• content marketing

Running a Content Marketing Campaign on a (Small) Budget

Content marketing is an essential part of any digital campaign.

It can do whatever you want it to do. Generate leads? Yes. Boost brand awareness? Absolutely.

Obtain high-authority backlinks? Sure.

The problem is – content marketing can be expensive. At least, many businesses believe it to be expensive.

And whilst that’s true a lot of the time, there are ways to utilise content marketing on a budget.

Your results probably aren’t going to break the internet. But they can provide a very real return on your investment.

Here, we’re going to talk about how you can reach your audience, and achieve your goals, without breaking the bank.

Forget about Videos, Animations and Interactive Elements

Content marketing can cost a lot of money because it includes many of the above.

Anything that requires a highly-skilled individual/team to spend hours and hours developing is going to be expensive.

If you want to keep things cheap, you have to forget about creating videos, animations, interactive maps, podcasts, etc.

For really low budgets, anything visual at all might be out of the question. Although you may be able to stretch to an infographic, depending on how sophisticated and detailed it needs to be.

This might be disappointing to hear. But if you’re on a budget, it’s what you need to expect.

Anyway, there’s plenty else you can do.

Text-Based Campaigns – Spend Your Money on a Good Copywriter

You’re probably going to have to stick to a text-based campaign. And that’s ok.

The pen is mightier than the sword, after all.

Focus on producing the best written content you possibly can. Whatever budget you do have, use it on a quality writer.

You can do a lot with words. Run a successful blog, launch a scientific-based, keyword-focused content campaign, create downloadable eBooks and whitepapers (although the latter may require a higher budget).

This doesn’t mean you can’t have visual elements to complement your writing – but the main value should come from your text.

Prioritise On-Site Content

Very often, content marketing campaigns involve off-site content.

That can include getting in touch with influencers on social media, guest-posting on popular blogs in your industry, and even submitting articles to national publications.

But these can take up both time and money. Particularly if you don’t already have these connections with external sources.

That’s why it’s best to focus on campaigns that rely on on-site content.

With a website you have complete control over, you can submit content when you wish, and manage any issues that might arise.

And you don’t have to pay anyone to post your content. Many influencers will ask for money, or something for free in exchange for sharing something you’ve created.

Combine Content Marketing with Your SEO Strategy

Perhaps you can’t afford to spend a lot of money on content marketing, because you already have significant budget behind an SEO campaign.

This is arguably the best way to justify money spent on content – because it can have a significant impact on SEO.

High-quality, informative content is extremely beneficial to search rankings.

How you want to do it will depend on your goals. We’ve written a blog post about how you should determine what type of content to produce, based on what your aims are.

Simply put, if you want to increase organic traffic, then keyword-optimised content is the way to go.

Investing time into keyword research can open up lots of opportunities for gaining new leads.

Or, if brand awareness is your goal, creative content for your blog is the better option.

Earning high-authority backlinks is also very beneficial to an SEO campaign. The best option here is to produce educational content, such as ebooks and whitepapers.

However, these can take a lot of time and resource. So they may be out of your budget.

Either way you have lots of options. Expanding your SEO strategy to focus on content can help you stretch your money a little further.

Focus on Organic Rather Than Paid

It’s obvious, really. But with minimal budget you won’t be able to rely on paid advertising to promote your content.

Instead, you’ll need to create something with the potential to reach people through organic means.

This is not easily done. Particularly with the way social media algorithms works today. Facebook in particular makes it very difficult to reach your audience without a paid budget.

The answer is simple, but frustratingly not easy. You need your content to be good enough to take on a life of its own.

Like I say – not easy. But if you’re not able to pay to have your content shared, it needs to be of the highest quality.

This is another reason to integrate a content marketing strategy with your SEO campaign. SEO by definition doesn’t rely on paid budgets.

Google will determine the quality of what you’ve produced, and reward you as it sees fit.

Pay More, Get More

This might not be particularly helpful – but it’s worth making the point that paying more will get you better results. Most of the time.

Whilst you can do content marketing on a budget, the chances of success are a lot higher (depending on your goals) if you put some money behind it.

Money that can be spent on individuals with in-demand skills – designers, developers etc.

And of course, paid advertising.

But if your still conscious about spending so much money, follow the above advice for now.

When you see the power of content marketing, we’re convinced you’re going to want to start investing more and more.