17 Cost Effective Marketing Ideas You Should Be Using

Engage with your audience via multiple channels to send the most powerful message.Different channels allow you to engage on different levels while still keeping your message strong.Combine the following ideas into a cohesive strategy and make sure you're conducting truly cost effective franchise marketing:

1.Display Advertising and Pay-Per- Click Advertising (PPC)

Paid advertising campaigns and Display Advertising on other sites allow you to carefully track the investment you've made, and the return you're getting on it.Unlike SEO tactics, they also let you attract new clients quickly, rather than waiting for your excellent keyword usage to organically generate traffic.This makes them a great combination with a lean franchise marketing strategy in general, as well as proper SEO techniques and a properly designed corporate website (see Idea Four below) for long-term audience engagement.

2. Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns regularly display some of the best conversion rates out of any available franchise marketing channels.Buying mailing lists of leads is definitely the way of the past though, making email marketing a natural fit with PPC advertising, local search marketing, and social media marketing (see Ideas One, Six, and Eleven).

3. Online Public Relations

Online public relations and Online Reputation Management (ORM) play a vital role in any marketing campaign for franchises. Any PR problems or marketing missteps by any individual franchise can be prevented from impacting the reputation of your brand as a whole, and any unfavourable reviews forced down.This makes a combination with local search marketing, social media marketing, and often mobile marketing (see Ideas Six, Eleven, and Twelve) very important.

4. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Your Corporate Website

SEO is widely regarded as the most important aspect of modern marketing campaigns. The vast majority of people will now turn to an internet search to locate the goods and services they require before using other methods. You need to harness this traffic on a cost-effective level if your latest franchise marketing campaign is going to succeed.Your corporate website might also offer free content, host your online communities or forums, or feature webinars and podcasts (see Ideas Fourteen, Fifteen, and Sixteen).

5. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing strategies available. Because you agree to a fair exchange with your partner, both you and they will have very low outlay as well as the potential for reaching large swathes of new audience. Affiliate and marketing exchange programs are frequently deployed via email marketing and print media (see Idea Two).

6. Social Media Marketing - Twitter and Facebook Advertising

Social media marketing allows you to carefully track your ROI, as well as providing the potential for engagement with specifically selected audience demographics. This allows you to carefully tailor your message so that it will be well received by your target audience.Mobile marketing (see Idea Twelve) is a vital partner to social media marketing because of the heavy skewing of mobile device use towards social media apps. A carefully chosen social media channel also provides the ideal platform for launching viral content campaigns (see Idea Seven).Much like blogging and blogger outreach (Idea Nine), following, commenting on, and performing actions like re-tweets can help you build up a persistent brand presence in your niche with relatively little outlay. This can be true when interacting with both influencers within your niche, as well as ordinary members of your community.

7. Viral Content Campaigns

Viral content uses emotionally charged language to encourage hyper-accelerated sharing while still offering a potentially highly cost effective franchise marketing channel. Viral content itselftends to feature significantly less branding and focus more on being on-trend, thought- provoking, or occasionally ego-baiting than traditional advertising.Video marketing (see Idea Ten) is often required when successfully executing viral content campaigns, as the visual medium generally gives a campaign more impact.

8. Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

Effective CRO is one of the most powerful cost-saving methods you can employ when trying to achieve efficiency savings in marketing. You've already attracted the potential franchisee and they're interested in your message. Now it's time to increase the likelihood of transforming them from potential lead to paid-up client.Conversion Rate Optimisation will require smart SEO and corporate website design, effective local search marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing, as well as incorporation into virtually every other idea on this list (combine with All Other Ideas).

9. Blogging and Blogger Outreach

Adopting a lean marketing strategy in relation to blogging can be very beneficial in terms of cost effectiveness. Why pay a blogger to create ten articles on a range of subjects instead of one very interesting one? Surveys can be used to determine the content that your audience really wants to read from you.Leaving comments on popular blogs in your market niche is also a proven way to form associations with your brand in the mind of an audience interested in a particular topic.Your blog or blogs may also provide channels to engage with your audience by offering them free content, links to group vouchers and offer sites, or webinars and podcasts (see Ideas Thirteen, Fourteen, and Sixteen).

10. Video Marketing

Provoking user generated content in the form of competitions and other similar activities can be a great way to streamline costs in video marketing. Just look at the interest generated by Doritos’ ‘’Crash the Superbowl" contest.Professional video marketing combines well with social media marketing and viral content campaigns (see Ideas Six and Seven).

11. Local Search Marketing

Any properly executed franchise marketing campaign will always include local search marketing as well as overall marketing for the parent company or brand.Appeal to a specific local market with a tailored message, especially in areas you want to expand into.Local search marketing should always be paired with your brand-level SEO and corporate website (see Idea Four), and can additionally feature mobile-centric campaigns localised to the area in question (Idea Twelve).

12. Mobile Marketing

There are no two ways about it:If you're not engaging in mobile marketing, you are losing out to competing franchisors which are.Marketing on mobile devices requires you to engage with your audience via the most common ways these devices are used - apps. The most popular apps are, perhaps inevitably, those belonging to the biggest social media names, Facebook and Twitter. This makes a combination with social media marketing practices a must (see Idea Six).

13. Groupon/Offer Sites

Giving your customers money off is a sure-fire way to drum up more business. Despite the market positioning usually targeted by offer sites, the impression of exclusivity remains one of the best ways to sell offers and promote customer loyalty.Advertise offers via email marketing (Idea Two), SEO and your corporate website (Idea Four), social media marketing (Idea Six), or mobile marketing (Idea Twelve).

14. Free Content (eBooks, white papers, tools)

Similar to webinars and podcasts, this is useful, helpful, meaningful content which you've produced for your audience. The key here is that relevance and utility - this deepens the customer relationship, and provides an additional channel through which you can interact. Keeping free content cost effective is vital, so always consider the outlay involved in creating it.You should actively promote your free content via SEO and your corporate website (see Idea Four) as well as any other logical channels.

15. Online Community Building and Forums

Online community building is a very cost-effective way of building a significant presence in your chosen market niche. By commenting, sharing, and re-tweeting the posts of influencers and leading names, as well as community members and your fans, you're building a deeper level of engagement.This makes online community building a natural fit with social media marketing, and blogging and blogger outreach (Ideas Six and Nine).

16. Webinars and Podcasts

Webinars and podcasts are another form of free content which can garner significant interest in your brand. They do however need to be properly planned and promoted. A rough rule of thumb with content such as this is that you should spend double the length of time promoting it as you do creating it.This type of content is usually promoted via email marketing, social media, and your corporate website (link with Ideas Two, Four, and Six) for maximum efficiency.

17. Crowdfunding Campaigns

Using your existing network of contacts is a great way to start a crowdfunding campaign. It lets you get started raising funds without the usual outlay involved in acquiring the large numbers of email addresses required to get a successful campaign off of the ground.Crowdfunding campaigns integrate well with a wide variety of other franchise marketing channels, including paid campaigns, email marketing, and most particularly social media (combine with Ideas One, Two, and Six).