All of my marketing experience has been done on a small budget. The average marketing budget is 7-8% of a company’s revenue, and beyond 10% for large companies. Mine has been below 1%. So let’s just say I know a thing or two about making marketing work on little to no money.

I know there are loads of businesses out there who don’t have a big marketing budget. And although you know you need to be doing something, the question is - what should you do? How should you spend the money you do have?

Here are a few of the tactics I’ve used over to make the most out of my marketing budget.

1. Go digital

This might be a no-brainer for practical reasons. Firstly, we’re done being apathetic towards the Earth. Secondly, it’s where people are. But beyond that, and most importantly, it’s trackable.

When you have limited resources, you want to ensure you can track how effective each [dollar / euro / pound] is that you spend. With digital, you can see an ROI, or at the least, some type of stats that indicate how well something performed. You won’t get ROI on every piece of digital marketing you do, but you will be able to at least see how many eyeballs you got in front of or how many people gave enough shits to hit ‘like’.

Digital can be in a variety of ways. The obvious one is social. However don’t forget how big of a role your website plays in your digital presence (which includes SEO). Email marketing is not dead people! Plus review sites, GoogleAds, partner website listings, aggregates, etc. All of these different facets of digital marketing can be really beneficial if approached strategically. Although take a pass on banner ads. This isn’t 1999.

2. Do less, better

This is probably a smart tactic for anything you do in life. If you’re strapped for marketing money, you’re likely strapped for marketing time as well. So be ruthless in what you’re going to do. Rather than spreading yourself thin over too many channels, campaigns or projects - pare it down to what’s most important.

For many people this is choosing the most important channels for your brand and audience. It can also be choosing one type of media - video over written might work better for your business. Do less, better.

3. Outsource

Do you need to figure out the technical SEO on your website but have NO clue where to start? Although hiring a consultant or freelancer might seem pricey at first, the amount of time you’d spend learning that new skill might actually cost you more than outsourcing. Evaluate how much your time is worth before you spend your time on something new.

Plus, some things are just much better done by a professional. The quality of results you’ll get from something you’ve never done before will inevitably never be as good as an expert who’s done it for years.

Marketing is a really easy skill to outsource, and you can find high levels of expertise in each facet of marketing - from SEO, to design to videography to GoogleAds. PeoplePerHour is a great place to start when looking for an expert freelancer.

4. Focus on your brand

You don’t need to run an expensive brand campaign for your brand to be a strong asset. It doesn’t take a lot of money to get really clear on what you stand for, why you’re doing what you do, and how you want to come across to clients.

Because you likely have fewer people working on your marketing, this is actually a huge advantage to your brand tone and voice. Keeping everything consistent and on brand will be easier, so leverage this. Create a really clear brand personality and build on it.

Don’t use a small budget as an excuse for not doing great marketing. You might not be running Nike campaigns across EVERY channel, but you can build real connections and get great results even on little to no money.