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How to Successfully Advertise Your Web Development Business on a Budget?

Posted: 19 Aug 2019 10:51 AM PDT

A web development business can be an excellent adventure for young entrepreneurs. The possibilities for clients are truly endless since a professional website is pretty much a requirement for any successful brand. How do you advertise such a business in a world full of them? We've put together this handy list of tips on how to successfully advertise your web development business on a budget, so you can maximize the cost-effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

1. Figure out What You Can Afford

The first thing you need to do when making any financial decision is to figure out what you can actually afford as a company. Marketing can be costly depending on your methods, so it's important that you have a good idea of what level of financial strain the business can support before attempting to venture into marketing/advertisements.

Take a close look at your monthly budget. What do you spend on advertising already? How much wiggle room do you have as far as cash flow? Once you've identified your spending limits, you'll be able to make a more informed choice on which method of advertising will work best for your business. You can also hire a financial advisor to assist with this if you're not great at crunching numbers. You can find the best financial advisor in Florida on Carefulcents.com.

You'll certainly want to allocate a large percentage of your profits to creating more business through advertising, but you also don't want to bankrupt yourself doing it. Don't make any advertising decisions until you're certain of what you can afford, and how you'll recover the costs associated with it.

Be familiar with the kinds of tools you use as well, and how much their monthly costs affect your budget. If you're using wireframe tools, compare brands (like Axure vs Sketch) to ensure you're getting the best deal. Once you minimize costs in other areas, you'll have more to spend on advertising.

2. Choose the Right Advertising

The next step is to figure out what kind of advertising you want to invest in. Whether it be television or radio ads, Facebook ads, or ads on other websites, you'll want to research the type of advertising that will work for you before you make a decision.

A web development company will likely have much better luck advertising via online platforms than via radio or newspaper ads. If you build websites for specific niches or industries, you'll want to advertise where these businesses frequent. Finding the right people to advertise to will increase the chances of you creating interest and even a follow-up from the reader/listener.

The type of advertising you choose will have a major impact on the cost of your ad as well. Television ads are usually the most expensive, while simple Facebook ad campaigns can cost as little as a few dollars per week. If you're just starting out, and don't have much extra capital to work with, you might want to try simple ads to begin with. When you start generating more business, and therefore money, you can branch out to more effective means of advertising.

3. Always Ask for Feedback/Testimonials From Clients

Some of the best and most cost-effective advertising you can get is testimonials/reviews from previous or current clients. Most people who are shopping for a service will want to see reviews to ensure that the business is legitimate and has been utilized by others in the past, with good results.

Customer testimonials can tell a potential customer so much about your business and the way you interact with your customers. A good testimonial can often be the difference between a potential customer contacting you and navigating away from your page.

Don't be afraid to ask customers to leave a review on your website or Facebook/social media pages if they're happy with your work. This will help solidify your reputation for quality and customer service and advertise your business as the best at what you do. Without a reputation to stand behind, your advertising efforts won't be nearly as effective.

4. Create More Focused Marketing Campaigns

When you're advertising on a budget, or marketing in general, the best practice is to identify your target audience and only advertise to them. This controls the amount you spend on advertising campaigns since you won't be "blanket-advertising", or just advertising to anyone and everyone.

You'll have specific demographics that will respond to your ads; these are your target audience. Do you build websites for the construction industry? You'll want to advertise to construction companies. Do you develop sites specifically for e-commerce? You'll want to advertise to e-commerce stores.

The more focused your advertising is, the more cost-effective it will be, and the higher your returns on the investment will be. It's simple; if you want to sell an industry-specific item, you don't market to someone outside of that particular industry. Find your target audience, focus your marketing, and you'll be on your way to creating effective ad campaigns.

5. Don't Forget About Social Media

Social media is the ultimate marketing platform for up and coming and established businesses alike. The ability to reach millions of people all over the world instantaneously isn't found anywhere else. As a business on a budget, you're only working against yourself if you're not utilizing social media in your marketing efforts.

