Building an audience is the most important thing to get right when you’re setting the foundation for long-term business growth.
Why? It’s simple. An engaged, loyal audience leads to consistent leads, stronger brand recognition, and increased revenue.
But as crucial as it is, audience-building comes with a big question for entrepreneurs and small business owners: ‘How much will this actually cost?’
The challenge is finding ways to grow an audience without overspending.
In this blog post, we’ll look at the process of building an audience, explore budget-friendly strategies, and show you how ScoreApp helps you keep costs low.
Let’s dive in.
What’s involved in building an audience?
Before we discuss costs, let’s look at what audience-building actually involves.
When you’re building an audience, you need to invest in areas like content creation, marketing, software tools, and (this is often overlooked) time.
Understanding these elements will help you make the right decisions about where to invest, save, and get the best value.
Content creation
Content is the backbone of any audience-building strategy. It could be blog posts, videos, podcasts, or social media updates. Whatever is right for your audience, high-quality content is essential for capturing attention.
If you outsource your content creation, costs can vary widely, with blog posts often ranging from £150 to £500 per article, depending on the level of research required. Creating content in-house will reduce your costs but requires a significant time investment.
Marketing and advertising
To get your content seen, you’ll need some form of marketing or advertising. Organic marketing (like SEO and social media) is effective and budget-friendly, but it requires time and consistency.
Paid ads on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Google will speed things up, but even a modest monthly ad spend can quickly run into thousands of pounds.
Tools and platforms
The latest software tools for managing email lists, creating landing pages, analysing data, and nurturing leads are great for building an engaged audience.
Many small businesses spend between £40 and £250 per month on platforms like Hubspot and Pipedrive, with advanced CRM tools often costing a lot more.
Time investment
Never underestimate the value of your time. Building an audience requires consistency, creativity, and plenty of personal engagement.
Time is a significant investment, but an efficient approach will pay off in loyal customers and steady growth.
Budget-friendly strategies for building your audience
Now, let’s look at how to build an audience on a budget.
Successful businesses see their audience as an evolving community. Over time, consistent engagement will help convert this community into loyal advocates who promote your brand, provide valuable feedback, and contribute to your growth.
But here’s the thing: you don’t always need a massive budget to build a loyal, engaged audience.
Here are some cost-effective strategies that deliver strong results.
1. Maximise organic marketing channels
Organic marketing—through SEO, social media, and email—helps you reach an audience without breaking the bank. Regular social media posts, engaging blog content, and email newsletters will all help attract and engage your target audience over time.
ScoreApp makes organic audience growth efficient with interactive tools like quizzes that capture attention and encourage social media sharing. They add value and give prospects a good reason to connect with your brand.
2. Partner with influencers or other businesses
Collaboration is another powerful and cost-effective tool. Partnering with industry influencers or complementary businesses will help you extend your reach relatively cheaply.
Approach micro-influencers who often have high engagement rates and may offer affordable rates, or why not reach out to businesses with overlapping audiences for mutually beneficial partnerships?
3. Use free or low-cost software
There are lots of free tools available for tasks like content creation, scheduling, and analytics.
Email marketing tools like Mailchimp or MailerLite, graphic design platforms like Canva, and content schedulers like Hootsuite will initially help you engage and grow your audience without extra costs.
With ScoreApp, you can also use our suite of tools for free without committing to an upfront cost. Try out our lead generation features—with plenty of templates for quizzes and surveys—to capture interest, build relationships, and seamlessly integrate your email marketing software.
4. Engage with your audience directly
Direct engagement from you and your team, like responding to comments, holding Q&A sessions, webinars or sending personalised emails, is invaluable for building loyalty.
The time you spend interacting with your audience will often translate into increased engagement and referrals. People love brands that take the time to connect!
Harnessing the power of storytelling to connect with your audience
Your prospects are real people who will connect with stories just as they appreciate direct engagement. Weaving storytelling into your audience-building strategy will make a big difference.
Share your brand’s journey, highlight success stories, or showcase behind-the-scenes moments.
Authentic, relatable stories make your brand feel more approachable and will help you establish a deeper connection with your audience.
ScoreApp helps collect valuable testimonials and feedback, giving you the best material to share in your storytelling.
Leveraging analytics for smarter audience-building decisions
Now that you know how to find ways to build your audience at a lower cost, remember that continually keeping your process efficient is crucial.
One often overlooked but essential aspect of building an audience is regularly reviewing what’s working – and what’s not.
With the right data, you can see which content types, channels, and messages resonate most with your audience.
ScoreApp’s built-in analytics make it easy to track engagement, identify trends, and adjust your strategy to maximise your impact.
For example, if quizzes and interactive content drive higher engagement than blogs, investing more in these resources and building your audience more efficiently makes sense.
ScoreApp: your partner in cost-effective audience building
Now, let’s look at the specific ways ScoreApp supports audience growth while keeping expenses in check.
Personalised content that engages and converts
With our interactive quizzes, you can offer your audience personalised experiences that capture their attention and give immediate value. They’re a lead magnet with a unique twist – offering a level of interactivity that others don’t.
This interaction and value allow you to build a relationship with your prospects from the start, help you nurture them through your sales funnel, and keep them engaged.
Automated lead nurturing for faster conversions
ScoreApp makes cost-efficient audience growth translate into revenue and, more importantly, profit.
What do we mean by that? Once you’ve grown your audience and attracted your leads, ScoreApp helps you nurture and convert them, too.
You can set up effective and efficient follow-ups based on quiz or scorecard results, which send the right message to the right people at the right time.
Highly personalised, automated follow-ups keep your audience engaged and shorten the sales cycle, meaning faster conversions and better ROI for you and your business.
All-in-one solution for streamlined processes
ScoreApp is free until you grow your audience to a certain size. As you scale, our affordable plans give you access to a range of tools that support each stage of audience building.
By combining lead generation, segmentation, email marketing integration and analytics all in one platform, ScoreApp helps you save money while optimising your marketing efforts.
Case study: achieving over 100 leads in 30 days with ScoreApp
One business that’s seen excellent results with ScoreApp is Happy Life Global.
Jackson Ogunyemi, Director of Happiness at Happy Life Global, used ScoreApp to create an engaging scorecard for educators and teachers.
In just 30 days, his scorecard brought in over 100 leads!
Jackson’s story shows how powerful interactive content can be—even on a limited budget. His scorecard offered users immediate, personalised insights, and many prospects shared it with their own networks.
Build your audience cost-effectively with ScoreApp
Building an audience doesn’t have to be expensive. By understanding potential costs and using budget-friendly approaches, you can attract and engage a loyal following.
ScoreApp is a powerful tool that makes audience-building easy, cost-effective, and scalable for businesses of any size.
Are you ready to build your audience without overspending?
Try ScoreApp for FREE and see how our interactive quizzes, integrations for automated email marketing, and analytics can help you!
Your ideal audience is out there – we’re here to help you find them.
