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Don'r blow your budget on marketing!!

posted on Wednesday, October 01, 2008 04:12 PM

Marketing for FREE!

Marketing does not need to be expensive, and some of the greatest marketing out there is free! Too many businesses go out of business having spent vast sums of money on expensive marketing strategies, blissfully unaware of all of the free marketing opportunities out there.

In order to be able to make the most of these opportunities you need to make sure that your Thinking is clear and rational. There are too many people out there that subscribe to the opinion that is something seems too good to be true, then it is. Well that is not the way to think. Sometimes these opportunities are staring you in the face and we need to have the clarity of mind to take them.



10 simple things you can do……


1) Test and increase your prices. Raising prices is a valid, simple and effective option. As you put other strategies into place it will strengthen your position and will validate an increase in price. People do not buy on price, look at cars and clothes! You won’t know until you try it. Push your benefits and the other marketing options.

2) Get on the phone. Call your 50 best customers / prospects and ask them what they need, don’t sell to them just ask questions. And also go out and meet your best customers. It will take a day or two but you will learn what your customers want. 80% of profits come from 20% of customers. So you need to focus increasingly on your current clients. Marketing is not just about new customers, if you go and see your best customers you will have good rapport, and as a result you can sell to them and also draw genuine high quality referrals from them. Marketing is just as much about setting up these meeting as it is writing up ads. Marketing is finding needs and presenting your solutions and then getting them to buy from you, so talking to existing clients will act as a great research opportunity as well as a selling opportunity.

3) Networking. Go and meet people who have a potential interest in your business. Time can be as important as money in marketing. Small businesses don’t have much money but they can find time to go out and network and market their business. Networking is also a great way to find partnerships.

4) Public Speaking. Very effective tool. Groups and organisations are crying out for speakers and these groups are a captive audience. Do the research, somewhere out there your potential customers will be meeting in groups. Once in front of such a group of people don’t talk just about your product and services, but talk about your specialism and then sell to them at the end of the talk. Having spent some time discussing your specialism and other relevant market news to the group you will have gained a degree of trust and rapport. It is at the end of the speech where you can feel comfortable in presenting your services and sell to the audience. It can be a numbers game, go out and approach 10 groups and 2 two bookings.

5) Slash the advertising budget in half. Take that 50% and use it for 2 or 3 low risk tests in other forms in marketing. This costs you nothing and is a great way to move forward and bring innovation to your marketing activity. People are too dependant on advertising, extra options are available and need to be tested.

6) Public Relations (PR). PR falls into the too good to be true category for many people. Instead of spending vast amounts on advertising, you can get the same amount of coverage almost for nothing. A simple single A4 press release can be circulated and as a result you may gain significant media and public exposure. Start positioning yourself as an expert in your industry. Getting into the media has little to do with experience and skills but rather your willingness to appear on the media. Most experts on television are not the best in their field. There are people out there that want to hear about you and the markets you operate in.

7) Upselling. Selling someone more or extra at the moment they buy from you. Go to a fast food burger joint and you will almost always be asked at the point of payment if you would like to upgrade your meal. At the point of purchase it costs you nothing to sell them something else. Even if 8/10 says no, you still have an increase in 20% in sales, with nothing spent on extra marketing. Think about what can you offer that the customer will want at the point of purchase? You are only limited by your imagination.

8) Improving your sales skills. Most marketing methods will bring people to our door (leads). You are unlikely to convert every single lead into a sale. What is your lead conversion rate? It needs to be measured. If you pay for marketing to bring people in, should we not work on improving your conversion rate? We recommend ‘How to master the art of selling’ by Tom Hopkins as a good place to start.

9) E-Mails. Are you emailing your customers and prospects at least twice a month? If so, good, try different offers and email content. If not, you need to do this. It is very hard to find a better free marketing method.

10) Joint Ventures. This can be through a commission or referral scheme set up between partners. It is the equivalent of having a free sales team that only charge when they sell. Look for a partner who is not a competitor but deals with the same target market as you. If you don’t provide a service that the partner does, then there is clearly great potential there.

Comments

Barry Crisp

Monday, November 03, 2008 08:23 AM

Wow, thank you for sharing this wonderful advice on free marketing. I am positive many people will find this useful! All the best, Barry.

John Peter Okori

Monday, November 03, 2008 08:43 AM

Very innovative and enterprising ideas!! Keep on giving us more.