Small businesses that are in an expansion phase will often need to turn to banks or finance companies for business loans to facilitate their expansion plans. Especially if they don’t have sufficient working capital to cover the additional outlays.
Digital marketing typically requires an upfront investment in tools that can help you mass communicate to customers and drive traffic, leads, and sales. For example, email marketing software services allow you to establish direct contact with your customers through a stream of scheduled, personalized messaging. You can then track your customers’ engagement with data analytics tools.
However, these services usually require a large monthly fee that increases as contacts are added. A business marketing loan can help you manage these costs as your company grows.
This is a common financial strategy for opening new buildings, expanding existing ones or increasing inventory. But would it be wise to borrow money for more intangible aspects of expansion plans, such as marketing?
Banks and more traditional lenders are generally not very interested in lending money for marketing purposes. That's because the money isn't being spent on something tangible that you think can be converted into cash.
However, more innovative fintech lenders, which provide a significant portion of US small business funding, are willing to provide loans for marketing campaigns if the business can demonstrate past success with a measurable return on investment.
This usually means that the business has been around for at least one or two years. It will be difficult for new ventures to demonstrate performance through marketing campaigns.
It's also helpful to have an experienced marketing manager or consultant who can prepare realistic cash flow and sales forecasts for your campaigns.
Monitoring and measuring results is also important to a long-term marketing strategy.
However, short-term campaigns are vital to ensure that the cash being invested in the campaign is being turned over in a short enough time to meet the repayment obligations of the loan.
Therefore unless the campaign is one that can be specifically monitored for progress and measured for results, it may be wise not to use borrowed money.
Applying for a loan to finance a marketing campaign can be easily done online. Many of the FinTech financiers will make a decision on the application within 1-2 days and can transfer money to the business’ bank account within 24 hours of signing off on a loan.
Asset backing and credit scores are not so important for these types of loans as having the sales turnover and ability to demonstrate how increased sales will result from the application of the loan.
Therefore when applying for a business loan to support marketing activities, a professionally prepared marketing plan with cash flow forecasts will help to ensure the success of the application.
A marketing business loan is designed to pay for some or all of your marketing strategies. The strategies you use will depend on your unique business, target audience, and goals.
Several examples you should consider include:
While direct mail may still make sense for your industry, email marketing is likely a more affordable and effective alternative.
An eye-catching subject line and engaging content in your emails can help promote new products, sales, events, and more.
Social Network Marketing. Almost every customer today has at least one social media profile. Because of this, you should promote your business on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
The essence of content marketing is creating and distributing valuable content to current and potential customers. White papers, ebooks, videos, webinars, blog posts, and infographics are all examples of content marketing.
Event Marketing: Event marketing allows you to showcase your brand at trade shows, conferences, festivals, and other events that your target audience may attend. The virtual and in-person events are definitely worth seeing.
SEO is essential if you have a website. This will attract the right visitors and make your brand appear in search results. With a solid SEO strategy, your website can help generate leads and increase sales.
Google processes over 40,000 searches every second, so if you're not using Google AdWords for marketing, you're missing out. Google AdWords allows you to target specific types of consumers who may be interested in your products and services. Best of all, you can easily measure performance and ROI.
In mobile advertising, ads are served on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Since many consumers shop on mobile devices, mobile display advertising, mobile search advertising, and mobile video can do wonders for growing your business.
Television and radio advertising are the two most common types of broadcast advertising. You may want to invest in local television and radio stations as they are far more affordable and can be very relevant to your local business.
Also known as outdoor advertising, out-of-home advertising is any advertising that targets customers when they’re outside of their homes. It may include billboards, transit ads, and digital signage.
With affiliate marketing campaigns, you pay a business or individual commission every time they promote your products and services and drive leads.
Once you get a lead, it's your job to sell and close the customer.
Marketing is important but expensive in any industry. A marketing business loan can help you achieve your marketing goals. You can build your brand, attract new customers and most importantly increase your income. But make sure you choose the right small business loan and pay it off on time.
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