Billions of dollars are spent on marketing goods and services online each year. But those billions are largely reserved for big, well established companies. Small start ups cannot afford to indulge in many forms of online advertising.

Marketing on a budget still needs to be approached in the same way as marketing with a huge budget. In fact it is arguably even more important to allocate your available funds appropriately. You cannot afford to waste money on methods which won’t get the desired results.

Invest properly in your website

Many people expect to get thousands of visitors. And yet they are not prepared to invest in a website that will attract the right people.

If funds are limited then a significant proportion should go into your website. Since 1997 the art of creating a website has become more involved. Professionalism is by far the most important aspect now. Basic sites no longer have a chance to succeed. Online marketing does mean paying to bring people to your website. And you need to have a good quality site to send them to in the first place.

Taking advantage of free marketing methods

Free does not necessarily mean it isn’t worthwhile. Organic search engine efforts can bring in plenty of visitors. You must appreciate though that spending less money can mean spending more in the way of time.

Every business uses free methods to some extent. A big multinational business may have a budget stretching into the millions, but they still use word of mouth to garner new customers. And you can learn from them even if you do not have a fraction of their budget.

Spending wisely

This is the most important aspect. A budget of $100 should be considered just as carefully as a budget of $1,000,000. The amount doesn’t matter as much as what you do with it and how you spend it. If free methods are worthwhile by all means use them. But there are lots of directions your budget could go in, and finding the right one is crucial to the success of any advertising campaign you launch.

Be smart with your budget

All big companies spend a lot of time researching their market before launching a product. The same method can easily be used for smaller companies on a scaled down basis.

Furthermore you will not see a multinational company repeat a marketing plan that does not work. If they pay for a search engine marketing campaign that ends up losing them money, they will make changes before attempting their next promotional efforts. Complete records will be kept of every success and failure so that those who control the advertising budget know which direction the money should go in the next time they are searching for new customers.

You can search for cheap advertising deals. You can choose cheaper words and phrases to bid on for your search engine marketing campaign. And you can constantly try to trim costs without losing out on the quality of your advertising. Cheap online marketing is possible – you just need to work at it.