How to find money for your first marketing campaign

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Digital Marketing

Setting up a marketing campaign can be challenging at any time, especially if your budget is tight. But when it is your very first campaign, it can be even more difficult, as you might not have any funds at all to help you get started. Whether you are a start-up with a marketing manager on board, or a sole trader trying to do it all on your own, you will need to find that money somewhere. Here are some great ideas that might help.

Start a crowdfunding campaign

The clever thing about a crowdfunding campaign is that it actually works as marketing itself in the first instance. The more people see your crowdfunding page, the more people will know that your business actually exists, so this could be the start you need to get customers interested. Choose a reasonable target, and be sure to promise great rewards to your supporters, such as exclusive access and discount codes. You can also promise better rewards if you go above the target amount, like sending out free gifts to your supporters – just make sure that they won’t take all of your budget! When your campaign is over, hopefully you will have a marketing budget as well as a number of people waiting to work with your business.

On the other hand, though, it can be hard to get a crowdfunding campaign underway if you don’t already have at least a small audience. If it is only your family and friends who even see the campaign, it might not be too successful, so make sure you already have some social media followers if you want to go this route.

Let others use your space

You probably already have an office space, or at least a room at home that you are using for that purpose, depending on how small your business is. If you have room, that means you have an asset that not everyone has. More to the point, a lot of people might want it. This means you have a bit of leverage that you can use to gain some income!

Using a community sharing site like Spacer, you can rent out your space to other people for a certain length of time. It could be just for the day, or for a longer period of time. They might want to use it as an office themselves, or they might be in need of some short-term storage. Whatever the case may be, there are always people who are looking for more room. It doesn’t even need to be a fellow business – you might lease the space to someone who is moving house and needs to store some boxes for a week, for example!

Use your skills

How about using your skills to grow your marketing budget? As a business owner, you definitely already have some skills that you are ready to use for gaining extra cash. For example, you might be able to moonlight as a freelance writer or graphic designer, or help another business out with building their website. This will give you a source of income to put back into the business. It might not be viable if you are asking employees to do this, but in that case, you could try consulting for other businesses in a more formal arrangement.

There are lots of ways to gather money for your marketing campaigns, even if it takes a while to bring it in. The most important thing to remember is that if the first campaign is successful, it will pay for itself from then on!

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Emma Lewis is a loving mother, a devoted wife and a part of the team supporting Spacer – a company helping you find storage space whenever you need it. Emma is also a staunch supporter of the sharing economy.