Increasing conversion rates and then sales as a result, retaining customers, attracting new customers, increasing return on investment, and building brand reputation in addition to many other necessary requirements for project growth and success. You need a good budget for marketing, promoting the brand, and advertising products or services that work. Accordingly, all this is achieved when knowing how to market a new project well and effectively.
However, it often happens that those in charge of projects of all kinds face a lack of available resources, and the inability to secure the costs of a good marketing process that guarantees the success of the project.
Especially since marketing is the backbone of the success of the project in light of the crowded markets with products, services and competitors, and the diminishing market shares of each project in the same field, and therefore without good marketing solutions it is difficult to talk about the chances of success that will enable the project to continue.
In the following lines, we will learn about 7 useful ideas in cases where you do not have enough marketing budget for your project. Through it, you can delve into the market and learn how to market a new project well and establish your brand name among competitors with new promotional ideas and low-cost marketing strategies, or even non-existent ones in some of them.
1. Content recycling
You can re-use your old marketing campaigns in a new way or even use them as they were, and whether those campaigns were successful or unsuccessful or between, you can instill the spirit of renewal in them according to many methods, such as updating the marketing message that your brand was focusing on at that time, Modifying aspects that were not well received by the audience and followers at the time, or reformulating the content of the campaign.
In one way or another, all marketing content can be re-presented to the audience and followers again, including textual content such as articles and publications and visual content such as videos and infographics. You can convert brochures and guides that you previously worked on into a series of articles or vice versa, or even republish the evergreen content as it is useful to readers at all times; Therefore, you will not need the costs associated with creating new marketing campaigns from scratch.
2. Creative Marketing
Have you ever heard of “Guerrilla Marketing”? The term creative marketing is used as an Arabic equivalent to this type of marketing that relies on creativity to communicate the marketing message of the brand, in which elements of dazzling and surprise are used to create a strong impression on the consumer, and thus a strong mental image of the brand among followers, including audiences and customers.
Marketing campaigns can depend on creating new ideas to promote such a distinctive design, as we can see in the image above in the NIVEA poster that was on the occasion of Ramadan, or it can depend on a catchy marketing sentence or phrase, marketing can be in the way the product is packaged, Or even in the way it is displayed in the store as shown in the image below.
And since it does not depend on high spending or paid promotional publications as much as it depends on creativity and innovation in the idea put forward, as we indicated, this strategy is always referred to as one of the low-cost marketing strategies.
Therefore, you can rely on this strategy in cases where you do not have a sufficient marketing budget that enables you to launch promotional campaigns to publicize the project or product you are working on.
But do not forget that it is not easy to use this strategy, as it requires a fertile creative imagination capable of coming up with innovative, unconventional ideas to achieve the purpose and create the required interaction at the lowest possible cost.
3. Contribute to social activities
Customers trust brands that appear in social activities and local gatherings because they show a degree of concern and responsibility for the surrounding community in which they are active.
In addition, it is an excellent opportunity to highlight your project and increase its visibility in the local community in a new way that is different from promotional ads, sponsored posts, and the methods used by competitors in promoting their activities .
Several methods through which this strategy can be implemented and benefit your project without much cost or even without any costs in some of them. For example, you can present an introductory lecture related to your project’s specialization at a local event, sponsor an activity or event, or organize an event for your brand.
You may allocate part of your employees’ time to carry out volunteer tasks , as does the American company Autodesk, which specializes in software solutions, as it obliges its employees annually to provide 48 hours of volunteer work – equivalent to five working days – in schools or with non-profit organizations, which would enhance the company’s image And its reputation as one of the brands that contribute positively to community service and shoulder its responsibility towards it.
4. Partnerships
Partnerships help expand the project’s customer base by reaching new categories of users, and targeting new markets that the project does not have the ability to target without partnerships with entities present in those markets.
In addition, partnerships can be mutually beneficial . For example, the partnership between the popular Spotify music streaming platform and the Uber delivery service, which has been applied in a number of markets around the world, has allowed Spotify to reach new segments of users that would not have been possible without this partnership. Uber also provided its customers with the ability to control music broadcasts during trips. , which many other carriers cannot provide to their customers.
Successful partnerships are an important factor in the success of projects and building the brand’s reputation in the market and among competitors, especially in cases where projects do not have sufficient marketing budgets.
However, it is necessary to build a clear strategy regarding the partnerships that you are looking to build between your project and other projects. You must get a tangible benefit in return for what you will provide to the second party, and the partnership must be given the opportunity to grow with the growth of both parties to the deal to ensure the continuity of mutual benefit.
5. Offers and discounts
Marketing solutions are somewhat traditional, but they are good during exceptional circumstances in which the project does not have sufficient resources to implement other marketing strategies. Providing some discounts, launching offers, even with a small margin, can be effective ways to promote your project.
Whether you sell tangible services or products, it is good and motivating for customers to obtain them in exchange for a material benefit in the form of a discount.
It is possible to diversify the consideration that the customer gets, for example, a free upgrade can be offered on the service in exchange for the customer referring others to buy from you, as Drobox did at the beginning of its era.
6. Affiliate programs
Affiliate marketing programs enable others to market the products or services provided by your project in return for obtaining a percentage of the profits from each sale made through them, and therefore others will market your product or whatever service you provide only in exchange for what they will get for the sales that take place, and without No additional effort or cost from you.
There are many services that enable you to launch an affiliate marketing program on your site at reasonable prices and within everyone’s reach. E-Junkie service, for example, through which you can use an affiliate marketing program for your product for a monthly subscription that does not exceed $5.
Major stores such as Amazon and Alibaba use commission marketing programs to motivate others to market and advertise products on their store, as retail stores in the United States are expected to spend about $6.8 billion on affiliate marketing programs by 2020, after spending exceeded $4.7 billion in the year 2016.
7. High quality
In the event that you do not have sufficient marketing budget and do not know how to market a new project, you must provide a product or service of high quality that makes people adopt positive opinions about the product or about your project as a whole, to increase the chances of accepting the product with customers, and most importantly praising the product in order to attract More clients.
That is, instead of looking for distinctive means and ways to advertise your product and market it in traditional and unconventional ways at a low cost, you can focus on developing the product and creating a unique and distinctive user experience for customers that adds actual tangible value and makes them more satisfied and loyal to the brand and what it offers.
Studies confirm that projects that focus on building high-quality products get more repurchases from the same customers, as a result of the good first-time customer experience.
This is in addition to the role of the current customer, who shows satisfaction and loyalty towards his experience with the project in front of others, and thus the possibility of obtaining more customers as a result.
These were 7 methods that you can apply at times when you do not have enough marketing budget for your project and the products or services you are working on to help you know how to market a new project effectively.
In turn, if you have any previous experiences in low-cost marketing strategies or new ideas for promotion, tell us about them in the comments, as well as if you have any other similar ideas that you think deserve to be on this list.