7 Most Cost-Effective Digital Marketing Strategies to Get You Started.

What is Social Media?

Social media applications are web-based software that allows virtual network building and sharing of ideas and information.

Social Media Marketing is the use of social media platforms to create and share content to promote your business.

This content can be in the form of images, texts, videos, or a combination of these and may include links to your website. The objective is to attract, retain and drive your audience to engage with your brand.

Some of the popular social media platforms are:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Pinterest
• Reddit

Social media marketing allows businesses to reach a wider targeted audience. It also lets you track competitors & analyze statistics through in-built tools.

Learn more about social media marketing through our blog on

Brand Building Through Social Media 

2. Content Marketing

Content Marketing is an approach that requires the creation and distribution of informative, relevant & consistent content online.

This makes content marketing a very effective and commonly used method in digital marketing.

Bringing us to the question “Is content marketing the same as social media marketing?” the answer is “Not quite”.

While social media marketing relies solely on social media platforms to reach its audience, the center of content marketing is a blog or website that may use social media platforms to distribute its content.

These pieces of content do not necessarily have to directly promote your brand.

The key is to provide information relevant to the industry to inform, attract, stimulate & retain potential customers and existing customers towards purchasing the products or services that you offer.

The content that you create will depend on many factors.

The nature of your business, customer personas, and the buyer’s journey are among important factors that need consideration when creating content.

The content that you decide to create can take any of the below forms;

• Educational Blogs
• Entertainment Videos
• Tutorials
• Ebooks
• Podcasts
• Webinars
• Other visual content

3. Search Engine Optimization

Search Engines have increasingly become part of most of our daily lives.

We have increasingly become dependent on search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo (among others) for many reasons, such as, to search for products & services, shop online, look up recipes, health tips & medications, exercise routines & diet plans or to stay informed with current affairs, and do many more activities.

Search Engine Marketing may take two forms.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Pay Per Click (PPC)

Enhancing the visibility of your web page to appear higher on search engines is Search Engine Optimization.

Search engines are software systems that carry out searches of our choice using advanced algorithms.

They carry out searches systematically throughout the world wide web to provide the most accurate and informative search results.

Search engines typically perform three tasks

1. Crawling – this is when search bots scan pages on the web to understand the content provided in each URL.
2. Indexing – Pages are then organized & stored in a database, ready to be dispatched/displayed in response to searches.
3. Ranking – When a user types in the search, the search engine retrieves pages from the database and lists them according to relevance (starting from most relevant).

The rankings are done based on many factors and tend to update and change with time.

To get a better idea of SEO and how best you can improve your  strategies take a look at our guide on

SEO – Key Factors for Improved Ranking

Pay Per Click (PPC) is traffic generation through paid advertising, where businesses make payments to rank higher and appear on top of SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

Businesses that use PPC in their marketing strategy conduct research on keywords and phrases in the relevant field to identify words and phrases that best connect to or represent the business, to help appear on the top of SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).

PPC Ads are the advertisements that appear on top of organic search results.

PPC advertisements will help you rank higher on SERPs even with low domain authority. The fee, however, is charged based on the number of people clicking on your advertisement.

However, it is vital to note that there is no standard price for PPC, and the price per click is determined by several factors such as your product/service, key phrases, nature of business, and more.

Statistics show that for every $1 invested on PPC, businesses have a $2 return on investment, making the price you pay worth every cent (with the right content displayed).

Hubspot now offers a free Ultimate Google Ads PPC Kit that includes a guide, template, and checklist for ease of use.

5. Affiliate & Influencer Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is an advertising method where businesses pay a third party (content creators, bloggers, sites that offer deals & coupons) who has a presence on the internet to promote and generate leads for the business.

This is done on a commission basis.

Since setting up an affiliate program requires minimum resources and payments are made based on sales, the ROI is guaranteed. Thus, is another most cost-effective digital marketing method that businesses can benefit from.

Many businesses now offer affiliate marketing programs to increase traffic & sales generation by paying appropriate incentives to third parties.

Influencer marketing is when a brand partners with an online influencer to promote its products or services or build brand recognition usually, for a larger flat payment. These payments may also take the form of free products or high discounts on more expensive products.

An influencer is a person who is known to be well versed in a specific field with a loyal audience, whose opinions also influence people in their buyer’s journey.

Trust is a vital factor that influences a purchase. Influencers already have a loyal audience that places their trust in them. Thus, an influencer’s opinion or recommendation on a brand places a great deal of weight on the buyer’s perspective.

Data (as of the first quarter in 2021) show that 92.6% of internet users access the internet through mobile devices. Users are also estimated to spend an average of 3 hours 36 minutes daily on mobile devices, proving mobile marketing a very effective method in digital marketing.

What is Mobile Marketing?

Mobile marketing is a method of marketing where businesses market themselves to their customers through devices such as smartphones and tablets. These appear as advertisements and may take the form of

• Text messages
• Multimedia messages
• Downloadable apps (using push notifications)
• In-app marketing
• In-game marketing
• Mobile websites
• Using mobiles to scan QR codes

Customers or potential customers receive information and suggestions on products depending on factors, such as time and location, making these suggestions more personalized.

Google offers some helpful extensions to Optimize Your Ads for Mobile

7. E-mail Marketing

Data on Constant Contact show that email marketing has a Return On Investment (ROI) of $42 for every $1 spent which, is higher than all other forms of digital marketing. But this figure is only achievable when done properly.

So, What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a series of promotional content sent to customers or potential customers via email. The emails are sent to a large number of recipients at once and aim at achieving specific goals.

The goal set to achieve may vary on each business or each campaign.

• Traffic generation for your website
• Assist customers through the awareness stage
• Nurturing leads to a purchase
• Generate revenue

However, by using tools for segmentation, businesses can now send different promotional material to different segments of recipients. By segmenting emails, recipients are more inclined to click on any links that may direct them to your website.

With global internet users increasing and rapid advancements in the digital space, businesses need to constantly explore and be ahead of the most cost-effective marketing strategies that best suit their business.

(Sources STATISTA, CONSTANT CONTACT Images PIXABAY)