Techniques to Stretch the Advertising Budget of an SME

In a competitive market, businesses set marketing goals to perform competitively. Thus, managers set aside some funds to accomplish the advertising objectives. Both overbudgeting and underbudgeting for advertising have implications, but businesses should ensure return on advertising investment. Small business owners can stretch their advertising budgets by use of free publicity, social media marketing, participate in local forums, and digitization.

Free publicity entails the use of business media to spread positive stories regarding the business achievements of products. It is an integrated technique that utilizes a business’s digital assets and media to create positive publicity. Though small and large businesses can use free publicity, small ones benefit by stretching their limited advertising budget (Scarborough, and Cornwall 341). Besides, they can stand out in the market by spreading their values, which benefit consumers. Free publicity is easy to implement, and when excellently pitched, it may garner a large customer base without any budgetary constraints.

Social media is arguable the most flexible, data-driven, and fast marketing strategy. It is easy to use, and targeting customers has become straightforward to implement. Concerning the advertising budget, a business may use a little or no funds to market its products (Scarborough, and Cornwall 342). For instance, a small business may create an exceptional social media page, integrate it with publicity to garner likes and engagements. On Facebook, marketing charges are quite affordable, through which an ad is customized to impress a particular population. Social media advertising for a small business may not require the hiring of a marketing expert, thus reducing the cost of advertisement further.

Social media related to digital advertising, which has a significant influence on the performance of marketing strategies. Digital advertising entails publishing of promotion materials which are spread digitally through social medial, websites, and search engines. This technique utilizes trusted digital platforms such as YouTube, Yelp, Facebook, among others, to reach out to customers. Therefore, a small business does not have to create an advertising platform. Creating promotion messages is easy and often affordable, since the ad’s content is small, to capture the user’s attention. Since most people spend some of their time on the internet, digital advertising is an effective technique to reach a large customer base at minimal costs.

Small businesses may take advantage of local forums to advertise in them. This relies on other local organizations to organize forums in which a small business can participate. A business looking to use this technique ought to offer to share knowledge in the forum and draw relationships between the topic and its value or products. The business executive may identify a niche and perfect public speaking or participation in forums to earn confidence from organizers. Participating in forums exposes the business to a more extensive customer base and business actors who may offer to help.

To sum up, a small business may utilize free publicity, social media marketing, participate in local forums, and digitization to stretch its advertising budget. This exercise enables a small business to reach as many people as possible while maintaining low advertising costs. These techniques are easy to implement, and some are free, enabling small businesses to spread their advertising expenditure.

Works Cited

Scarborough, Norman M, and Jeffrey R Cornwall. Entrepreneurship And Effective Small Business Management. Pearson Education, 2015.