|
When you’re starting or growing a business, money can be
tight. How can you be sure you’ll get the best return on your
marketing spend? What simple steps can you take to improve the
response of your marketing and what’s worth investing in? I’ll
share with you my top tips on squeezing the most out of your
marketing budget.
Low cost marketing isn’t just about doing everything on the
cheap; it’s about spending the money where you need to, cutting
back where you can and maximising on the responses you get. What
I’d like to do is share with you some of the ways I think you
can effectively promote yourself on a small budget – and still
get results!
Let’s start by addressing the big one: why haven’t you got a
big budget? Are you reluctant to invest? Have you had a bad
experience in the past? Or do you simply not have the cash? I
would never advocate spending willy nilly on advertising and
marketing, but I do believe it is worth investing in the right
marketing in the right places. Invest carefully – what’s going
to pay off for you? With an existing business you should know
this if you’ve been measuring the success of previous campaigns.
If you’re starting a new business can you talk to competitors?
Or friends in the same industry as you?
For me, shrewd low-budget marketing is about getting as much
for free or low cost as possible, and spending your budget where
you believe it’s going to pay off the most. That means going
back to traditional methods like good old fashioned selling and
relationship building, and ditching the expensive advertising
and pay-per click online lead generating that can swallow your
marketing budget before you can say “yahoo”.
Looking at what’s going to pay off the most for you is key,
and to do that let’s start by looking at your need. To give you
an example, when I started my graphic design and print business
in June 2005 I was tucked away in a business centre with no
passing traffic and no easy way to generate leads. I could’ve
spent days cold calling (though I must admit that in my personal
experience I don’t get a great conversion rate from that) but
instead I invested a hefty £2000 in an exhibition. Did it pay
off? Absolutely! Now that doesn’t mean I’d advocate going out
and throwing away £2k on your nearest exhibition (the next one I
did was a flop – so choose carefully). But by careful planning,
a lot of enthusiasm and plenty of follow up telephone calls I
managed to convert 70% of the 100 leads I picked up that day
into paying clients. And I still credit that exhibition with
kick starting my business. My need at that point was to get
leads – what’s your need?
|
If you want to be a
master marketing strategist then why not sign up for a free 7 part
mini-course. Delivered straight to your in-box this compact course 'How
to Become a Master of Stupid Marketing Strategies' will guide you down
the road of complete marketing stupidity!
|
What do you want your marketing to achieve?
More leads?
Spreading the word about your business can be exciting! But if
you’re not managing to convert these enquiries into sales then
you could be wasting your money. Start by addressing the
fundamental issues – why aren’t the leads you have buying from
you– aren’t they interested? Or is it that once they’ve enquired
you’re losing touch with them (or not making contact in the
first place) which means that they simply forget about you?
Higher conversion rate of enquiries to customers? How often do you keep in touch with your enquiries? The hint
is in the paragraph above, but all to often we spend time and
money chasing after new business when we have a perfectly good
bank of interested potential clients waiting to build a
relationship with us. (and I’m sure there’s a very good marriage
/ adultery analogy there but let’s not go there shall we?).
Repeat business?
Now we’re talking! In the world of low budget marketing your
existing customers are an absolute goldmine. They’re already big
fans of yours (hopefully) and if you can just maintain your
relationship with them then we would hope that next time they’re
ready to order, they’ll come back to you. Marketing to existing
customers usually means that you’ll get a better response rate
than if you work with ‘cold’ enquiries (people that have never
met you before). So if budget really is an issue, focus on your
existing enquiries and customers.
What is your budget?
In the pursuit of low cost and ‘free’ marketing solutions
it’s easy to overlook the cost of your time. Generally marketing
will either cost time or money. Particularly if you have a
service based business, your time is money – is your time best
spent designing a flyer for half a day or getting out there and
selling your business? So bear in mind that when I say ‘free’, I
haven’t factored in the cost of your time.
Free marketing ideas
·
Links to and from your website.
Getting your website further up the search engine rankings is
key to making the most of your online assets. The more links
that you can get from websites into yours will improve the way
search engines like Google ‘rate’ your website and push it
further up the page.
·
Get articles published
on other websites or in newspapers, local directories and
magazines. Great PR, fun to do (if a little time consuming), and
best of all, it adds value for your potential clients and shows
you’re not all about the hard sell.
·
Recommendations from clients.
A massively underrated ‘marketing’ tool and yet recommendations
are very low cost and often have high conversion rates into
clients. What can you do to encourage existing customers to
recommend friends? In addition to providing a fantastic service
can you reward those clients that recommend people (we send our
clients chocolate as a thank you!).
·
Build a database
–
and use it! Do you log all of your customers and enquiries on an
electronic database? Do you use it? Your own list is the best
quality you’re going to get. Here are people that are actually
interested in you – make the most of it!
Low cost
·
Email newsletters.
A fabulous way of building a relationship with your clients,
sharing your knowledge and adding value to their day. Make sure
you provide tips and hints that are worthwhile – whilst special
offer emails are great marketing tools they are not
newsletters, so don’t dress them up like them!
·
Email marketing.
Another low cost way of keeping in touch with customers and
enquiries, but promoting a specific offer. They’re measurable,
low cost and fast. For best results, send them out monthly.
·
Client questionnaires.
Finding out what clients really thought about you can be a great
way of improving your service, but it’s also another way to
build relationships, maintain contact and ask for referrals.
What are you waiting for?
·
Talk to people.
We’re encroaching on sales territory here, but low cost
marketers need to be prepared to overlook boundaries in the
pursuit of business development. Build relationships with your
clients. Keep in touch with them. Find reasons to call them
(whilst still maintaining professional boundaries!) and watch
your business prosper.
Worth investing in
·
Professional graphic design.
I
know, I know, I would say that. But the bottom line is
that if you can find a design agency that not only makes what
you’re doing look good but also fulfil your marketing
objectives, they really can make the difference between engaging
clients or not (our clients tell us that printing.com in
Guildford are very good –
www.guildfordprinting.com or call 01483 401 818).
·
A
well designed website.
You’ve heard of the three second rule? Great design isn’t just
about turning your clients on, it’s about making sure they don’t
leave your site within the first few seconds, which can often be
the case with home made sites. Either find a great web designer,
or use a template driven site that guides you through the steps
to a professional-looking website.
·
If
you’re going to do it, do it properly.
If you believe that a piece of marketing will work, then it probably
will. Take the time to research, plan, execute as effectively as
you can and then measure the results. And if you believe that it
will work, then invest the money in it. Brochures are expensive,
so don’t try to cram the contents of a brochure onto a leaflet –
it’ll just look naff. Either save up and get a brochure designed
and printed professionally, or scale back your ideas. Think
about what you want your leaflet to achieve, just promote one
message and do it well.
Finally make your next campaign even more cost effective.
Measure! How many leads did you get? How many did you convert
into clients? How much did they spend? Evaluate. What did you
get right? What would you refine next time?
Life would be very dull if we didn’t make mistakes, so learn
from them and try to ensure they don’t happen again. But most of
all, have fun!
Good luck!
If
you would like some help or inspiration with your marketing
please call Fiona on +44 1483 401 818 or email
fiona.humberstone@printing.com. You can find more articles
and free workbooks at www.guildfordprinting.com
|
