No matter what business you run, your marketing budget will be integral to its success. You need to have enough cash to invest in marketing your business, allowing you to find new customers and generate sales. The question is, how do you make the most out of your budget? There are plenty of tactics to consider, but one overall theme is to focus on reducing some of the running costs of your business. By doing this, you can free up more money to dedicate to marketing, letting your strategies and campaigns be more developed. The extra money can help you put together marketing ideas that generate more leads than they would if you didn't have the additional funds.

So, how can you reduce running costs, and where are the best places to start?

Lower office overhead

The best place to begin is with your ongoing office costs. Even in the most affordable city to rent an office, you're looking at an average yearly cost of $4,194 per employee per year. That's a lot of money that you could use to fuel your marketing budget instead.

How can you reduce your office costs? It's simple; work remotely. Get everyone out of the office and work from home, nullifying the need to rent at all. Suddenly, you drastically lower what you spend on an office, giving you extra funds to dedicate to marketing your business.

Find alternative equipment/machinery

Finding cheaper alternatives to any equipment or machinery is another smart way of saving money that can go towards your marketing budget. Regardless of your industry, there are examples of how to do this. Let's take one of the biggest industries out there; oil & gas. As shown here: https://cbeuptime.com/com pressor-central/reciproca ting-compressors/, you can swap out rotary screw compressors for reciprocating ones that are much cheaper yet do the same job. Instantly money gets saved!

As another example, what about a manufacturing company? Instead of buying brand new equipment, get second-hand stuff that still works perfectly but is far cheaper. Also, look into cost-effective machines and ideas - like 3D printing.

The bottom line is that you can free up space for a larger marketing budget if you look at your equipment/machinery and find cheaper alternatives that won't lower the quality of your service.

Be selective in your marketing

Yes, one way to save money is by looking at the current state of your marketing. What are you currently doing, and how successful is it? There's no need to invest in every single form of marketing or advertising that you can think of. Is there any point in you having TV ads if your business is based online?

Instead, be more selective with your approach and you can save a huge amount of money. Analyze your business, look at your target market, then pinpoint the channels that you are likely to find them. Avoid spending money on marketing that won't ever be that successful, giving you more money to invest in the ideas that are proven to work.

You've got three ideas here that will help you maximize your marketing budget. It's all about learning how to save money wherever possible, using the savings to fuel the marketing side of your small business.

One Nine Design is a digital marketing company helping small businesses and nonprofits learn how to use their website and email list to grow their reach and make a bigger impact!

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