It is very simple to get started with digital marketing. However, most business owners are unsure whether it is worthwhile to invest in digital marketing.
As long as you choose the right marketing platforms, digital marketing can work for any business. For example, If a small business owner is selling B2B services, then he/she should prioritize LinkedIn over Instagram or Facebook. Whereas, a fashionista selling designer wear should target their consumers on TikTok or Snapchat.
Do I Need a Big Budget for Digital Marketing?
Businesses should dedicate some portion of a marketing budget to digital efforts. However, The budget for marketing depends on the marketing channels and the means you choose.
1. Budget for Social Media Marketing
Businesses don’t have to invest much to share third-party content on social media unless you don’t want to invest your time and money in content creation or curation. You might need to hire a social media marketer to do that or maybe you can do it by yourself.
When it comes to hiring a social media marketer for your business, you need to make sure that they have the relevant skills. The best way to do this is by making sure that they have the right experience in marketing or public relations. They should also have a good understanding of your business and what kind of message you want to send out.
The most important thing is to make sure that you are hiring someone who has the right personality type for your business. You need someone who can work well with others and has good communication skills.
If you are outsourcing this to an agency, it will cost you around $500 to $1000 (Rs 45,000 to 55,000). They will help you with curating content and running social media ads.
Many agencies claim to be the greatest, but how do you know which one is ideal for you? Before you deal with a social media marketing agency, here are some things you should know about them.
- What kind of services does the agency provide?
- What is the agency’s social media strategy?
- How much experience do they have in this field?
- Do they have a good track record with past clients?
- What kind of results can they produce for you and your business?
- Are they able to manage all aspects of social media marketing such as customer service, content creation, lead generation, and analytics reporting on behalf of your company?
- Do they only specialize in certain areas of business?
2. Budget for Search Engine Optimization
SEO is designed for companies whose potential customers are looking for their products or services on search engines like Google and Bing.
Most businesses believe that SEO is free. However, search engine optimization entails far more than simply adding titles and meta descriptions.
The majority of businesses must invest in content creation and optimization. You can hire writers on Fiverr or Upwork and optimize your content using an optimization tool such as Page Optimizer Pro. To add on, depending on the niche you are in, you might have to also invest in Off-Page search engine optimization. It involves reaching out to other websites to mention your website on their pages. These websites usually charge to place a link on one of their blogs.
If you are trying to recruit an SEO analyst, you should first consider what you are looking for in a person. You must locate someone who is analytical, detail-oriented and has prior SEO knowledge. Before you do that, I recommend taking a basic SEO course or reading a few blogs to understand how it works. Then, make a list of all the duties that your business would like the SEO expert to complete.
All things considered, if you run a large company, it would be advisable to outsource this to a marketing agency as it may be difficult to keep track of all SEO activities. The minimum cost of SEO services in India is $200(10,000 INR per month). It might go up to $5000(5 lakhs per month) depending on the SEO strategies you want to implement and the size of your business.
3. Budget for paid marketing
Similar to SEO, Paid ads are meant for businesses that have consumers looking for their services. The only difference here is that PPC is not time-consuming, you get to see results within a week. The budget for PPC advertising depends on the type of business you are in and the digital channels you want to run ads on. For instance, PPC ads on LinkedIn are way more expensive than running ads on Google.
You might need someone to set up a Google ad account to run PPC ads. You can usually find some freelancers on Fiverr who are willing to do this for you. After setting up the account you have to focus on optimization, which can be a tedious task.
In order to find a PPC specialist for your business, you need to know what you need. You need to know how much time and money you want to spend on the campaign, who will be in charge of the campaign, and what your goals are.
If you are running a small business, then it’s likely that your company only needs a few hours of work a week from the PPC specialist. If this is the case, then it is probably best for you to hire someone on an hourly basis with no long-term commitments.
If you have a larger company and want more time from the specialist, then it may be worth contacting them on an ongoing basis. This way they can dedicate all their time to running your campaign and get more done in less time
It is better to outsource this to a Freelancer if you are running a small business. For large businesses, agencies would be the right fit. I’ve found that most agencies tend to charge around 15% of ad spend. That means if you spend $2000 (1,81,360 INR) a month on ads, you can expect to pay around $400 (27,204 INR) for management.
4. Budget for content marketing
Content marketing is a marketing strategy that assists firms in creating and distributing informational, relevant, and engaging content in order to attract and keep customers. It also assists firms in developing trust with their prospects and leads. Content marketing contributes to the reputation of a brand by providing value to prospects. Ranking an informational blog on Google, promoting an eBook on LinkedIn, and Hosting a live webinar on a topic on Facebook are all good examples of content marketing.
The budget for content marketing varies :
1. To promote informational blog posts you just need a website that is SEO optimized. The budget for that will be around $200-$500 (15,000 to 20,000 INR)
2. To drive traffic from sites relevant to your niche, you need to invest in PR (Press release) or digital journalism which might cost around $3000 dollars (70,000 to 80,000 INR)
3. Email marketing is another type of content marketing where you try to get opt-ins. The budget will be around $600 to $800 (INR 40,000 to 60,000 INR)
4. To get high-quality eBooks, case studies, and whitepapers written for your business, you need around $2000 to $3000 (INR 1,00,000 to 1,30,000 INR)
Note: There may be some Fiverr gigs available where the price for PR and leads magnets (eBook, whitepaper, etc.) is reasonable. They are of poor quality. They only scratch the surface of the subject matter they write about. Remember that the traffic you receive from niche-related sites should be real, and the information on these lead magnets should be unique, specific, and original. These can only be obtained from industry professionals.
