15 tips to effectively reduce your marketing budget

Typical marketing costs can be extremely high. This is why the marketing budgets of many companies are so large. But there comes a time when it is worth paying attention to the budget or even reducing it a little. This means that a company must figure out how to do the same thing with less.

We asked members of the Forbes Communication advice how a business can spend less on marketing and still get great results. Responses varied, but all suggestions were aimed at being a little more creative with existing resources. Consider some of these tips if you’re considering cutting your marketing budget a bit.

1. Create content for Many Apps

When I worked in radio, we had a saying, “As soon as you get bored of playing a song, the audience just starts liking it.” Resist the urge to constantly generate new creations. Instead, “refresh” existing content. Build your materials to many apps. Instead of creating 10 visuals for a campaign, create of them to three that you can slightly modify and reuse on all your platforms. – Colby Read, MJ Murdock Charitable Trust

2. Define measurement strategies

Have a KPI for each marketing action to ensure you are investing in the channels/actions that drive your results. If you’re buying paid search or paid social media, continually optimize your effectiveness. Eliminate expenses that don’t drive business results. – Kerry Curran, Catalyst, a GroupM and WPP agency

3. Prioritize expenses

The more segmented your marketing department is, the more each group will require a budget for their area of ​​interest. By ensuring that the entire marketing team is aligned on high-level goals, spending and focus should be placed only on areas that have the most impact at any given time. You don’t have to enable all marketing categories for every campaign, only those that will deliver. -Keith Bendes Hybrid Float

4. Use measurable marketing methods

To reduce costs and increase return on investment, we are increasingly using marketing methods that allow us to better target our audience, using paid social media, email marketing and direct mail, and decreasing general advertising. It’s about measuring what works and focusing on the audience that matters to you and using the most affordable and measurable means to reach them. – Amanda Ponzar, Community health charities

5. Create in-house campaigns

In January 2017, we launched a campaign in 584 metro car interiors. To cut costs, we ended up writing the copy ourselves, hiring a friend who was a graphic designer, and asking our existing users for feedback on the designs before printing them. We probably saved $50,000 in agency fees and the campaign worked because it was created by people who understand the brand! – Mandy Menaker, Shapr

6. Take advantage of negative keywords

One area where we are often able to achieve cost savings is leveraging negative keywords in our PPC campaigns to ensure we are not paying for clicks that are not relevant to our business. -Jessica Hennessy Wakefly, Inc.

Our company uses many (expensive) platforms and systems. By reviewing the technologies shared between the teams and looking at their capabilities, we’ve determined that we can break contracts entirely in some areas if we add resources to more robust products, which offer many of the same features. By consolidating programs and subscriptions, we can squeeze more juice out of fewer lemons. -Tony Holbrook, Ingram’s Micro-Commerce and Lifecycle Services

8. Impose costs on yourself

I recently integrated all ad buying in-house to quickly reduce costs. By paying the net costs by placing them yourself against the gross costs with an agency, you instantly save over 10% on each listing, or even more. It may take longer on an existing resource, but I’ve found it to be worth it and allows you to place more meaningful and relevant ads to fit the content. – Caroline Lyle, TMW systems (a Trimble brand)

9. Partner with your manufacturers and suppliers

Being in the retail business, we work with many various manufacturers and suppliers with whom we fortunately maintain excellent relations. Whenever we look at marketing and advertising for their brand or product, we work with them on the campaign that best suits our needs, and they are always willing to help us with the marketing costs because it’s a campaign that is valuable to both parties. Several companies have set aside marketing funds that may not be used. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your partners, because you never know what successful campaigns you can build when additional funds are available. – Billie Kay Asmus, Asmus Agricultural Supply

10. Model your content

Design once, update and publish. Whether you’re doing an email or an ad campaign, especially if you’re doing A/B testing, don’t invest too much in design. Instead, work with a designer to create of them three versions of an ad or email template that you can test and then have the means to update internally. The benefits are a more agile testing process, less spent on design iterations, and improved speed. – Alison Murdock, socialchorus.com

11. Use Free Authentic Content

One of the best ways to cut campaign costs is to get creative with your visuals. Instead of opting for expensive photoshoots or overused stock images, you can leverage authentic visuals created by your clients to power your campaigns. Brands have seen a significant decrease in content creation costs when using free user-generated content, which means you spend less without giving up campaign quality. – Mallory (Blumer) Walsh, stackla

12. Go digital

Before you produce an expensive brochure or catalog, think carefully about how it would read digitally. Of course, there will be times when a high quality print piece is needed, but resist the urge to order a whole suite of materials just because that’s how it’s usually been done. Ask yourself what action am I trying to bring about? Then ask if it can be better served by digital means. -Jennifer Jolls, The Connor Group

13. Get the best bang for your buck

With a limited budget, it’s essential that your dollar stretches, while remaining fresh and exciting. Everyone loves a good story. Use this to your advantage by creating holistic content that tells a compelling story. Break it down into small pieces that can tell their own individual stories or come together for a complete picture, creating many, effective resources from a single content. – Jennifer Kyriakakis, MATRIXX software

14. Do simple calculations

Simple math will make that decision for you. For example, starting with the most expensive, get a clear idea of ​​your customer acquisition cost by channel or tactics used. As quality is defined here by achieving the desired result of a campaign in the most effective and impactful way, move forward by reducing tactics that achieve the result in the least effective way. . – Alina Morkin, Voice.com

15. Be personal

My team has found that sending potential customers a handwritten note with a little something (eg, candy, a Starbucks card, etc.) in a direct mail is cost and response efficient. Everyone loves getting mail, and a handwritten note adds a sentimental touch that shows your team cares. One of our cheapest and most productive direct mail campaigns is a Take 5 candy bar with a message about how we’d like to take five minutes to explain our value proposition. Simple, economical and extremely effective! – Gabriella Sophia Doucas Elutions