With a limited budget, how can we achieve the same promotional effect as 200 yuan with 100 yuan?

You spent 100 yuan on promotion, but in the end you didn’t achieve the same marketing effect as more than 100 yuan - this is a problem many people will encounter. In other words, the marketing and promotion expenses are not fully utilized or are simply spent indiscriminately, resulting in limited funds being wasted.

Especially for enterprises that do not have a lot of funds, the input-output ratio is more important - the money is so limited, and if it is wasted, it is almost equivalent to bankruptcy.

The author found that, especially for some business leaders, many of their placement and promotion strategies imitate common practices - finding big stars, advertising on big platforms, etc. But after the money was gone, the brand still had no progress and few products were sold.

Some people may say, didn’t vivo and OPPO mobile phones hire a large number of celebrities to promote their brands and achieve high sales? Didn’t Melatonin achieve its current popularity by investing heavily in major platforms such as CCTV?

This is one of the main reasons why most promotional expenses are wasted - blindly imitating the practices of so-called successful brands without considering one's own product conditions and financial conditions. Whether it is VIVO, OPPO or Melatonin, these brands have made promotion strategies based on their actual conditions such as certain financial conditions and their own brand strategies.

If we don’t have a lot of money, how can we do marketing promotion efficiently?

In fact, for products that lack a lot of money and brand awareness, there are many ways to increase the effectiveness of marketing and promotion expenses. In this article, Mr. Monster gives you proven effective suggestions or ideas from four perspectives. These suggestions and ideas may seem simple, but they are especially suitable for promoting new products or increasing product sales.

Many brands invite celebrities to endorse their products, which may help to enhance the brand image, but it is difficult to guarantee that it will directly increase sales in the short term.

If you cannot afford celebrities or authoritative experts, a better approach is to find seed users who have a key influence on target users (cheaper than inviting big stars), such as creative materials for education and training or real photos of children or parents on promotional landing pages ; e-commerce can put scenes of users using products or presentation effects, etc.

The characteristics of these key users are that they can discover value and drive dissemination.

Here are three examples:

For example, the first batch of core users of Xiaomi mobile phones at that time were carefully selected experts in flashing the phone or experts who specialize in mobile phone reviews, such as Wang Ziru.

There is a restaurant that makes delicious desserts. First, they invite a group of recognized foodies to try the food for free, and then let them post it on their Moments . The things recommended by these professional foodies have better marketing effects than those recommended by ordinary people (they may even save you some of your promotion fees).

To promote tourism products, find experienced travel leaders in the travel circle and invite them to give their experiences and comments.

How to find these key users? You can find it by asking friends for recommendations, or on the Internet or in certain communities . I believe you have more ways to find it than I do.

Many people place advertisements or conduct marketing activities in the right way, but choose the wrong channels, resulting in a waste of marketing and promotion costs.

For example, if you are selling furniture products, and you find that many products have good traffic and promotion on Douyin , you also use the same method on Douyin, but the results are very different. What is the reason? (Assuming the number of fans and other prerequisites are similar)

The most likely reason is that your product category is not suitable for the TikTok platform. The TikTok platform is more inclined towards fast-moving consumer goods and entertainment products. Of course, being able to combine furniture with the style of the Douyin platform is also a skill. However, with the same marketing expenses and energy, perhaps channels such as Baidu, Tencent, and Toutiao News would be more effective.

Because the scenarios and channels are different, the corresponding user groups and categories are also different. Before launching a campaign in a channel, first evaluate the characteristics of the channel or test the effects before launching it on a large scale. This will make better use of limited promotion funds.

What are the channels? Common online channels include WeChat Moments , WeChat public accounts , Taobao Express, Baidu promotion , Tik Tok, Weibo, forums, Toutiao information flow , online videos, etc. Offline advertisements include elevator advertisements, roadside billboards, bus stop signs, subways, etc. Other traditional media include television, newspapers, etc. (middle-aged and elderly people often watch TV at home). Then analyze the characteristics of different channels and screen them according to your own products and financial situation.

For the same channel, the traffic will vary greatly at different time points. The direct manifestation of this difference is the difference in marketing promotion effects such as conversion rate .

For example, on the same snack street, the flow of people at noon and at night is obviously different.

Choose the right time for marketing promotion based on the behavioral habits of your target users.

For example, if you are selling maternal and infant products and choose a WeChat public account for promotion, then when pushing the copywriting and soft articles , try to choose the free time of the mothers, such as after 9 o'clock in the evening (many mothers may have time to read an article carefully only after the children fall asleep).

Of course, some channels do not have fixed time options, or even the advertising fees are different in different time periods. However, try to choose a time point that can maximize the effectiveness of your marketing promotion while keeping time under control. For example, if it’s summer and you’re selling iced drinks on the street, you might be more likely to get people to place orders at noon than in the morning.

Comprehensive mediatization means turning your product packaging, product copywriting, shelves, etc. into a media. What's the meaning? For example, if you are a tea beverage brand, you must make sure that your teacup design, store decoration, teacup copy (printed on the cup body), and even paper towels all have your brand logo or other promotional information about your brand. I see that many hotels have their logos printed on their paper towels, daily necessities, etc.

This approach will not increase your costs much, but it will be very helpful in increasing the exposure of your products or brands and improving repurchase rates. Because among the factors that influence users' purchasing decisions, one of the most important is familiarity - many people often choose brands that they have heard of, seen, and are familiar with when buying a product.

If you fully mediate everything related to your product, it will increase users' familiarity with your product. Then, when the user chooses a product, your product will be easier for him to identify - the sense of familiarity will increase the chances of the user choosing your product and increase the effectiveness of your marketing promotion.

"Should I buy Head & Shoulders or Kangaroo?"

"Forget it, let's go with Head & Shoulders. I haven't heard of Kangaroo.

Comprehensive media coverage is also helpful for traffic generation - for example, if you hold a cup with a beverage logo printed on it and drink it in front of your friends, this is also a secondary promotion for your product.

In addition, if your product has unique selling points or special packaging design, it will greatly trigger their attention and active dissemination.

For example, when buying clothes online, they are usually packaged in bags (a small number are packed in boxes). But if you pack it in a triangular box similar to pizza, and write an interesting and thoughtful copy on the box - it breaks the user's inherent cognition, it will feel novel and interesting, prompting users to share it with friends or post it on WeChat Moments (of course, your logo must be printed on the box).

(Pictures from the Internet, for reference only)

Therefore, comprehensive media with unique and obvious differentiation can increase consumers' active forwarding and exposure, which will naturally lead to better sales.

Finally, let’s summarize

If you feel that your marketing and promotion funds do not support you to spend like OPPO and Vivo, you can think about how to use your limited funds effectively from four angles: finding key influential users, key channel scenarios, promotion time and comprehensive media, rather than blindly investing.