We’re just a couple of days away from the New Year and most businesses are winding up their digital marketing and online advertising strategies for 2021. If you have a small business and are seeking ways to advertise without hurting your pocket, read this article and find out the top 5 affordable advertising methods for 2021.

Promoting a business is an indispensable part of running one. You can make people buy from you if they don’t know about you. So, no matter what you have to offer, if you can’t reach your targeted audience, your business won’t sustain itself. But small businesses start out with limited capital and thus have only a little to spare for marketing and advertising. As a result, such firms either end up with compromised reach or compromised business operations. This makes it crucial for small businesses to look for cost-effective ways of digital marketing and advertising.

Don’t worry! There are actually a number of effective and pocket-friendly advertising techniques that can help your business grow its reach without having to spend large sums of money.

Best 5 affordable ways of to advertise in 2021

1. Google My Business Account

Advertising

Having a Google My Business account is not only beneficial for your online business, but it is also essential. This lies at the base of online marketing and advertising. To have a Google My Business account is equivalent to having a signboard in front of your brick and mortar establishment. It helps people recognize your brand. As for its advertising potential, it is way more than an online business listing. By featuring the right photos and videos, positive reviews, and high ratings, companies can use Google My Business as an effective means of online advertising for technically no cost at all. For its other additional values— your business will show up in Google Maps, can potentially show up in Google 3-pack, earn trust from customers, increase online traffic and sales—to name a few. Thus, this method of advertising is not only highly effective, it’s free!

2. Content marketing

Content marketing

Creating quality content to promote a business is one advertising technique that never goes out of fashion. Apparently whatever becomes of the technology, one eventually needs a language to communicate. Blogging is that language, that indispensable medium. Creating a quality blog for business promotion doesn’t mean just write good content, it means producing a piece that is perfectly integrated with relevant media types and keywords. While having a blogging site for business is not exactly free, but blogging is a cost-effective way of online advertisement. Unlike other online advertising models, you don’t have to pay for ad space. You only need to post quality content to create an effective ad space. In fact, opting for content marketing services can be another cost-effective way. Though it would obviously cost you some money, availing of services from expert digital marketing agencies can be cost-saving in the way that it yields higher ROI.

3. Affiliate marketing

When talking about cheap ways of online marketing and advertising, affiliate marketing is always on the list. In this marketing model, affiliate markets and advertises your product to his/her audience further allowing you to expand your reach without putting extra effort. This form of brand promotion is cost-effective because you have to pay your affiliate only when you get a successful conversion, driven from his/her reference. Thus, affiliate marketing is a safe advertising bet in terms of monetary investment.

4. Social media marketing and advertising

Advertising

Over half the world’s population uses social media. This makes social networking channels a great platform for online marketing and advertising. In fact, when researching a new brand, people tend to turn to social media for judging its authenticity and credibility. Having an effectively and efficiently managed social media handle can help you gain trust, increase lead generation, drive more sales, and level up search engine optimization. For the best part- social media marketing and advertising is highly cost-effective. In fact, leading online social channels are constantly coming up with cost-effective paid advertisement solutions. So, if you aren’t capitalizing on social media to generate higher ROI on advertising, it’s time you do it now.

5. Optimize for search engines

Last but definitely not least—optimize your business website for search engines. Your potential customers are using internet search engines for your industry related queries. Thus, in such SERPs, your business needs to be positioned above your competitors. Search engine optimization does just the thing for you. With effective SEO, you can increase traffic on your website, create brand awareness, generate more leads and, drive more sales. But your competitors understand this too. Hence, they are also dedicated to improving their search engine visibility. Thus, it’s important for you to stand out. Although there are a couple of SEO remedies that can help you a bit here and there. But if you truly intend to stand out and want to make your ads yield higher ROI, it is imperative you sort to professional SEO agencies.

Final Word

Small start-ups generally struggle with digital marketing and advertising due to the lack of funds. But thankfully, there are ways that such businesses can promote their brand without hurting their budget. Creating a Google My Business account, content marketing, affiliate marketing, social media marketing, and SEO are some of the highly cost-effective ways of online advertising. If yours is a small business struggling with online promotion of your business, these can be your best options.

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Somya Sharma : Regardless of being a Delhi University graduate with a major in English Literature, Somya's interests are not limited to poetry and drama. As a person who loves researching, discussing and writing about topics rooted in various disciplines, the list of subjects that tickle her fancy is ever-growing. She finds the power of psychology in marketing particularly intriguing and has set out writing blogs with the aim of helping budding marketers polish-up.