Five Marketing tips on a budget

by Dean Spencer

Most of the clients of my Outsourced Marketing Company, Grapevine Marketing come to us with no marketing presence at all, and sometimes even the basics aren’t covered effectively. Here are 5 quick marketing tips to help.

1. Don’t waste money on advertising – for 95% of the business population this is a pointless exercise in terms of lead generation and also carries a huge cost.

2. Use your current client list. Most businesses don’t realize that you can squeeze an extra 10-20% from existing clients. Be honest with yourself, do all of your clients know everything that you do?

3. Give your clients news pro-active news about your business. For example, “Hi John, I am touching base with you on that last order we provided for you. Did everything go well with your client? John, whilst I am on the phone I thought I would tell you that we have just installed a new widget machine to bring the cost of widgets down for our clients.” If you tell your target market that you are investing in new people/kit/expansion then they will have an impression that you are a stable and successful company.

4. Editorial. Lots of local news and trade magazines will take good quality copy from you and publish it in the business news section for free. If you can strike an ongoing relationship up with editors and you always submit good newsworthy copy that is not a big sales pitch for your business then you will eventually get them calling you for you to help them fill a space! Remember, there are 1000’s of trade magazines – most sectors have 4 or 5.

5. Networking. This is still one of the best ways to get business locally and spread the word cost effectively about your business. There are lots of local networking meetings and some national ones too. Costs are very low, normally a nominal fee to cover admin or food, and you get to meet lots of business people, who in turn become your sales people.