How to Market a Business with A Marketing Budget (Pro Guide)

You’re ready to market a business with a marketing budget, finally. That’s great news! A lot of businesses have zero budget for marketing and are forced to use free methods to promote their business.

While free methods do work and can get some remarkable results, it’s nice to have the flexibility to experiment with paid marketing, too!

In this article I’m going to share 7 top marketing ideas to help you market a small business. These ideas are perfect for all budgets even though you might be thinking, “How do you promote a business with a low budget?”

You’ll find something for you!

Don’t forget to bookmark this post and save for later!

Let’s get started!

How I Used a Tiny Budget to Explode My Sales

When I broke into business, my marketing budget was nonexistent. I bootstrapped it, pulling money from my primary job’s salary, doing small side jobs to raise cash and reinvesting my profits back into the business.

It was a long road but it paid off and allowed me to grow the business to a level where I could afford paid marketing eventually.

I experimented with a ton of different marketing methods including influencer marketing, giveaways, social media advertising and more.

Using a mix of free and paid marketing methods allowed my business to grow to six figures per year and I was finally financially free. I quit my day job and went on to run the business full-time!

So, what marketing methods worked?

What are the different options?

How can you get started?

I’ll answer all these questions and more. Keep reading!

How to Get Started with Paid Marketing

There are many different paid marketing and advertising routes you can take. Start by identifying the different marketing avenues then jump in and start testing.

What is paid marketing?

This is marketing that you pay for. You are using your marketing budget on a promotion channel in hopes of getting exposure, traffic, and sales to your business.

What are the different kinds of marketing?

We are going to talk about 7 different kinds of paid marketing:

• PPC (pay per click) marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Social media marketing
• Display ads
• Native ads
• Remarketing/retargeting
• Email marketing

First, we’ll define the marketing method. Then, we’ll give examples of how to use it so you can explore this marketing channel with your business.

Let’s get started.

What is PPC?

PPC (paid per click) marketing is an online marketing strategy where advertisers pay per click. Every time a user clicks their ad, they are charged.

There are different kinds of PPC marketing including display ads, banner ads, and more.

The advertiser creates an ad with the goal of having users click through on the ad and visit their website.

From there, the advertiser can potentially turn the visitor into a customer.

PPC marketing can produce amazing results but they can get complicated. Campaigns involve selecting keywords, ad creatives, picking the platform (like Google Ads or Bing Ads), and more.

For more on PPC, check out this resource.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing uses social media influencers to get sales for companies. A company will partner with an influencer, paying them a flat fee and/or a percentage of sales, in exchange for sharing the brand with the influencer’s followers.

For example, a vegan food blogger could partner with a vegan pizza company to share vegan pizza with their followers. The pizza company could pay a $1,000 flat fee to the influencer in exchange for sharing with their fans.

And, the hope from this partnership is that sales and customers come from this arrangement.

This is a very effective way of promoting companies and one of the marketing strategies Australian powerhouse Greta Van Riel of SkinnyMe Tea (and other companies) grew her empire to multi millions all before she turned 30!

I’ve used influencer marketing successfully as well, to grow my small ecommerce brand to over 100,000 social media followers and $30K per month in revenue in a short time.

Where to Find Influencers?

You can find influencers on sponsored networks like:

• Izea
• Linqia
• Tap Influencer
• Clever
• Activate
• And, others!

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is about marketing on social media. This can be done through a variety of activities like:

• Posting actively on social media
• Interacting and engaging with fans
• Partnering with peers and influencers
• Hosting giveaways and other events
• Polling your audience on social media
• And, more!

Social media is very powerful.

The industry is growing by leaps and bounds, with new digital marketing and social media marketing positions being created every single year!

How to Execute Social Media Marketing?

You can do it in house with staff or you can outsource it to an agency or professional social media manager.

Your SMM will be in charge of driving traffic through social media and accomplishing other goals you have (like increasing social engagement, etc.)

What are Native Ads?

Native ads are a smart form of advertising that blends in with the content of the site they are on.

