Marketers everywhere are feeling the squeeze. Budgets are shrinking, teams are leaner, and outsourcing dollars are limited. Marketing budgets as a percentage of company budgets have declined to 10.1% compared to 13.8% in 2022, and as a percentage of revenue fell to 7.7%, the lowest level in three years.
Yet the demand for fresh, relevant content hasn’t slowed down. If anything, it’s grown. Customers want timely content across channels that’s engaging and informative. And, of course, leadership still wants to see measurable returns on campaigns.
The challenge: how do you keep the content engine humming when resources and budgets are tight? Hint: Burning out your team isn’t the answer.
Instead, it’s about making smarter choices – leaning on the right tools, building efficient processes, and wringing more value out of the work you already do. We’ve got eight expert tips to help your team blossom even when your budget isn’t.
1. Start Smart with AI
When budgets are tight, AI tools are often the first solution that comes to mind. And frankly, they’re a smart starting point. GenAI can help content marketers:
- Brainstorm ideas: Think campaign concepts, blog angles, and social post themes. AI can generate dozens of ideas in seconds. They may not all be winners, but it gives you a starting point. You can refine ideas and discuss new ones as you continue your conversation with your AI brainstorming partner.
- Build calendars: GenAI is your ideal assistant when it comes to mapping out content cadences and identifying gaps. Your team will still want to review the output to make sure it aligns with your goals and the timeline is realistic, but the time savings are tangible.
- Speed up research: We all know any research conducted by AI needs to be vetted and fact-checked, but it can still serve as a starting point. When it doesn’t give accurate or quality results, you can tell it where it went wrong and ask it to try again. When it does yield quality results, it can save hours of searching the web for the right data point.
The key, of course, is balance. AI can take over some of the grunt work, while humans supply the storytelling, creativity, and nuance that make content resonate.
2. Double Down on Trusted Partnerships
Outsourcing is still valuable, but hopping between agencies or freelancers can add hidden costs. Every new partner requires onboarding, time to learn your brand voice, and multiple rounds of feedback. If you already have an agency that understands your tone, style, and approval workflows, staying with them is almost always more efficient. You save money on ramp-up, and you save time by avoiding unnecessary revisions.
3. Venture Into Video
You’re probably questioning why we’re suggesting video when budgets are tight, but hear us out. Video is not only incredibly popular right now, but it’s also one of the most engaging formats. Plus, a single shoot can yield months of material, and it doesn’t have to bust your budget. Small, nimble teams can multitask and help you plan strategically so you get a rich library of content from one shoot. When done right, video has a high ROI and feeds social media, email campaigns, product pages, and more.
4. Repurpose for Maximum ROI
Not every asset has to be brand new. Repurposing is one of the most cost-effective ways to extend your budget.
- Refresh old favorites: Look back at your analytics. Chances are some older blog posts or white papers are still attracting attention. Update them with fresh stats, new visuals, and modern examples. The lift is lighter than creating from scratch, but the payoff is significant.
- Cross-format reuse: Turn a webinar into a blog series, pull charts from a white paper into an infographic, or divide an ebook into LinkedIn carousels. Think of every content piece as a building block with multiple lives and continue to look back at content with a focus on other engaging ways it can be used.
5. Adopt a Modular Mindset
Efficiency doesn’t just happen at the end of the process. If you design content with repurposing in mind from the start, you’ll multiply your impact.
For example: create an ebook structured in sections that can each stand alone as blog posts. Build a research report where each data point can fuel a social post. Record customer interviews on video and capture audio for a podcast. By thinking modularly, you future-proof your content.
6. Tap Into Internal Experts
When budgets shrink, your colleagues become one of your richest resources. Product managers can share roadmaps, sales teams can highlight customer pain points, and support reps can surface real-world stories.
Set up a repeatable interview or Q&A process: 20-minute conversations recorded and transcribed can quickly become articles, social content, or customer-facing FAQs. Not only is this efficient, but it also gives your content more authenticity by bringing your team’s firsthand perspectives to the forefront.
7. Lean on Evergreen Formats
Certain content types work harder for you over time. Evergreen resources like how-to guides, glossaries, and explainer videos don’t go out of date quickly. A single investment in evergreen content can continue attracting traffic and leads long after publication, making it one of the best budget-stretching plays available. (Naturally, these are the first assets you should revisit on a regular basis to update and refresh with new stats and/or messaging.)
8. Prioritize What Matters Most
When every dollar counts, it’s tempting to spread effort thin across too many initiatives. Instead, focus on what delivers the biggest business impact. That might mean fewer but higher-quality campaigns or concentrating on a couple of channels where your audience is most engaged. A sharper focus often leads to stronger results and less wasted spend.
Small Budgets Can Still Yield Big Results
A smaller budget doesn’t have to mean smaller results. By using AI as a launchpad, relying on trusted partners, repurposing strategically, and leveraging the expertise already in your organization, content marketing teams can continue producing work that drives engagement and ROI. With these tips in your back pocket, your budget challenges can actually push you toward more creative, more efficient, and, ultimately, more effective content marketing. We’d love to help you get there.
