Lots of businesses are time poor, mainly because there are too many things to do in the limited time they have available. When I started my content marketing business I had to set and work to my own budgets. Here are three of the platforms I use to run my online marketing on a budget.
Bitly
Data is one of the most important commodities in business. Alongside relationships, data can help you target your campaigns to the right people. Bitly allows you to shorten links and collect data relating to the engagement of your blog posts or web pages.
With a free account you can track the click rates of your links, find out where your traffic is coming from, and the locations of the people clicking on your links. This is a great tool because it means you can create campaigns based on a series of links and track which social media platforms are best for your business.
So if most of your leads and traffic are coming through Facebook for example, you can decide to focus less on the other social media channels.
Bitly has allowed me to run, analyse and then adjust my online marketing campaigns, including modifying the amount of content I share depending on the day and time I share it and the platform I share it on.
Hootsuite
Social media is a great tool for online marketing. As I mentioned previously, there will be some platforms that provide more traffic and leads than others, but it’s important to post regularly on the ones you choose.
A free Hootsuite plan provides a number of significant benefits, including allowing you to post on up to three social media profiles and providing basic analytics to help you optimise your social media marketing.
Most significantly, it allows you to schedule your posts too. That means you could spend just a few hours planning your week’s content, leaving you more time to analyse your marketing campaigns and work with clients.
With Hootsuite I’ve been able to schedule my content in advance, based on the data I have from their analytics function as well as the analytics provided by Bitly.
JournoLink
PR works alongside social media as a part of my marketing, but like most small businesses I don’t have the budget for an agency to run my public relations.
JournoLink’s intelligent platform means that businesses like mine are matched with journalists that are interested in the content I produce.
For the price of a couple of coffees a week I have access to JournoLink’s box of PR tips and tricks as well as the ability to distribute my press releases and respond to comment requests from journalists.
With a consistent approach to PR and marketing I’ve been able to secure coverage on websites including Business Advice, raising my profile and improving my SEO too.
Online platforms are a great way to utilise your time, efforts and budgets. There are dozens on the market to help you run your online operations, but you need to remember to make sure you don’t overload yourself with too many.
Ben Caine is founder of The Copywriting King.
Further reading on online marketing on a budget
