Marketing can be hard. If you're a business with limited time and money, it can overwhelming to figure out where to focus your efforts. Should you market yourself by networking? Tweet every hour on the hour? Pay to be in the yellow pages? Get a billboard? Cold-call? Pay Google? There's enough options that by the end you just want to close up shop and go home.

However a small budget doesn't mean you have to have a small presence. It just means you have to be precise and only use what you can measure. If something can be measured, then you'll know how well it's working.

One of the best ways to tackle this problem is with an inbound marketing plan. Create content that your customers (or prospective customers) find compelling. Then create more of it. Remember, you don't have to attract everyone, just people who would be interested in your service. If you're the business owner, then you probably share a common interest with your customers. Use that to your advantage.

Punch above your weight by just focusing on marketing to your customers, not everyone. Some of your competitors might have more visible marketing like billboards or newspaper ads. Who cares? They're marketing to a bunch of people who aren't their customers. That's wasted money. You can be smarter than that.

Businesses with small marketing budgets can in many ways be more effective than companies with huge ones. It forces you to be efficient with your spending. Focus just on people who are interested. Send them emails. Tweet with them. Offer them special deals. All of these things help when you're trying to grow your business. Billboards rarely do.

Inbound marketing can be one of the most efficient ways you bring new customers into your sales pipeline. It gives you the ability to track everything and keeps you from spending money on people who aren't your target audience. If you're looking for tips on creating an inbound marketing plan, make sure to sign up for our newsletter.