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Brand Builder Directory

Marketing on a Budget

Anna Sullivan
October 28, 2022

2023 is quickly approaching. A big topic in your mind might be launching a new brand, new product, or how to use your advertising budget. Particularly our bootstrapped brands or ones who find themselves with low budgets you know that means you have to get creative in your efforts, and you truly are having to make every dollar count. 

Whether you have $1,000 or $5,000 to spend on ads each month, let’s discuss the “best” ways to use that budget (considering you already have organic social media handled with regular content/posting/management). 

If you have $1,000 to spend per month:

  • Influencers
  • $600 for 1-2 influencers (most likely just one micro influencer unless you have AMAZING negotiation skills), focusing on people you think are a perfect fit for your brand. Really work on your negotiation skills here and setting up a long term relationship. You will want each person to post at least 3 posts (I am thinking TikTok influencers are the best options, but it depends on your brand).
  • Social Ads
  • $200 - Focusing on retargeting ads and boosting organic content that performed well (1 channel)
  • Google Ads
  • $200 - Search Ads with highly relevant keywords

If you have $3,000 to spend per month:

  • Influencers
  • $1,900 for 1-3 influencers posting at least 3 posts each, again always making sure people that are a perfect fit for the brand and video content is key. Don’t forget to make sure you get usage rights for organic and paid promotion as well.
  • Social Ads
  • $600 - Focusing on retargeting ads, boosting organic content that performed well, and dark ads for new audiences (1-2 channels)
  • Google Ads
  • $500 - Search Ads with highly relevant keywords

If you have $5,000 to spend per month:

  • Influencers
  • $3,000 for 1-4 influencers posting at least 3 posts each. Also consider this budget going to media collaborations (think higher profile personalities, content collaboration efforts, etc. - the general key to all of this is to show up to your audience in a relevant way that will connect with them).
  • Social Ads
  • $2,000 - Focusing on retargeting ads, boosting organic content that performed well, and dark ads for new audiences (1-2 channels)
  • Google Ads
  • $1,000 - Shopping and Search Ads with highly relevant keywords

Need some tools to help you make all this happen? Here are a few to check out:

  • Triple Whale - Best tracking for social ads
  • TikTok - Honestly you can find so much help for paid ad targeting/strategies there
  • UpWork - great place to find a freelancer to help set and optimize your Google Ads
  • Olapic - To help find creators

With that said, there are essentially “free” things you should be filling your time with to help amplify your reach and success:

  • Product Seeding
  • In addition to your ad budget, product seeding is going to get you a long way (if handled correctly). Set a goal of at least 50 packages going out to creators and influencers (per month - and the ones you know are already lovers of the brand or people you would love to work with but cannot afford) with a personalized note on why you are sending it to them.
  • Social Listening
  • The more time that can be spent on social listening (commenting on relevant posts on TikTok) is needed to help be successful.
  • Partnerships
  • If you aren’t already considering partnering with other brands, this is a great way to reach a new audience. A lot of people think you need to have a lot of followers to have another brand consider working with you (sometimes this is the case) but if you as a brand know what you offer and have a strong brand you can be convincing to other brands to collaborate. Think bigger than giveaways, but you can do things like working with a creator/influencer together, going live together, product collaboration, etc. 

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