We live in exceptionally uncertain times, which means that as leaders and entrepreneurs, we need to get creative when it comes to ensuring business growth. While operating a digital marketing business is certainly lucrative and comes with many perks for you as an expert in the industry, you also need to be frugal and cut costs whenever possible. Some digital businesses can even be started without money from the get-go, but they will require investments soon enough, both on lead generation, client relationship management, and your own digital marketing. 

So, saving up on that initial capital is often not enough to keep you going for the long haul, increasing the urgency for many digital marketers to be smart with how they allocate their funds. Here, we’ve chosen a few of the most successful ways you can cut the costs of running your business and elevating your productivity in one fell swoop. Here’s what you can do!

Manage your taxes with care

The immense pressure of keeping up with taxes is somewhat of a perennial source of stress among business owners. First and foremost, you’re starting out as someone who is far from a tax expert, so your knowledge in digital marketing can hardly be of any use when making sure your business is compliant and doing what’s necessary in terms of taxes.

In addition to working with accounting professionals, make sure you follow your local guide to paying tax in your region, and keep track of any changes that might occur over time. Learning about this process will help you leverage any tax benefits in your favor, avoid tax-related penalties that can be costly for your business, and ultimately help safeguard all of your investments by taking care of all your tax obligations. 

Automate menial tasks

Brief and often dull tasks can take up so much of your time that you don’t even notice your lunch break is starting soon, and you’re nowhere near tackling the pile of major, business-relevant chores on your agenda. This is a common business conundrum, and it can be easily resolved to the benefit of your budget with the help of various AI-driven solutions and software automation.

Instead of manually responding to repetitive customer queries, you can let a chatbot take over and save up valuable time. You can automate your entire payroll and accounting with the help of software, so that your invoicing and contracts are no longer a nuisance. Add to that, you can automate your social media scheduling, email campaigns, and other aspects of your own digital marketing, much like you would for any of your clients – and save so much of your time for more vital tasks. 

Switch to a remote business model

This pandemic has been one major learning experience, hasn’t it? Especially for entrepreneurs and business owners, it has pushed us to embrace working from home more than ever before, and now, this operational model can assist you in your cost-cutting goals. If you take a moment to calculate all the expenses related to working in an office, you’ll quickly realize just how much more sensible it would be to empower your employees to work from home.

For starters, you wouldn’t need to pay rent for the office, invest in office equipment, costly gadgets, lighting, maintenance, and not to mention public transportation and gas, as well as a whole range of utility bills. Working remotely eliminates all of these and many other expenses, so that you can restructure your funds and invest in other, more pressing matters.

Negotiate with your partners

Have you been working with one and the same office supplies vendor for more than two or three years? What about your office space, if you don’t move to work remotely, is the lease the same? The time you have spent building your business means something, so you have the opportunity to negotiate with everyone in your vendor network to lower their prices somewhat and help you run your company more smoothly.

Everything from your insurance policy to your rental car partner should understand that your loyalty does, to an extent, depend on their willingness to renegotiate prices. Let them know that you know the market well, do your research and present your findings, so that they know what their competitors have to offer. 

Leverage loyalty and reward programs

To an extent, starting a business in digital marketing can be a piece of cake if you know how to negotiate and work with people. As a digital marketing agency, you have so much to offer to your partners, vendors, and your clients alike. In fact, you have the skills every other business needs to succeed, so if you can broker a specific arrangement that is favorable both for you and your partners, then why not put your knowledge to good use and save up at the same time?

For example, when you have repeat orders from the same business, you can look for some kind of bulk discount or figure out a long-term contract that is more financially prudent for both. However, you can also offer your marketing packages in exchange for the services or products offered by your partner or vendor, if that is something they would be interested in. This type of trading is helpful from that financial standpoint, but it also builds stronger relationships in this competitive industry.

Increasing productivity doesn’t mean you have to spend more or work more hours. On the contrary, in digital marketing in particular, less time and fewer tasks on your agenda can often lead to better results when you have a clever strategy for allocating your time and your money. Bringing these ideas into your approach to your finances and running your digital marketing business will become a much smoother, more cost-effective process in the long run.