How to focus on Sales when Your marketing budget is cut

With the increased competition across various sectors, you want to stay focused even while working on a limited budget. So, if you are experiencing a marketing budget cut in your department, you can pivot your focus to sales-driven efforts and achieve your goals even with a tight budget. Is this happening to you now? If so, reach out and let us help! While spending on marketing activities with a minimal budget can be challenging, you can explore various creative strategies to improve your marketing and increase sales and leads. Here are some ideas you can apply for maximum impact in your business. 

1.   Define Your Target Audience 

A target audience is a specific consumer market that intends to buy from you. Knowing who is interested in buying your products or services is important before figuring out what they want, where, and how to find them. This can help you create focused marketing campaigns for a specific and well-defined target group and avoid wasting money on people who are disinterested in your service. Here are several ways to identify your target market. 

• Discover the needs of your target audience.
• Craft the right messages customized to the specific audience.
• Identify under-served markets and focus on meeting a need.
• Perform thorough, diligent market research and find out how to solve a need.
• Conduct a competitive market analysis and know who your target audience buys from. 
• Develop a target market segment to get all team members on the same page.
• Analyze your social media performance metrics to learn your strengths and weaknesses. 

If you fail to identify your target market, you may design products or services that no one will buy. This will waste your time and money in the long run. While your target audience may evolve, it is essential to start where you are. Segment your target market based on their interests, pain points, values, income level and employment, purchase behaviors and buying patterns, gender, age, and geographical location to direct a superior offering to the audience. Understanding each target audience category can help you develop a customer profile that shapes your marketing campaigns. 

2.   Research Marketing Channels Your Audience Uses Often 

With multiple channels in today's digital landscape, customers are spread across various channels where they interact with businesses and get solutions to their needs. However, this doesn't mean every channel can achieve the desired results, especially with a marketing budget cut. 

Marketing channels that customers use often help you connect your customers to your business without using a lot of money on marketing. Once you identify the productive marketing channels, you should create quality content that speaks to the needs of your target audience. You can quickly draw customers to your brand with relevant, valuable, and interesting content without spending much money.  

3.   Identify and Analyze the Available Budget 

Before generating new ideas and strategies to market your business, you should determine what budget you are working with. Know how much money was cut from your usual budget and decide which campaigns, tools, platforms, and strategies you will use. This can help you to project the results of your campaigns. Since you already have a budget cut, you should spread it across different activities for maximum impact.  

In this case, you may choose high-performing but cost-effective tools and strategies. Avoid costly and underperforming tools and tactics because they will waste your time and money. It would be best to determine how much money was cut from your usual advertising budget, especially for social media marketing and pay-per-click. Get creative with the current budget for a greater impact. A budget forecast will get you to spend money effectively, align your sales and marketing goals, and enable you to plan for future marketing. 

4.   Plan How You Will Allocate Your Budget across Different Channels

If you are working with different channels to market your business, you should plan how to work with the available budget to achieve maximum results on each platform. This can be a daunting task. But it is best to do it to avoid facing challenges when you begin your campaigns. Here are several questions you can write down and find answers to when planning to allocate your budget across different channels. 

• What channels are the most active and productive?
• What goals do you want to achieve on each channel? 
• How did the channels perform in the past marketing campaigns?
• Which marketing activities contributed to the success of your campaigns? 
• What changes do you plan to make to improve campaigns on the platforms?
• Which marketing platforms require you to do outreach?
• What marketing platforms do your competitors use and why?

With different online and offline channels you may want to use, consider allocating your budget based on the impact of each platform. Take your time to analyze the platforms to avoid misallocating funds. Effective planning will also help you stay within your budget. If you do not know how much budget will be allocated, you should hold on to your plan. Planning without the actual budget figure will not only waste your time but will also frustrate your efforts in the long run. 

5.   Implement Your Plan and Track Results Regularly

Once you set your marketing budget, it is time to implement the plan and begin tracking the results. You want to know if you are progressing while working with a marketing budget cut. This is why your plan should include the metrics you will track. Ensure you constantly evaluate the budget throughout the year as you run your marketing campaigns. 

You can divide this into milestones for effective tracking. The milestone components can include the type of project, timelines, date, and performance measures such as the revenue generated and profits made. This differs from one business to another. But the key consideration here is to choose key performance indicators that work for your business model and focused towards your marketing goals.

6.   Make Adjustments to Your Plan As Needed Based On Results Achieved

When working with a flexible marketing plan, you can make adjustments based on the results you achieve after your marketing campaigns. This enables you to change tactics and go for what is working for your business. For this reason, it is important to keep reviewing your plans after every campaign and take the appropriate measures to save time and money. 

If the plan is outdated, create a new one and use it in your next marketing campaigns. You want to ensure that your channels continue generating leads and sales even as you work with a budget cut. Sometimes, you may also need to determine whether you want to hire a third party to manage your marketing campaigns. This depends on the results you achieved and your current budget. 

The Bottom Line 

Creating a plan with a marketing budget cut can be daunting. With in-depth skills and experience, you can effectively allocate the budget and save the resources altogether. This is why it is important to learn new skills and sharpen your ability to create effective marketing plans even after a marketing budget cut. At The Insight Studio, we have plans for different companies at all stages of the marketing process to help level up your HubSpot utilization.. Ready to learn more? Connect with us now.