Money Well Spent: How to Make Marketing a Strategic Investment

Making marketing work for you on a limited budget

Running a small business often means doing more with less. That also applies to marketing. Even though it can be hard to justify spending limited time, resources and money on marketing your small business, the fact is that most businesses don’t succeed without it.

According to a SimpleTexting report, 87% of small businesses with a marketing plan showed success, versus 13% of those without one. This means having a plan (and executing it) will give you a huge boost toward achieving your goals.

Why invest in marketing?

The simple fact is that you need to make people aware of your business. Before they can become customers, they need to know you exist. 

This is why it’s important to understand the basics of marketing, like the marketing funnel. The marketing funnel is wide at the top, making as many people as possible aware of your business so that they know you’re an option when they need the goods or services you provide. 

The further down the funnel you go, the narrower it becomes as you target people ready to buy. The bottom of the funnel is where you (hopefully) convert those prospects into customers.

How to measure the effectiveness of your marketing

No matter how you allocate your limited marketing resources, it helps to know if a campaign is working, what’s working the best and whether you’re achieving your objectives. 

The first step is setting clear goals. Are you looking to simply make potential customers in your area aware of your business, convert a specific number of prospects to paying customers or increase revenue? Having a clear goal from the start will help you measure your progress along the way. 

The next step is to establish relevant KPIs, or key performance indicators. If your goal is to drive website traffic, then metrics like total website traffic, click-through rates and bounce rates are good KPIs. 

Other KPIs to consider are:

• Return on Investment (ROI): Measure the profit you make for every marketing dollar you spend.

• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Represents the total amount you expect a customer to spend over the life of their relationship with your business.

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): A measure of how much money you must spend to acquire a new customer. Divide your total marketing spend by the number of net new customers you have acquired over a specific time period.

• Conversion rate: The percentage of customers who take a desired action, such as signing up for a demo, scheduling an appointment or making a purchase. 

• Customer retention rate: The number of customers who continue to solicit your business over a specific time period.

• Customer satisfaction: The overall impression customers have of your business, measured through surveys or online reviews.

For general brand awareness, consider conducting customer surveys. This will tell you which specific marketing tools are driving awareness, how customers heard about your business and what they think about your goods or services.

Affordable marketing tools

Marketing doesn’t have to break your bank. There are cost-effective tools you can use to increase the likelihood of hitting your marketing KPIs and generate positive revenue growth for your business. Even if your marketing team consists of exactly one person—you—there are tools and techniques you can use to attract customers and foster their loyalty over time. 

Social media marketing

Social media marketing can be an effective way to reach new customers or re-engage customers who may have dropped out of your funnel. It’s an incredibly popular marketing tool, with 96% of small businesses using it to drive awareness.

The secret to successful social media marketing is to know which strategies work best on which platforms. While you can set up an account on a platform and start posting right away, it’s worth pausing to observe. Look at who’s posting what and which campaigns seem to be working.

Then, start small, with a limited number of posts on a single platform or two about your business and offerings. Try to make your posts feel authentic and personal. This will help drive engagement. Keep at it even if your engagement seems low. When folks do catch on to your social media presence, having a large pool of posts will make your business feel more authentic.

Email marketing

Email marketing is also an effective tool that you can deploy fairly inexpensively. The challenge is making sure your emails don’t end up in the recipient’s spam folder.

To help ensure your messages are seen, use a dedicated email marketing platform like Hubspot or Mailchimp. These tools show you how to structure your emails to make them more successful.

Also, personalize your emails. Use customers’ real names, when possible, and tailor your message to their experience and needs. 

User-generated content

Many potential customers will read online reviews before patronizing a local business. This makes user-generated content an effective marketing tool, even though you can’t control it directly. 

You can use an online review page as your business’s website instead of having to build your own. Simply direct people to the online review page instead of your website. This will put the relevant details about your business alongside user reviews, making it a one-stop for potential customers.

Just remember, how you respond to reviews is important. Being courteous and expressing gratitude will help drive positive brand awareness. Be sure not to overdo it, though. Let the positive reviews speak for themselves. 

AI & automation

Let technology take some of the workload off of you. Many marketing services and platforms have AI assistants that can write first drafts of blog posts, website copy and emails. Why spend time staring at a blank page when you can use AI to get a head start?

You can also automate marketing email sends timed to when you’re having a sale, unveiling a new offering or when it’s time for their next appointment.

Loyalty programs

Last, but not least, a loyalty program gives one-time customers a good reason to become repeat customers. Offering a free item after several purchases or a discount for repeat customers helps build brand loyalty for minimal cost.

Bring your brand into the world

Giving people something they can carry with them or wear helps boost your brand awareness. Get marketing materials printed with your brand from Walmart Business Print. Whether you need coffee mugs, business cards, colorful displays or more, you can show off your brand with custom designs and access features like same-day printing and free shipping on eligible items over $35.

Walmart Marketplace and Walmart Connect also offer opportunities for companies to market their products. 

To take advantage of these features and more, simply join Walmart Business. Already have an account? A Walmart Business+ membership provides members with limited-time offers that can help marketing efforts, such as access to UENI, which offers premium website design, SEO copy, domain and email, bookings, e-commerce, secure hosting and human support.

With a Walmart Business+ membership, you’ll save over $500/year¹ and enjoy exclusive rewards for your organization, like free shipping, with no order minimum², Free delivery from store, $35 minimum³, the opportunity to earn 2% in Walmart Business Rewards on orders $250 or more⁴ and the ability to analyze patterns with Spend Analytics to help budget for the future. Plus, you’ll receive access to the content hub and premium resources to support your business growth. Sign up today.

¹ Savings based on 1 free $35+ delivery order vs. $9.95 fee and 1 free shipping order under $35 vs. $6.99 fee biweekly, plus 2% Walmart Business Rewards on monthly order >$250 (average value of $400).

² Excludes most marketplace items. Freight & location surcharges may apply.

³ Restrictions apply. 

⁴ Rewards can only be used toward future purchases on Walmart Business. Additional terms apply.