Facebook even has a useful ad tool, where you can create focused ads or a specific length of time. You'll be charged by the number of people you want to reach and the length of the ad, so you can easily adhere to a budget and still reach plenty of people with your ad campaigns.

The Bottom Line

Essentially, there are plenty of options for businesses on a budget to market their services and still reach the audience they're hoping to interact with. Utilize social media, focus your marketing efforts, and figure out exactly how much advertising you can afford for a more efficient and effective advertising experience.

How to Get the Best ROI from Your Social Media Strategy

Posted: 19 Aug 2019 10:39 AM PDT

Social media has greatly impacted society and business as a whole. According to Pew Research, around 72% of Americans use social media in some way. Many use social media sites to share information, to connect with friends, and to engage with news content. With a growing number of people flocking to social media, it's no surprise that businesses morphed their marketing strategies.
It's safe to say that social media is the future of marketing.

With a successful social media strategy, you can better connect with consumers, increase brand awareness, generate a growing number of leads, and even increase your website traffic. This all leads to more sales and more income.
Here's what you need to know about getting the best ROI from your social media strategy.

Create a Strategy for Each Platform

Each social media platform that your business has a presence on requires a specific strategy. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and others all have their own best practices and nuances for boosting brand awareness and customer engagement. The steps you take for getting likes on Instagram will be very different from how you increase engagement on Facebook.

While you may not need to use every social media platform available today, you'll at least want to know why you're using each platform and which target audience you're looking to reach. It's also important to know what types of content work best on each platform. No matter which social media sites you choose to use, what's most important is to always provide quality content. You can be an active member of every social media site, but if your content is boring or not reliable, you won't achieve your ROI expectations.

Know Your Audience

How well you know your audience will make or break your social media campaign. Social media marketing is all about engaging and connecting with your followers. In order to turn a profit using social media marketing, you need to really know your audience. This includes having a clear idea of what topics most interest your audience, what challenges they face, and what content they prefer.
Without knowing your audience, your entire social media campaign is a shot in the dark. So how can you better understand the wants and needs of your followers?
There are all sorts of ways to better know and understand your social circle. Options include:

Responding to comments on posts and blog articles
Replying to questions posted on social media
Looking at demographics
Collecting feedback

Once you have a good idea for your target audience is, and what they want and need, you're in a much better position to best serve their needs. Getting to know your audience also shows that you care. This is a huge perk when retaining and attracting new customers.

Relevant But Unique Content

As you get to know your target audience, you'll have a good idea of which topics they most enjoy reading about. You can pinpoint the hottest topics in your industry by using Google Analytics. You can also search through past social media posts and blogs to see which ones spurred the most engagement.

Knowing which content most interests your social networks helps to ensure that your content doesn't get lost in the crowd.

Post Consistently...

In order to maximize your marketing potential on any social media site, you have to post consistently. Posting a few times a day is ideal for getting the most views. When determining how often you should post on a social media site, you'll want to understand many factors, such as how content posts (i.e. chronologically), the underlying algorithm, and any other factors. How often and when you post greatly depends on the social media platform. Often times you'll find that you have to tread the fine line between posting enough and posting too much.

Facebook is an ideal example. Many studies have found that one Facebook post each day produces optimal results. In fact, a study conducted by Hubspot found that businesses that posted more than once a day experienced a 50% drop in engagement for each post. On the other hand, if your business has an active Twitter page, you'll want to tweet between 3 to 30 times each day.

…And At the Right Time

Timing also plays a role in the success of your social media marketing campaign. You won't get much engagement if you post a new blog or an Instagram photo when most of your followers are asleep. Research when your target audience is most active on social media, and then focus on posting during those times in order to optimize engagement. For example, the most liked videos on YouTube are often posted on Thursdays and Fridays between 12 pm and 3 pm (based on your audience's time zone). This is because these times are when the largest number of users are actively searching for new video content to watch.

Conclusion

A social media strategy can be a huge success, especially if it's properly planned and is designed to meet your target audience's needs. Be sure to follow these tips and tricks so that you can get the best ROI from social media marketing now and long into the future.

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Tuesday, August 20, 2019