Creative Ways to Fund Your Marketing Campaign

Small business owners may find themselves scrambling for funds. Whether you’re searching for seed money or trying to take your business to the next level, you need to find cash to achieve your goals. Marketing is an area that small business owners cannot neglect, even if they have bigger issues to tackle. Try the following six creative and effective funding techniques for your small business marketing campaigns.

Experiment with Crowdfunding

With crowdfunding, business owners can create campaigns where they present a business plan and set monetary goals. For example, a company may set a goal of $50,000 and a deadline for two months. Anyone can contribute to a crowdfunding campaign through mediating websites such as GoFundMe or Kickstarter. In return, the contributors to the campaign become the funders and earn some reward, such as equity in the company, a product, or cash back.

Crowdfunding is popular partly because it lends itself well to social media. Many crowdfunding campaigns “go viral” on platforms such as Facebook or Instagram because engaging multimedia content accompanies them. These platforms allow small businesses to make a more informal and impassioned plea for funding.

As a business owner, you can appeal to the emotions and values of possible funders by telling your brand story and explaining your vision. Whether you’re selling an innovative product or a valuable service, crowdfunding allows you to make a more expressive pitch to a wider audience. Crowdfunding is far removed from walking into a bank with a shirt and tie, a business plan, and proposal in search of a loan. A smartly directed and deliberate crowdfunding campaign allows you to put a human face on your company and create a brand identity, even if you have yet to officially launch the company.

Crowdfunding is a useful technique for many businesses, but it’s not for everyone. While crowdfunding may be ideal if you’ve invented an innovative new water filter that could save lives, crowdfunding may not be as effective if you’re trying to get funding so that you can buy more air time to run television commercials for your used car lot.

Seek Out the U.S. Small Business Administration

Using the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is a big leap from trying a crowdfunding campaign. Nonetheless, this source could be ideal for getting your marketing campaign and new company off the ground. The SBA offers traditional bank-style loans with government funding for the loans.

SBA loans are certainly a more traditional way to fund a business with attractive rates and insurance valuable to any business owner. The main drawback, however, is that you need to meet more specific criteria to receive loan approval. For example, qualifying nonprofits can find great programs for grant funding.

Consider Online Lending Sources

Online lending is one of the best routes for small business owners. In fact, small business owners are the mainstay of online lenders. The application process can be stringent, but you can apply to multiple lenders to secure the best deal for your marketing campaign. Businesses can create multimedia pitches that they send to the lenders as part of their bids. As with crowdfunding, online lending is a great way to humanize your company within your business plan.

Factor Your Accounts Receivables

Factoring is becoming more and more popular to gain immediate capital for accounts receivable through an online lender. First, factoring is an effective way to gain capital quickly. If you have unpaid invoices with money coming your way, you can basically “factor” the invoice total at a percentage of what the amount due is worth. Of course, the total money you end up receiving will get reduced by a small percentage, such as 2 percent over one month, but you will have that money immediately. This access to immediate capital makes factoring ideal for funding your marketing campaigns.

Once you have the money in your hands, you can launch your campaign to bolster the release or distribution of your product. You will have a strong marketing effort backing up the product release, giving your brand an equally strong identity and creating a lasting impression on new customers.

Nothing is worse than having your product ready but not having a marketing campaign to promote it. Likewise, you don’t want to spend all your money on marketing if you won’t have any cash left over for production.

Take Advantage of Low Credit Card Introductory Rates

Using credit cards with 0 percent introductory APR rates is a viable option for some companies. If you’re confident your business will turn a profit within the introductory time, a 0 percent APR credit card may be ideal. Find a card with 0 percent APR for at least nine months.

This approach obviously has some great risks. If your business doesn’t get off the ground, you’re stuck with the debt and the APR. You must be supremely confident that you’ll start to see a return on your investment within a year for this technique to work. However, since a marketing campaign is usually one of your first priorities, using a credit card could be the best solution for getting money before you start to see any return on your investment.

Contact Family and Friends

Many people don’t want to mix friends and family with their business. While involving your loved ones in your business plans could be questionable, you shouldn’t rule them out completely. If you believe in your brand, you have something to offer potential lenders, even if they are family members. Remember, you can write binding contracts that establish rates, time frames, and similar details that you would associate with a bank loan. Don’t simply ask for cash; make your ask official. Show lenders that you are serious and explain how a well-funded marketing campaign could pay dividends for both parties.

If you’re able to convince your friends and family that your small business could create a mutually beneficial situation, you can enjoy a sense of collaboration. You may have an uncle with some extra cash that he was thinking of investing elsewhere. Get him to keep it in the family, and you’ll both benefit.

When securing money for your small business, the right approach depends on several factors. Sometimes, small business owners overlook their marketing strategies. Marketing is your visibility to the world, both online and offline. If you need some extra funding to develop marketing campaigns, consider these six ways to receive those funds. Of course, weigh all your options and choose the route that will enable you to create the most effective marketing campaign.