Types of Lead Generation in 2022: 8 Ways to Generate Leads
5. Budget for influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is when a company hires or works with an individual who has a large following on social media channels to promote their product. This can include celebrities, bloggers, and other people who have a large following on social media.
The influencers are usually compensated for their work in the form of money, free products, or both.
There are many reasons why companies hire influencers to promote their products. One reason is that they believe that the influencer’s followers will be more likely to purchase the product if they see it being used by someone else in their feed. Another reason is that companies may want to use an influencer because they may have more credibility than the company itself would have when promoting a product.
The budget for influencer marketing depends on how you decide to compensate them.
Offer free products
Offering free products for influencer marketing is a common practice among companies. It is a win-win situation for both the company and the influencer, as the company gets a new customer and the influencer gets free products.
On Instagram, it is not uncommon to see posts where influencers are reviewing or promoting products that they were given for free by companies.
Performance-based pricing
Performance-based pricing in influencer marketing is a pricing model where an advertiser pays for the performance of an advertisement, rather than paying upfront for exposure or impressions.
The idea behind performance-based pricing is to pay only when there are conversions, which means that advertisers can save money by not paying for ads that don’t perform well.
This pricing model also has some disadvantages, such as needing more time to measure conversion rates and increased risk if prices are too low. However, it still remains a popular option because it can be customized according to individual needs and preferences.
Affiliation
This model compensates influencers by paying them a share of the earnings generated by each sale. An affiliate model provides digital marketers with clearer attribution and performance tracking, which reduces the risk of low ROI because payment is based on the performance of influencers.
What types of digital content should I create?
Most business owners mistake content marketing with traditional advertising. Well, it is not the same.
Content marketing is all about providing value to your customers through blogs, podcasts, videos, or social media posts. Being salesy in content marketing interrupts the experience of your customer. For instance, let’s say you got Youtube to watch something informational regarding affiliate marketing. Wouldn’t you get annoyed if the instructor keeps trying to sell his course in his video? Most Youtubers try to keep the promotion as subtle as possible.
You must be wondering. “What’s the point then?”
Sharing valuable content online builds the credibility and trust of your brand. It can increase the conversion rate of your digital marketing campaigns and generate more traffic to your website.
Here are a few tips on creating valuable content
1. Conduct in-depth research on your audience
Make sure you understand your target audience’s pain points. Doing some research on industry forums, Facebook groups, and Q&A websites is the best way to learn about their problems. Many users are asking questions about the industry you work in. You can then address these issues through blogs, YouTube videos, and so on. Furthermore, if you have exclusive knowledge of the topics being discussed, you can sell this as a lead magnet. It aids in the creation of lists that can be used to run an email marketing campaign.
2. Local content
A local content marketing strategy, which is more geographically targeted to your specific market rather than the global market as a whole, focuses on increasing your voice within your local community. When you pinpoint your local target audience and spend less time attempting to target the masses, your ROI on time, money, and energy will be significantly higher.
3. Create videos
Youtube videos can be an effective means of content marketing. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, the organic reach of Youtube is growing over the years. You can share your SEO activities, BTS scenes, DIY videos, etc. to provide value to your customers. Do not worry much about getting views, it’s the conversion that matters.
4. Personalized email marketing
Personalized email marketing is an even more powerful tool. It uses customer data to deliver messages that are tailored specifically for that individual customer.
This type of marketing has proven to be much more effective because it takes into account the buyer preferences, behaviors, and needs of the customer while sending out a message.
5. Engage with your target market on social media
This is a no-brainer. Curate content on the right social media platforms and engage with the users to strengthen the brand image. There are several social media marketing tactics you can use. Check the following blog to learn more about it.
Learn more: Social media marketing ideas for small business (2022 edition)
6. Infographics
Using infographics is one of the forgotten techniques in online marketing. It has so much potential. Infographics are a type of graphic that can be used to convey complex information in an easy-to-understand format. They are a great way to create content that is engaging and visually appealing.
Since infographics are so visual, they’re great for grabbing your audience’s attention. This makes them a perfect option for marketers and business owners who want to optimize their content for social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Cost-effective digital marketing strategies
Video Marketing
Marketers have been using videos for years as a way to amplify their marketing efforts. Video marketing is one of the cost-effective digital marketing strategies and an efficient way to reach prospects because it provides the opportunity to tell a story, establish credibility, and build trust.
But before YouTube came along in 2005, marketers had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment and production costs just to produce one video. Nowadays, with the emergence of YouTube and other video platforms like Vimeo or Wistia, video production costs have gone down significantly.
In fact, now you can create a high-quality video with your phone in just one hour for less than $200!
Re-targeting
Re-marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves targeting potential customers with ads that they have already seen. It is a cost-effective way to promote products and services to people who are interested in the company’s offers.
It is also an effective way of reminding customers about the company’s products and services when they are browsing online.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing is an effective and cost-effective digital marketing strategy. It is also a great way to reach your target audience on the go. Mobile devices are everywhere today, so you want to make sure that you are using them to your advantage.
There are many different types of mobile marketing, and they range from text-based messages to interactive multimedia campaigns.
The most common type of mobile marketing is SMS texting. This form of marketing is often used during sales, promotions, and new product launches. The company sends out text messages to their customers with information about the promotion or sale they want them to be aware of.
Another type of mobile marketing is through email or push notifications. These are often used by companies who want to reach out to their customers in a more personal way than just through text messages.