One thing is known universally among content creators online: the need for marketing your content is an absolute must. Through a combination of organic and paid marketing efforts, brands have to strive in order to get their content in front of enough people to make a splash. Whether the goal is to generate sales, acquire more subscriptions or simply garner more clicks, your content isn’t likely to distribute itself unless you have an immensely-powerful and effective SEO presence.

Yet spending money on marketing content can feel like a rip-off at times. This leads many to ask where can they save money by thinning out (or expanding) their budgets? Today, we’ll take a look at some areas where cutting back (or investing more heavily) can be done without harming your marketing strategy.

Lead Generation

Before we talk about absolute cuts to content marketing budgets, let’s first look at an area where reallocating expenditures to may produce better overall gains: lead generation. Most brands thrive on one or more forms of lead generation, whether it be collecting email addresses for future marketing pitches, generating on-site sales or lining up charitable contributions.

Ultimately, pinging servers with content that optimizes lead generation potential makes sense. Your true return on investment with each marketing campaign will inevitably increase with the right strategies employed, making lead generation one of those areas where spending more can save money in relative terms (by earning you more).

More Rigorous Channel Selection

Content marketing relies upon a multi-channel approach in some situations; from email marketing to social media and search engine platforms, many successful brands will focus on a dozen or more targeted channels. However, growing brands may expand too rapidly or inefficiently, opening new marketing fronts on channels that are not optimal for their success.

If two equally-funded marketing efforts on separate channels are delivering fundamentally different ROIs, then cutting back on the channel with weaker performance makes sense in most cases. With these savings, they can either be focused into new forms of marketing or be reallocated to channels where better returns are being generated.

Through Audience & Competitor Research

Finding how others are properly using their marketing dollars can shed light on areas for improvement in your own strategy. Likewise, customers and visitors can provide ample information on what they like, dislike and ignore altogether in both organic and paid marketing efforts.

Audience and competitor research are crucial components of optimizing any brand’s marketing spend. Your competitors in particular can highlight examples of tried and true strategies on display; older and more established brands in your niche have likely had time to figure out what works and what does not, meaning their campaigns are optimized.

A variety of survey platforms now exist where brands can solicit advice (for free, or in other cases, paid per response) from targeted audiences about the quality, content and copy of any content marketing effort.

Before you start pinging servers with more ads, consider whether or not there are areas where you can save money. Whether it be through improving ROI to offset existing costs or trimming back expenditures on channels where results are not ideal, carefully pruning your content marketing strategy is a must-do effort for all brands sooner or later.