A How-To Guide on Digital Marketing with Limited Resources

A common question asked by most entrepreneurs is “how to effectively digitally market with a limited budget?” This is especially true for social enterprises and NGOs that tend to have limited resources. This article will outline some simple tips on creating the biggest impact with tight time, people and budget constraints.

1) Measure results:

To start with, it is important to define SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) goals for your campaign, and compare the campaign results to these goals.

As with any small to medium sized organisation, an NGO also grows with time. Keep track and analyse marketing results – keep an eye on what is working and what is not. Maybe a certain campaign would work with one target market but not the other. In any case, be ready to evolve with times – trial and error is a sure-shot method to getting it right!

2) Pick and choose the right mediums for advertising:

Here, the medium of advertisement is defined mainly as digital marketing mediums such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Email Marketing, etc. The most common mistake made by entrepreneurs is trying to do everything. Spend some time researching your target audience and their habits, and pick the medium of advertising accordingly. For instance, if you are looking to target corporate donors and also beneficiaries, maybe the correct medium for you would be LinkedIn and Facebook, depending on your research. 

3) Pick and choose the right methods within the chosen medium:

Even within the chosen medium, there are multiple options of varying time and budget commitments. It is a good idea to analyse each method, and choose the ones that work best for your messaging campaign at the time. It is not necessary to work on each method simultaneously. Sometimes paid Facebook advertising leads to immediate results, which may be important for events or anything else that is time bound; other times maybe affiliate marketing could be the way to drive engagement on social media.

4) Budget time, money and people resources:

While keeping an initial budget of how much you would like to spend on each campaign in mind, be mindful of the people hours being utilised with your marketing campaign. Whether it is a volunteer or employee working on each project, it is important to make sure that each man-hour is budgeted and accounted for.

5) SEO is key:

SEO is a sure-shot advertising method that most small companies tend to ignore when they start out. Spend a little time understanding SEO best practices. You will be amazed at the impact it can have by just incorporating a few rules within your normal business activities. For instance, if you have a blog or website, a keyword analysis and Google business account can help create the best bang for your buck with zero cost and few man hours.

6) Resources:

There are many resources available for a free or discounted price for non-profits, Google Management Tools being the most notable. With Google text ads worth USD 10,000 every month, G-suite access, Google mapping tools, YouTube marketing and Google One Today (the fundraising-made-simple arm of Google) support, you can leverage these and other resources to work your marketing magic.

7) Time Investment

The key to most of these strategies is to spend some time and effort to set the base for the marketing strategy for your organisation. This time investment at the start will pay off in the long-run, leading to a sustainable and sufficiently self-running campaign.