There’s an art to achieving significant and quantifiable impact within small budget constraints; that art has now turned into a necessity for smaller agencies as they endeavour to make their mark in an already saturated industry.
When tasked with great expectations and a strict budget, the first place to strengthen your media, press, and community approach is from within.
Here’s what Jibran Munaf from Sandstone Media has to offer as advice when dealing with tough asks and not enough resources.
Look for the champion within
What that means is bolstering confidence within your internal team to take on tasks that may be out of their comfort zone but embellishing them as an opportunity to learn a new skill.
For those who already know the task at hand, it’s a means of driving a sense of leadership and client goal management. Our team recently did this for a project with Bloomberg. The brief was straightforward: the editorial team requested shots of the organisation for a TV segment in Europe.
However, this was just three days after we’d signed our first client, and the press office wasn’t ready and budgets did not suffice to onboard an external team.
We deployed our team, took an editorial approach to videos and images that could act as ‘b-roll’ and submitted them to the publication. A month later, the team was proud to see their unedited footage play live on TV in front of a viewership of 27 million people!
Understand the brief, works around the budgets
We often hear stories through the PR grapevine that a client was left unhappy and vice versa.
In most cases, it’s due to a lack of clarity, transparency, lowballing budgets, or worse, all of the aforementioned. While PR pros are known to pull off the impossible, especially when you look at the successful campaigns curated by smaller agencies, it’s okay to disagree with your client and let them know what is achievable within the allotted budget.
My solution would always be to pivot to a model or strategy that achieves similar goals.
Another example that comes to mind is the Earth Soul Festival, wherein the task was to get high-end influencers.
However, based on market research, we came to the understanding that micro-influencers, who engage in barter collaborations, offer the same outreach. By working out a barter deal, we remained within the proposed budgets and invited more than 45 influencers to the event.
All of them with a unique following and follower base, ending up with an influencer outreach campaign of more than a million with no added cost.
Monitoring results & communicating success
Building campaigns is not about the cost but about strategy. Whether or not one faces budget constraints, the focus should shift from the budget to developing cost-effective strategies.
Communications teams must create a budget that prioritises essential elements and spreads resources wisely. Effective brand-building campaigns can be achieved with minimal costs by emphasising strategic planning and resource allocation.
Maintaining a strong brand image through internal channels is equally critical. By controlling the narrative on internal websites and staying engaged with the audience, brands can navigate both positive and negative feedback effectively.
This continuous engagement beats the limitation of a small budget by building a resilient brand reputation, a practice that successful companies routinely follow.
Moreover, keeping investors and clients well-informed through newsletters can be a game-changer. Rather than pouring resources into traditional advertising, regular updates via newsletters offer a personal touch, strengthening these crucial relationships and ensuring ongoing support.
Hosting events for your clients can yield a significant ROI while providing unparalleled exposure, showcasing your brand’s value and creating memorable experiences for stakeholders.
These strategies illustrate that with thoughtful planning and strategic execution, brands can achieve substantial impacts, even with small budgets. In the ever-evolving world of communications, it’s this blend of creativity and prudence that drives true success.
By Jibran Munaf, Founder and Managing Director of Sandstone Media
