Marketing on a shoestring budget is not uncommon, especially in this bumpy economy. In this article, we will look at some of the things that you need to include when budgeting for your online business.

Although it sound tedious to have to list all of these items, it is extremely important for you to do it especially if you’re trying to set up your online business with a limited budget. Taking your time to plan your budget will become a necessity if you want to be successful in your online business, or any business for that matter.

Controlling your budget is important no matter how big or small your financial funding is.

What does it mean by ‘limited’ budget?

To put in context, ‘limited budget’ does not mean ‘zero funding’. After all, you’ll need to have at least some money to keep you afloat. What I’m trying to illustrate is the things that you need to pay attention to if you are on small budget for your business.

Marketing on budget - watch out how you spend your money

You need to understand that it is impossible to start and run your online business for free.

Do not believe anybody who tells you otherwise because ‘free’ is not always ‘free’. There is always implication to it in the long run and you are trading your times with it. If you are trying to scale your business, ‘free’ is no longer an option because it will ultimately affect how you spend your time, which will become more valuable as your online business grows. If the very reason you’re doing your online business is freedom to do whatever you want, then the ‘free option’ will defeat your purpose quickly.

How much money do your need in your budget to start your online business?

It will depend on how big your business is and what you want to achieve with it. Let’s take an example of newbies starting an internet marketing business. I’d say $100 – $200 dollar is reasonable for your marketing and advertising need. Some might not agree with me but starting with these amounts is good enough for a start.

What does these costs covers?

The examples below are not carved on hard stone but it should give you some rough ideas on what type of stuffs you need for your online business.

Administrative Costs:

a) Internet Connection

Well, you cannot have internet business without internet connection, right

b) Hosting Service for your website

Though you can choose free option such as blogspot.com, weebly.com etc, I suggest that you put your money site on a paid host so that you have control over it. You don’t want to wake up seeing your blog or website deleted by these free webhost provider

c) Phone Bill and Electricity

They are important too right, so include them in your budget ?

d) Domain Name

You’ll need domain name for your online business, so set aside some funds for it too.

e) Post and Courier (If applicable)

If you’re running online store that require you to ship stuffs to your customer, then do include these in your budget as well

Marketing on a shoestring budget

Marketing Costs:

This will depend on your marketing strategy so each person will have different needs in this area.

a. Software Programs/Tools

You will need to invest in some software or tools to help fast track your business, but if you’re on tight marketing budget you can always use the free option.

For example, for keyword research tool, you can use the Google ™ keyword tool. If you have the budget, you can invest in Market Samurai that has more features to help you in this area

b. Traffic Generation Services

Let say if you want to use article marketing for your traffic generation, you can choose to create the articles yourself and manually submit them to the article directories. If you’re short on time and have the budget, these tasks can be outsourced for a fee and thus freeing your time to do other important tasks.

c. Offline Advertising

If you intend to do your advertising by placing advertisement in newspaper or via pamphlets/booklets marketing, then you should put aside some budget too

d. Autoresponder Service

To me, autoresponder service is a necessity for online business. You can get away with manually sending email to your client for updates and delivery at first but imagine if you have to do this for many people every day. It’ll be a huge chunk of time wasted on this tedious task. Don’t throw away your precious time and invest in autoresponder ?

Those are just some of the items that you need for your online business. Take note that you still haven’t included the inventory of products you have to buy and also your recurring subscription! So, be cautious in using your funds, especially if you’re marketing on a shoestring budget.

The wise option to maximize your budget:

Do not start your online marketing business by choosing paid options if you’re really tight on budget. If you’ve time at your disposal and your financial fund is very tight then by all mean go to the free option. When you have some money flowing in, consider investing it back into your business. At least, you should put priority to get your own domain name and web hosting account before investing in other tools.

Once things are looking better, then you can look into the option of using paid software and tools to help you automate your business. You’ll save lots of time using them so save your money for these tools. Hang in there and use your budget wisely. You can still run your business even if you’re marketing on budget ?

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