complementary Businesses
Networking is a great way to establish your brand without busting your marketing budget.
If you can find one that caters to your business, partnering with them for content campaigns and other messaging can be a win-win situation.
For example, let’s say you’re in the business of selling cookware. A company that manufactures or sells cooking ingredients can be a great partner. Plus, you can create recipe blog posts, video tutorials, and cooking tips showcasing your cookware and their ingredients for relatively little cost.
You can then post this content across your brand and their platform, doubling your reach in one fell swoop.
Again, the businesses you partner with should be relevant to your own. For example, if your cookware company partners with an art supply store, customers will have a hard time seeing the connection between the two. After all, art lovers aren’t going to turn to a creative blog for cooking tips, nor will your customers expect to find painting tutorials on your social media channels!
With this in mind, look for businesses whose customer base is interested in your products and vice versa.
Promote User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) can make a big impact.
A good UGC campaign can simultaneously increase engagement levels, foster brand/customer relationships and increase your reach substantially.
Let’s look at a simple, but very successful example.
In 2022, Shakira released a track with the Black Eyed Peas. Having been out of the mainstream eye for some time and looking to make a big comeback, Shakira has been calling out fans old and new to generate buzz about this new track.
Her #GirlLikeMe challenge invited TikTokers to recreate the intricate dance moves from the ‘Girl Like Me’ music video. Unable to resist, TikTok explodes with dance videos. In response, Shakira posted compilations of the best, most inventive, most entertaining, and most relevant on her Instagram account.
The result was a huge boost in plays and popularity for the track. In addition, the hashtag was viewed nearly 500 million times and brought Shakira back into the mainstream media.
You might not be Shakira, but you can still create a memorable, wide-reaching marketing campaign by encouraging UGC challenges, hashtags, and more.
Think about how you can challenge customers to be creative with your products and share the results, whether it’s fun ways to reuse packaging or funny photos of pets using your product.
Contests are also a great way to encourage users to create content. The cost of awarding is equal to the ROI of a successful UGC campaign.
Reproduce or update old campaigns
You don’t want to churn out the same old ideas. But at the same time, there is no point in changing a winning formula just for the sake of winning.
If an ongoing campaign is working well, keep using it. If a particular message or campaign has worked well in the past, refresh and reuse it.
Even if you can’t recycle them, old campaigns are a great resource. Historical campaign data can provide useful information about what your customers like and don’t like.
If you want to be thorough, you should compare your campaign data to historical customer and sales data. This will give you a more in-depth analysis and help you find out why specific campaigns were successful.
To do this, use a tool like cloud erp software, This will give you access to the data you need, but at the same time, since it’s a cloud-based solution, it will allow anyone on the team to access the data from anywhere.
This way, marketing teams can easily cross-reference campaign data with metrics like customer satisfaction, conversion rates, and complaints. It’s also beneficial for collaborating with other departments in real time, so you can access historical data to make better decisions, even when you’re on the go.
But, it is important to be active about it. Just churning out the same old campaigns because they worked once isn’t going to cut it.
Customer tastes change quickly. Therefore, even if you feel that a campaign is still as relevant and engaging as before, it is essential that you update it for today’s market.
use referral marketing
It is often confused with word of mouth marketing and UGC marketing. Although there is some overlap between all three, referral marketing is different enough to deserve its own category.
Referral marketing directly encourages a client to bring in new clients. In a typical example, a brand will reward customers — often cashback, a gift card, discount, or free gift — if they persuade a friend to sign up for your service.
It’s worth noting that referral marketing is more common for businesses that provide services rather than sell products. These businesses require customers to actively sign up for an existing brand/customer relationship rather than simply purchase a new product when needed. However, it can also work for product sellers.
Set up a referral link system to ensure that customers are appropriately rewarded for referrals. When someone signs up using a customer’s referral link, your ERP software or other system will automatically note the details so everyone can get their referral bonus.
Efficient marketing campaigns don’t have to be expensive. Through careful planning, clear customer insight, an effective ERP system, and smart strategy, you can run great campaigns with great ROI for very little initial outlay.
Digital channels offer huge opportunities to leverage your network and engage your customer base in brand-building ways without breaking the bank.
Of course, you get what you pay for in terms of staff, graphics, etc. But marketing efficiency is more than knowing where and when to put that money. It’s about being strategic and practical, not hoping that money will talk.
With the right approach, you can achieve a high level of marketing efficiency and a great ROI—and you don’t have to increase your marketing spend to do it.
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