If there’s one budget that gets cut when finances are tight, it’s marketing. The vehicle by which we drive interest towards our businesses, establish a tone of voice and pitch ourselves as experts often gets a rather raw deal.

Thankfully, we now live in an age where anyone can become a digital marketing star. And the best news? You needn’t spend a penny – the only thing it requires is your time and, of course, the tips contained within this post.

Here’s how to avoid spending a fortune on digital marketing by keeping the effort entirely in-house.

1. Be ultra careful with video

Ok, so you’ve got a device in your pocket (your smartphone, in case you were wondering), that is capable of shooting video in full, glorious HD. You’ve even found a free app that will let you edit the footage. So, what have you got to lose?

Everything, actually. For as accessible as video marketing is, there are some killer mistakes the uninitiated can all too easily fall foul of.

Take your time with video marketing. You can absolutely do it yourself, but it requires careful planning and that all important idiot check before being released for the world to see.

2. Write with purpose

Have you previously set up a company blog simply because you felt you had to? If so, you’ve fallen at the first content marketing hurdle; a blog without a solid strategy may as well not exist at all.

Think about the audience you want to reach out to. What type of potential buyer are you keen to have visit your website? Build a profile of these people and start thinking about the type of advice they’ll be after. What will they type into Google?

List as many questions you can think of for which they’ll require answers and start writing with purpose; create blog posts that answer those questions and impart the knowledge you have buried within.

3. Don’t ‘get social’ – get real

Social media should for a significant part of any digital marketing campaign. However, just like blogging, it shouldn’t be done purely for the sake of it – you need a reason to get social.

Primarily, social media marketing is about showing a more human side of the business. You can interact with customers in a more light-hearted, informal manner, and it should be a platform on which you develop a personality for the business and make it feel like a real, living, breathing entity.

4. Collaborate

The world of work is often a rather exclusive place where departments scrap like schoolboys and gender equality continues to suffer, but in the digital marketing space, everyone is fair game. We can all get involved without fear of embarrassing ourselves or being left out in the cold.

You don’t have to do this on your own; draft in the help of others within the business. Run ideas past them and ask if they have any of their own. Digital marketing should be a collective effort, and if you achieve buy-in from the rest of the business, it stands a far greater chance of success.

5. Give email the attention it deserves

Email? Yuck! What a waste of space in the modern world!

Actually, email is incredibly valuable and remains one of the most effective marketing channels. Think about it: the messages you send via this medium have a defined end-point – the subscriber’s inbox. Get the message right, and you’ve booked a first class ticket to their attention.

Services like Mailchimp are very approachable for novices, and there are plenty of helpful blog posts to get you started.

6. Pay attention to analytics

When you tweet, blog or send an email campaign, should you simply wave it goodbye and move onto the next? Of course not – you need to see what happens after you press ‘send’. You need to think like an SEO agency.

If the digital marketing tools you use feature analytics or reporting sections (they nearly always do) – use them. Are your emails being opened (if not, perhaps the subject line needs tweaking)? What time of the day do most people engage with your tweets? Are people clicking the call-to-action on your ebook landing page?

Analytics in digital marketing are powerful and designed to help us all become better marketers.

Final thoughts

I challenge anyone to read through the list above and come to the conclusion that they can’t try their hand at these basic facets of digital marketing. We all can, and the best thing about promotion that doesn’t involve expensive trade show stands is that you can experiment and fail without fear of suffering financially.

Article Written by Mark Ellis of Business 2 Community