Digital marketing can be efficient and cost-effective… but when done wrong, it can quickly become a money pit. So, today, I want to share some low-risk, relatively inexpensive, and awesome tools that will help you boost your brand awareness in the long term with a very low investment.

Let me show you my all-time favorite marketing strategy — content marketing — and the three most future-proof marketing platforms you can use today, even if you don’t have a penny to invest:

#1 Blogging

Blogging is my favorite one by far! From powering up your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to building trust with your audience… your blog can do it all. It is also a mighty fountain from which all your other platforms can feed and grow:

1. Your social media or newsletter can (and should) repurpose content from your blog.
2. Your blog posts can quickly turn into YouTube or podcast scripts.
3. You can educate your customers and improve their user experience with relevant information.

A well-positioned, strategically crafted blog post can help you nourish web visitors into customers. The best part of it all? You can start blogging, even if you don’t have a website yet.

Check out these six free alternatives to owning a website!

#2 Newsletter

Email marketing — especially newsletters — is fantastic for several reasons:

1. It’s a very intimate medium; you can use segmentation and personalization tools to make your subscribers feel as if every email was written just for them. Even if everyone knows it was automated!
2. It has a higher reach when well-optimized. You send an email newsletter, and it gets to your subscriber’s inbox — not much algorithmic mystery there.
3. Your newsletter can show your audience what’s happening with your brand: current offers, timely discounts, announcements, and even blog, YouTube, and podcast updates.

But let’s focus on the people’s favorite perk: money! According to a recent report by Constant Contact, the ROI for well-segmented and well-refined email campaigns is $36 for every $1 invested. We are talking about an unbeatable ROI of 360%. No other platform can dispute the title of the highest-converting marketing channel.

Now, let me clear this up right away: your newsletter will not likely give you those results every time you send an email… but it can help you build and segment an email list that buys when you have a good offer. And that’s priceless.

#3 Social Media

Social media marketing is the most frictionless strategy to get started with. However, as a digital marketing specialist, and after years of working with social media professionally, I must say this: Doing it right on social media is hard work and can cost you tons of time and money. But no worries, social media marketing can be very straightforward and still provide great returns regarding brand awareness and building the desired know-like-and-trust factor all brands desperately need.

Here are some great perks of doing social media marketing today:

1. Highly stylized images and videos haven’t worked for years in social media. So, you can humanize your brand with authentic, organic-looking content because it is effective and relatively easy to create.
2. There is no right way to use social media; you can find what works for you by experimenting. Just start posting, analyzing your results, and learning from data.
3. Social media is ever-evolving and invites us to adapt and change with it — taking off the pressure of doing it right from the start. You can show the journey, and if something is too wrong, just delete it!

Also, a well-engaged audience on social media can make a huge buzz when you launch a new product, service, or marketing campaign… then again, that’s what everyone wants.

Marketing and Content Go Hand-in-Hand

An important consideration in all of these platforms is that overly promotional content doesn’t work, so we must find ways to:

1. Build authority by showing what we can do, our expertise.
2. Empathize with our audience’s needs and struggles.
3. Help our audience realize how we can help them — without selling!

Because, in marketing, value content rules.

When you implement content marketing, you are playing the long game and building a platform that will serve you well for years. Thus, I advise anyone wanting to start marketing their business or personal brand, whether they have a large budget or not, to begin by leveraging these three platforms as soon as possible… they never, ever regret it!

P.S. A good hack centers on educating and providing valuable tools and resources when creating your content, so I recommend you keep your branding and promotional pieces under 25%. Also, ensure these pieces are interesting and nourishing for your target audience.