Scrappy Marketing on a Don’t @ Me Budget

We define ‘scrappy’ as clever. Inspired. Willing to push ahead when the odds seem against you.

‘Don’t @ me’ means your budget is puny … but it won’t do you any good to complain about it.

If your budget feels too small to make an outsized impact, you just need to get scrappy. Think like a fighter. Blast an ‘80s rock anthem! Get ready to rise up to the challenge of our riv…

As you can see, we’re a tad passionate about this topic.

And we want you to feel the same way, so we gathered some inspiration. Some of these are low-budget marketing ideas. Some are free (although, honestly, we don’t think scrappy necessarily has to mean cheap).

Here are some of our favorite ways to put “scrappy marketing” to work – for small businesses or big ones.

See ideas everywhere

That’s the gist of being a scrappy marketer — doing what others don’t. Thinking the way others haven’t. And seeing opportunities in places where your competitors aren’t.

Three easy ways to do that right now:

1. Find an industry award and apply for it, especially if winning gets you a badge or icon you can use on social media and in your email signature.
2. Reach out to the groups you’re a member of — industry organizations or the chamber of commerce, for example — and ask if your membership includes a spotlight in their marketing or social media.
3. Sign up for HARO (Help A Reporter Out) to get a daily list of stories reporters are working on, then choose one that could include you (or your boss) as an expert source.

Do what others don’t

We know, we said that already. But this idea is about more than finding those free-ish publicity opportunities we mentioned above.

It also means positioning your product in a way others haven’t.

One of the easiest ways to do that is to pay attention to what’s trending. How does your product fit into that?

One of our B2B clients sells what you might consider a commodity (read: boring) product. But they recently decided to go all-in on selling the very real — but sometimes overlooked — health benefits of said product.

Switching to a “sell the end result, not the process” philosophy meant giving their website and marketing materials a softer feel with a more emotional story.

And telling stories with real emotion is always a good idea. Because whatever you’re selling, you’re selling to *people*.

Just do something

Committees are great. Decision-by-committee is not.

And waiting to get buy-in and a thumbs up from virtually everybody on your team, your neighbor, your spouse and your mom is the opposite of “scrappy.”

If you have a great idea that’s not quite polished, go for it (before your competition does). Go rogue. Ask for forgiveness. But just do it.

Put something in front of your clients, even if it isn’t perfect.

If it will make you feel better, call it a “pilot project” and dedicate just a small amount of money to it. And once it’s out there, do everything you can to solicit honest feedback. Determine whether it was spectacular (or a spectacular fail) and move on.

Use what you’ve got

Reusing and recycling aren’t just for the trash.

Chances are you’ve already banked a lot of useful information that can reach a new audience (or your target audience in a different way).

You just have to repurpose it creatively.

Remember your company’s case studies that took forever just to get permission to share? Did anybody read them?

Well, maybe *you* should — with an eye out for the juicy parts.

Skim the copy for an inspiring quote or impressive statistic and pull one from each to use in your advertising.

Or, turn the good stuff from your website into a video you can share on social or via email. However you do it, get rid of the notion that you need all-new content all the time. Repurposing is not only trending, it’s smart.

Ask the engineers

Those people know everything.

Set up a meeting (so you have their full attention), then pepper them with questions. Your endgame — other than what is sure to be a fascinating conversation — is to emerge with a list of FAQs about your company’s products.

From there, give your findings to a copywriter and let them create a series of LinkedIn posts around the answers.

You can also enlist your engineers or other coworkers as your company’s personal staff of influencers and let them write their own content. Feature them as the author with a byline — it’s a great way to tout the awesome people who work at your business.

Give something away for free

In this case, we mean information, not product.

Host a webinar, for example. And, of course, record it so it can later be shared on-demand.

Or, share industry-association content via your social media pages or a quick email to a client.

And there you have it: a lot of out-of-the-box ideas for marketing for not a lot of budget! And in the interest of walking the walk, we put together a list of tips for how to keep costs low and creative quality high.