They match the look and feel of the site and blend in seamlessly. You can check out these 12 examples of native ads to illustrate.

Where to Find Native Ad Providers?

Head to sites like Outbrain or Taboola to get started. You can build your campaign and launch native ads with ease.

What is Remarketing/Retargeting?

Remarketing and retargeting is about showing ads to users who have previously been exposed to your ad content.

You serve ads to these people who have already seen you. It’s very effective and can lead to higher conversion rates.

Have you heard of the rule of 7?

Your prospect needs to see you at least 7 times before they really notice you!

Think about this with remarketing.

How to do Remarketing?

You can use Facebook ads to launch a remarketing campaign. Here is the 5-step process to kicking off a full remarketing campaign.

What is Email marketing?

And then, there is email marketing which is about reaching consumers via email.

Email marketing is hugely powerful. It’s an easy, free way to make sales almostly effortlessly.

The saying is true: the money is in the list!

How to Do Email Marketing?

First, you need to set up an optin form on your website. You can do this with an email marketing software solution, which you can get through your site (in a plugin, for example) and separately.

Here are some email marketing companies to consider:

• ConvertKit (the company that I use)
• AWeber
• Mailchimp (free for the first 2,000 emails)
• Drip

You can use email marketing to put prospective customers through an email sequence on autopilot, share upcoming sales, reveal news about your brand and so much more.

Whatever stage your business is in, make sure you are using email marketing! Even before you launch, use email marketing to collect emails.

What is the best way to market a small business?

Let’s take a closer look.

12 Ways to Market a Business With A Marketing Budget

Now, I’ve covered some ways you can market your business. Here are 12 quick ways to market your business with paid marketing (with details).

1. Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are the go-to for many businesses. If you don’t have the time to learn ads with Facebook, save time and money by hiring an expert.

Facebook ads can help you grow your social media presence on Facebook, improve your sales and traffic, go viral on the internet, and many more benefits.

They are affordable and within reach for businesses of all sizes.

Plus, if a Facebook ad campaign is successful, it’s relatively easy to scale your campaign wide or deep, to get the best possible results.

How to Get Started?

Without getting into the technicalities here, because this can get long, start by identifying your objective.

Are you trying to get video views?

Do you want to make sales on a particular product?

Figure out your goal and then start by picking the right ad objective. From here, you can get creative by selecting your target audience, planning a creative and caption and much more.

There are plenty of tutorials online to help you along the process. Keep in mind, you are paying for advertising and it can get expensive, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing so, if you don’t have time to learn the ropes, hire a professional.

Where to Find a Professional Facebook Ads Expert?

Check out these places:

• Google (run a thorough search and look at reviews, if possible)
• Upwork
• Guru
• Freelancer
• Indeed
• LinkedIn

2. Twitter Ads

Twitter ads are an excellent solution to market to your consumers on Twitter. They have multiple objectives just like Facebook, like:

• Video views
• Pre-roll views
• App installs
• Website clicks
• Engagement
• And, more!

If you’re wondering how effective Twitter ads really are, take it from this advertiser who got 17.2 million views to a single Twitter thread!

Learn more about Twitter campaigns to get started.

3. Instagram Ads

Instagram ads can conveniently be operated from your Facebook ads dashboard.

The reach on Instagram can be insane. It’s how I was able to grow my former ecommerce store so quickly entirely on the platform!

Instagram is a visual platform so make sure your ad creative pops and don’t be afraid to indulge in testing here.

Take a look at the Instagram for Business page to learn more.

4. Reddit Ads

Reddit is a platform that should not be ignored.

They are a tight knit community with lots of rules so if you want to reach consumers here, I recommend ads versus trying organic growth.

It’s really easy to get ghostbanned on Reddit without even knowing it, just by missing a few rules in some subreddits here or there.

Skip it all and just go for the ads.

It’s one of the top social media mediums to go viral too!

5. Tik Tok Ads

Tik Tok is one of the newest social media networks and at half the size of Instagram, you definitely want it in your advertising arsenal.

Though it caters to a younger demographic, you can go quite far with the platform as more older generations are starting to flock to Tik Tok.

