I’ll admit it. When I first got into the online marketing game, I wasn’t exactly sure how much effort I should put in and what to expect. Would I be able to build a successful business with little to no money investment? Or would I need to sink a lot of money into tools and platforms to get my business off the ground?
Thankfully, I found a happy medium and was able to build a lucrative business while still feeling like I could give my business the attention it deserved. And now, I’m here to help you with the same goal. Here’s how much (and what type of investment) you should expect to spend to get your business up and running.
Pricing Structures
One of the things that can make or break your business is your pricing structures. Since you’re mostly selling one-time use services, you have to make sure that your pricing is something people can’t resist. But you also don’t want to put too much pressure on your customers, so consider setting your prices relatively low. You can use this money-back guarantee as a tool to get people to try your product or service without worrying about ending up in debt. Remember, you’re still in the early stages of your business. Things can and will change. As long as you keep your prices low enough, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to grow.
On the other hand, subscription-based models are becoming more and more popular. The reason behind this is simple—subscription-based businesses are less likely to go out of business. When customers subscribe to your product or service, you’re essentially securing revenue for future use. As a result, you can establish yourself as a viable business option for people who need your product or service regularly. Most importantly, subscription models allow you to scale your business without having to worry about raising prices. This will give you the opportunity to garner more customers and expand your reach. To give you an example, if you’re operating in the UK and you identify that your product is most popular with consumers living in London, you can increase your rates there while maintaining the same low rates in other areas of the country. This way, you’ll maintain a good balance sheet and have more money to invest in growth.
Marketing Automation
With marketing automation, you can schedule emails to be sent to your customers throughout the year. Using a tool like HubSpot (formerly known as Hootsuite), you can set up automated email blasts that will contain links to websites, social media platforms, and other areas of your digital footprint.
Depending on how much time you want to devote to email marketing, you can either choose to spend a lot of money on tools and platform fees or you can choose to forego those costs and use free tools. Free tools allow you to build out your email campaign without incurring large costs. You can set up automated campaigns that will email customers with offers, discounts, and other types of incentives. Not only will this help you generate more leads, it will also help you retain existing customers, increase brand loyalty, and foster stronger connections with your audience.
Content Marketing
If you’re reading this blog post, you’re likely interested in learning more about content marketing. Essentially, content marketing is using content to attract, engage, and convert potential customers into actual customers. In other words, content marketing builds trust and credibility through informative, engaging, and useful content that is distributed through various channels.
Think about your business. What content do you have that is most effective and engaging for your audience? Is there a whitepaper, FAQ, how-to-guide, or other type of content that you can use to engage with potential customers? You can use this content to distribute through your blog, social media pages, and other platforms. To find the content that is working best for you, you can use tools like Hootsuite to analyze your web traffic and identify key content that is driving leads and revenue. From there, you can use tools like HubSpot to build out a plan to publish more content regularly.
When it comes to digital marketing, many businesses think that they need to allocate a lot of money to acquire new customers. While it’s true that you’ll need to invest money in leads and marketing to gain traction, you don’t necessarily have to allocate huge sums of money to do so. With the right strategy, you can gain customers without spending a fortune. And if you do decide to pursue traditional marketing methods, you’ll be able to use tools like HubSpot to create and distribute content that is more likely to engage with your target audience.