How Brands Can Stretch Their Shrinking Marketing Dollars Further

Let’s face it: There’s never been a time when a company didn’t want to stretch its marketing dollars as far as possible, but today’s companies are being forced to create more content than ever while facing the complexity of producing it across channels and in multiple formats.

Let’s dig into how brands are doing more than ever with their marketing dollars.

Video Is The New Location

Considering how online activity has become such a large part of our day-to-day lives, videos are being watched by a lot of consumer eyeballs.¹ According to Animoto,² more than 90% of marketers say video produces a satisfying ROI on social media! More specifically, Buffer says that videos on Facebook lead to 59% more engagement than other post types.³ On Twitter, the platform has seen video views grow 220x in just a year’s time.⁴

Even if you’re explicitly looking at marketing numbers, the fact that over 66% of people⁵ said they would prefer a short video over reading to learn about a product or service tells you that consumers love video—and it’s well worth the investment for your brand.

This doesn’t mean you have to create a massive library of videos for your brand at the onset. Start small. Focus on the next quarter and identify a moment in time a video could make a big impact. Work back from this specific date by a few weeks to allow for any production, editing and other creative input.

Social Media Multiplies Spare Dollars (and Time)

Social media advertising continues to provide major bang for the buck, and it’s not just from a cost perspective. Take into account the organic traffic you can drive by growing your social media following and interacting with your audience on the platforms they already know and love.

The concept of “meeting halfway” has routinely proved successful for some of the largest brands, including Disney, Amazon, and HBO.⁶ Leveraging hashtags, comments and share on social media are a great introductory (and FREE) way to engage with others online. This helps to create a strong following for a brand, especially one in its infancy.

Take a Leap on New Platforms

Aside from the most well-known social media platforms, it’s essential that brands also keep their eyes out for emerging platforms. Look for new opportunities to reach your audience in places where your competitors aren’t. These opportunities won’t just help you stand out, but help cut advertising costs substantially as they aren’t as established.

TikTok is one of the newer platforms that come to mind, but some classics–like Reddit and Spotify–are also worth analyzing to figure out if you can find a more effective or cost-efficient audience. The key is to consider communities and apps that you wouldn’t typically think of, like NextDoor. Branching outside the norm is where brands tend to build the biggest interest and following.

Let Influencers Take Center Stage

Influencers aren’t going anywhere. And since video remains a highly effective content marketing format, merging these two methods into a brand collaboration video could be a real power move. Influencers can bring authority to your brand, and product or service placement on these channels can introduce your brand to a whole new audience.

You don’t have to shell out a monthly retainer to an influencer marketing agency to find some success in this area. Influencers are entrepreneurs. They want to find a way to work with brands they like. Dive into a social media channel, identify 10 influencers that fit your brand, and message them to describe the project. You’ll have a better sense of service fees once you gather some intel from the space.

While we all dream of big marketing budgets, the reality is we’re often tasked with holding the reigns a bit. It’s important to know how and when to get scrappy and where to put the majority of the investment.

Want more advice on making your ad budget go Further, Faster?

Explore what Gravity Labs has to offer.