Because it’s so new, expect competitive rates on advertising.

Give it a try.

6. Snapchat Ads

Snapchat ads can be very useful for serving ads to your audience.

If you scroll the internet you can find a ton of success stories detailing the results of explosive Snapchat ad campaigns advertisers have run.

Over 229 daily active users.

Spending power over $1 trillion.

And Snapchatters spend an average of 30 minutes every day on the platform.

Learn more about Snapchat advertising.

7. Google Ads

Google is a really great place to sell products. People go to Google to search for things to solve their problem. And, they are willing to buy to get a fix to their problem.

Google Ads can get quite complex so if you’re new to this platform, start here.

8. Bing Ads

Bing is a search engine often forgotten about.

A lot of advertisers rush to social media and Google, forgetting about the power of Bing.

Because of this, expect to get really competitive rates on Bing.

And there are a ton of people who search Bing, myself included.

Don’t discount this powerful search engine.

Click here to read more about Bing ads.

9.  Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is about partnering with an influencer so your company and products can be showcased to their followers.

Does influencer marketing work?

How powerful is it?

It’s one of the best ways you can advertise your business!

Influencers are becoming more powerful than celebrities for selling products.

They cultivate a loyal following and their fans follow their word.

You can find influencers to work with on social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter, and other networks.

You can also head to sponsor networks like Tap Influence and use the network to find influencers to work on a campaign with.

This is really good for audiences that hang out on social media so if your consumers are active on social networks, find influencers on those networks, reach out and start a campaign.

10. YouTube Ads

Video is the new wave. People are getting lazier, I hate to say it. Why read when you can consume information visually.

YouTube advertising is great for products and services that you can demonstrate, even with just a person talking about the product.

They are a lot easier to execute than you might think and you can tailor the campaign exactly the way you want.

Read more on YouTube Advertising.

11. Social Media Marketing

This is about using social media to organically grow your following and brand presence. This is a form of paid marketing because you will use in-house staff or hire an expert to manage this.

Social media marketing is a full-time job.

When I was managing my ecommerce store, I spent more time on social media than I did on any other store activity (fulfillment, customer service, etc.).

Take your time and outsource this!

12. Email Marketing

First, sign up with an email marketing software.

Then, create your optin forms.

Place the forms on your website and when you start getting email subscribers, send emails!

Types of Emails to Send Your Audience

• Announcements
• News
• Sales
• Poll the Audience
• Welcome emails
• Milestone announcements
• Address current events
• Curated content
• Share features on publications (like on Forbes, NBC, etc.)

The Best Marketing Tools to Use

Now that I have gone over marketing strategies a bit. You might be wondering if there are any shortcuts to executing all this.

The truth is, there is! And the shortcut is using tools!

If you are doing a business activity manually, the chance is, there’s probably a software, tool or resource to help you, by saving you time and money. I’m a big supporter of using smart tools to make your business run more smoothly.

Here are some of my favorite marketing tools to use to get stellar results:

• Tailwind-this is a social media planning tool for Pinterest and Instagram
• Canva-the easiest way to design graphics without a graphic design background
• Skillshare-the place to learn new skills if I decide to take on a task myself (like Facebook ads)
• LastPass-store all your passwords in one place
• IFTTT-free tool to automate everyday tasks for professional and personal life
• Facebook scheduler-free tool on Facebook business pages to schedule out social media posts
• ConvertKit-for email marketing, to email subscribers about news and announcements

These tools are free and paid. The list goes on and on. And, the takeaway is, if you can find a way to automate a business marketing task or any business task, do it! Even if there’s a cost attached to it, because your time will likely cost more than that investment!

Final Thoughts

There are many ways to market a business with a marketing budget. I hope these marketing ideas gave you some inspiration.

You don’t have to try every single form of marketing on this list.

Regardless of the size of your marketing budget or type of marketing budget plan you have, there is a form of paid marketing to fit your company. Don’t be afraid to dive in and pull the trigger on launching your company’s marketing plan.

Good luck!