10 Ways to Spend Less on Marketing

Because marketing is a creative activity, you can always find new ways to make an impact and attract sales, even on a small budget. Here are some ideas that will help you maximise your impact while minimising your budget:

• Capture as much customer data as possible and build a database. Target the database by email every time you have something new to say or offer.

• Make your communications more visually striking by including images or using creative, dynamic layouts. This visual style gets more reader attention than any letter, brochure, or ad, making it more effective and efficient for you.

• Improve the appearance of your logo. Most logos are boring, but great companies have great logos.

• Be visible on Google and Yahoo search engines. This is inexpensive and works for local as well as global markets.

• Release a survey or host an event to generate publicity.

• Send out press releases to the media regularly, or whenever you have valuable news to release. Editorial is free and endorsed by the media.

• Find something simple and inexpensive to offer along with your most popular products or service in order to pick up add-on sales.

• Give out coupons to encourage prospects to try your product or service, so that its qualities become obvious to them. Don’t however, give away price-cutting coupons or discounts for no good reason – think of other ways to increase sales appeal.

• Offer (or improve) a guarantee, one with no small print. If you have a good product or service, stand behind it.

• Vow never to lose a customer. Whenever you have a customer who’s upset or at risk, find out why and win them back.

• Discover where you lose the most prospects or potential customers and the concentrate your marketing at this point to convert more of them into customers.