Are we talking about social media advertising that is going to cost as little money as possible, or are we talking about lowering your budget’s social media marketing percentage? No matter which you are looking for because this article covers both.
Social Media Advertising That Costs As Little Money As Possible
These methods are suitable if you are running a campaign where there is no direct return on your investment. Such as if you are advertising a charity event, or a new blog, or something where there are more than two steps before you are paid.
Example – Fewer Than Two Steps
Advertise shoes – click shoes advert – see shoes – buy shoes
Example – More Than Two Steps
Advertise shoe sales referral program – visit blog – subscribe to referral program – sign up friends – friends buy shoes
Costs Very Little Money – Method One
Create a social media profile with as many social media platforms as possible, and post high quality content to them once per week. Use your own time or order content from writing companies to do it. Add high quality content to Google+ communities and Facebook groups.
Costs Very Little Money – Method Two
Piggyback on another person’s advertising. Rent space on another person’s landing pages. Let them run their social media campaign and bring people to the landing page. Your promotional section on their website draws people to your website.
Costs Very Little Money – Method Three
Use Google Adwords. It is as cheap as you want it to be because you pick your own click bid costs. In addition, you get your ads on Google Play, Google Shopping, Google Maps, the Maps app, thousands of non-Google websites, Google Video, Google tools, Google Finance, Blogger, Gmail, Blogger and of course,they appear on YouTube.
Lowering Your Budget’s Social Media Marketing Percentage
If your selling process takes two steps or fewer, then you should be looking to lower your budget marketing percentage rather than the actual cost of your advertising. This sort of thing is suitable if you are running an eCommerce website, if you are directly selling a service, or if you are offering online-only subscriptions. The aim of the game is to lower the percentage of your sales budget used for social media marketing.
Example
Sold one toaster for $89
$21 item cost
$8 postage and packing
$3 depreciation
$11 overhead
$29 for an average of social media 174 clicks
$4 for incidental and contingency
$13 profit
As you can see, social media advertising costs an average of $29 per toaster, which means 32.58% of each sale goes towards social media advertising. Lowering that percentage should be your biggest priority, and you can do it with trial and error testing.
Start From The Ground Floor
Sign up for a few social media affiliate advertising services. Start with Google Adwords and the Google Plus adverting program. You only need 1000 followers on your Google+ page to qualify for the Google+ program. The Facebook and Twitter affiliate programs may also suit your campaign.
Starting from the ground floor requires a massive amount of trial and error testing. Here are the elements you need to test:
Keywords – Which attract targeted consumers?
Ad Copy – Which bring in targeted consumers?
Landing Page – What converts people?
Sales Funnel – Are you converting people efficiently?
Bid Price – Your aim is to convert by spending as little as possible
Of all the areas of trial and error testing, the bid price is where you are going to hemorrhage the most money. That is not to say that you cannot mess up the other elements, but the bid price is where most people get it wrong. Here are some helpful tips:
- Ignore the affiliate advertising projections. Just because it says you won’t get any clicks doesn’t mean it is true.
- Add long-tailed keywords as much as you like. Even if they don’t generate ads, you need to add them.
- Never try to appear on the top. Your job is to get the most converted clicks for the least amount of money.
- Leave your ads running around the clock. Limit the time they appear and you force yourself to increase your bid price.
Scaling Up Your Success
When you are trial and error testing your bid price, you need to start as small as possible. Have just a few cents per keyword and couple of dollars for a daily budget. Wait at least 10+ days before changing your bid price because the affiliate systems take time to normalize and start generating clicks. Make sure you increase your bid prices as slowly as possible because your only aim is to squeeze as much as possible out of every cent spent. If your trial and error tests don’t generate cheaper conversions, then you have two choices. You can keep testing until your campaigns become more efficient, or you can try investing your marketing money elsewhere.
