The Digital Marketing Podcast

Episode: Digital Marketing on a Zero Budget

Hosts: Daniel Rowles & Ciaran Rogers
Date: May 14, 2016

Overview

This episode addresses a frequent listener question: how can small businesses and individuals achieve effective digital marketing with little to no budget? Hosts Daniel and Ciaran share concrete strategies, useful frameworks, and real-world tools to help marketers prioritize essentials, build lasting value, and sidestep expensive or distracting tactics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Where to Start with Zero-Budget Digital Marketing

• Listener Question Origin: Rick Toon (B2B video production) asks what to focus on with a "very, very limited budget." (00:23)
• Core Advice: The absolute priority is a content hub—a website/blog—to own your publishing platform.
• Recommendation:
  • Use WordPress.com to start a professional-looking site.
  • Register your own domain (as little as £15/year).
  • Flexibility to move to WordPress.org later if more customization is needed.

"That's where I'd spend a little tiny bit of money, if you are going to spend some money on this, first of all."
— Daniel (01:32)

2. The Three Types of Content: Hygiene, Hub, and Hero (02:37)

• Definitions:
  • Hygiene Content: Essential info that describes your products/services in detail. Must answer users’ questions thoroughly.
  • Hub Content: Regular, valuable insights (like blog posts) that keep people engaged and offer content to share on social media.
  • Hero Content: Exceptional, standout pieces designed to grab attention long-term (e.g., in-depth guides, unique tools, major reports).

"Hygiene content is the stuff you have to have. It's the essential stuff... Hub content is the stuff that you're publishing regularly... Hero content is the stuff that grabs people's attention, gets broader interest..."
— Daniel (02:46 and 09:05)

• Impact:
  • Quality trumps quantity, especially for time-strapped marketers.
  • Focusing on a few standout (hero) pieces can produce outsized, long-term results.

3. Keyword Research and Search Console – Free Yet Critical Tools

• Initial Step: Before content, understand what your audience searches for.
• Tools Mentioned:
  • Google Keyword Planner (set up an AdWords account just to access it)
  • Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) to verify what Google thinks your site is about (04:27)
  • Ubersuggest for additional keyword inspiration (06:00)
  • Use competitor URLs in tools to discover how they’re positioned (05:29)

"If it's not listing the words that you really want to rank for, you probably need to add more content on the words that it's not listing you for."
— Daniel (05:06)

4. Audience First: Don’t Confuse Platforms for Strategy

• Many businesses mistakenly make a platform (eg. Facebook) their "strategy" instead of serving a defined target audience.
• Persona Development:
  • Essential to clarify who your customers are—this shapes all content and engagement efforts.
  • Example: Their own personas included lone marketers, team leaders, and learning managers—all requiring distinct content types. (11:33)

"Our digital marketing strategy is Facebook... It's not just somewhere you go to get as many possible people to look at random untargeted things."
— Ciaran (10:28)

• Fishing Metaphor:
  • An analogy about fishing emphasizes that knowing which "fish" you want is essential to choosing the right approach.

  "If I know the type of fish that I'm after, then I can work out where they hang out and what they like to eat... That's really what marketing Personas is all about."
  — Ciaran (12:24)

5. Building Relationships and Influencer Outreach

• Link-building Reframed:
  • Focus on building real relationships with relevant bloggers and influencers (not spamming requests for links).
  • Use Klear.com to identify influencers in your niche; target those who are accessible, not just major celebrities (13:00–14:52).
• CSR and Good Causes:
  • Help a charity or cause for free in exchange for a link and visibility.

"...build one to one relationships, which is work out who are the existing bloggers, who are the influencers in my particular market..."
— Daniel (13:16)

6. Content Curation to Build Audience

• Tactic: If your own follower base is small, share/curate valuable third-party content related to your audience’s challenges to build trust and slowly attract followers.
• Tools:
  • Feedly (content discovery)
  • Hootsuite (social scheduling)
• Engage: Respond to replies, retweets, and start conversations for greater community building.

"By doing that, you're not driving traffic back to your own website, but what you are doing is building an audience because you're providing value, because you're filtering the news for them."
— Daniel (15:52)

• Example:
  • Community goodwill built with regular listeners and Twitter followers (Sean Greentree mentioned as an advocate). (18:19)

7. Analytics and Tracking Conversions

• Set Up Early: Even if not using analytics fully at first, get Google Analytics running to collect data for later insight.
• Set Clear Goals: For lead-generation, always set up “thank you” pages as conversion/destination goals rather than relying on pop-up confirmations (20:21).

"The one thing you should have set up in analytics is goals... So you go in and you set your thank you page as a destination goal..."
— Daniel (19:15)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Platform vs. Strategy
  "Facebook is a platform, it's not a digital marketing strategy."
  — Ciaran (10:28)

• On Content Focus
  "Rather than doing loads of [hub content], do less but do it better."
  — Daniel (08:04)

• On Relationship Building
  "Influencers who are not world-famous may be more accessible and still hugely valuable."
  — Daniel (14:32)

• On Community Advocacy
  "I've never met Sean Greentree... but when he shows up in my Twitter feed, I feel a little warm glow."
  — Ciaran (18:47)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & Listener Question: 00:00–01:30
• Cheap/Free Website Building: 01:30–02:37
• Hygiene, Hub, Hero Content Model: 02:37–09:05
• Keyword Research & Search Console: 03:40–07:06
• Audience, Personas, & Strategy: 10:28–12:24
• Influencer Outreach: 13:00–14:53
• Content Curation & Social Tools: 15:52–17:53
• Community Engagement: 18:19–18:56
• Analytics Setup & Conversion Tracking: 19:15–20:40

Summary: Action Steps for Zero Budget Marketers

1. Claim Your Website: Use WordPress.com with your own domain.
2. Set Up Search Console and Analytics: Free, invaluable tools for understanding performance.
3. Focus on Key Content:
   • Get hygiene content right (detailed descriptions of services).
   • Invest in at least one substantial “hero” content piece.
   • Use regular hub content to drive engagement, but value quality over quantity.
4. Do Targeted Keyword Research: Use free tools smartly (Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest).
5. Define Your Audience: Build personas; let them shape every marketing action.
6. Network and Build Relationships: Prioritize influencer and advocate engagement over automated link-building.
7. Curate Content: Provide value even before you have a big audience—build credibility by sharing what matters to your niche.
8. Track Everything: Ensure your analytics setup can track actual conversions—in B2B, this usually means a thank-you page after a form fill.

For details and resource links:
Visit Target Internet
Rate or contact the show with questions—Daniel and Ciaran love to help!