A common question asked by most entrepreneurs is “how to effectively digitally market with a limited budget?”. This is especially true for social enterprises that tend to have limited resources. This article will outline some simple tips on creating the biggest impact with tight time, people and budget constraints.
1) Picking and choose the right mediums for advertising:
Here, the medium of advertisement is defined mainly as digital marketing mediums such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc. The most common mistake made my entrepreneurs is trying to do everything. Spend some time researching your target audience and their habits, and pick the medium of advertising accordingly. For instance, if you are looking to target corporate donors and also beneficiaries, maybe the correct medium for you would be LinkedIn and Facebook, depending on your research.
2) Pick and choose the right methods within the chosen medium:
Even within the chosen medium, there are multiple options of varying time and budget commitments. It is a good idea to analyse each method, and choose the ones that work best of your messaging campaign at the time. It is not necessary to work on each method simultaneously.
3) Measure results:
As with any small to medium sized organisation, an NGO also grows with time. It is important to keep track and analyse marketing results – keep an eye on what is working and what is not. Maybe a certain campaign would work with one target market but not the other. In any case, be ready to evolve with times – trial and error is a sure-shot method to getting it right!
4) Budget time, money and people resources:
While keeping an initial budget of how much you would like to spend on each campaign in mind, be mindful of the people hours being ustilised with your marketing campaign. Whether it is a volunteer or employee working on each project, it is important to make sure that each man-hour is budgeted and accounted for.
5) SEO is key:
SEO is a sure-shot advertising method that most small companies tend to ignore when they start out. Spend a little time understanding SEO best practices. You will be amazed at the impact it can have by just incorporating a few rules within your normal business activities. For instance, if you have a blog or website, a keyword analysis and Google business account can help create the best bang for your buck with zero cost and few man hours.