Low Cost Marketing

The Top Low Cost Marketing Strategies for Business Owners and Professionals On A Budget

American companies spend billions of dollars each year on marketing. As a matter of fact, in 2001, U.S. advertising expenditures alone topped $230 billion, more than doubling the $105.97 billion spent in 1980. (Source: Advertising Exposure and Statistics, November 2003 newsletter of the Media Education Foundation)

Now, these figures may seem staggering to the independent professional on a budget, but don’t panic; there are lots of effective, low cost marketing strategies you can utilize that will help you grow your business fast. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Identify your niche. One of the easiest ways to attract customers is to figure out which group of prospective customers you get your very best results for and go after them exclusively. Many professionals are afraid to do niche marketing, claiming that they’ll be leaving someone out, but many marketing experts agree that niche marketing as the easiest and fastest way to get business.

2. Position yourself as an expert. Why? Experts make more money and get more media attention and that’s free advertising! Let’s face it; it’s easier to trust a specialist than a generalist who’s trying to be everything to everyone. Once you’ve identified your niche, let the world know about how you can help:

Provide free information products, write articles and white papers about the problems your clients face and how they can solve them.

Conduct workshops, seminars and tele-classes specifically geared towards helping your prospective customers and before long you’ll be regarded as an expert in your field.

And, while you’re at it don’t forget to, collect names, emails and addresses of prospects to keep filling your pipeline.

3. Develop ongoing relationships with complementary professionals and build your referral team. Here’s another strategy that really works: These are other professionals who sell non-competing services or products to the same niche customers you are targeting.

For instance, as a business coach, I find that my clients often need the services of bookkeepers, accountants and business attorneys, so I’m in a really good position to refer them to those qualified professionals. Likewise, they often refer business to me. Here are a couple of other examples: A Residential realtor, mortgage broker, real estate attorney make up a great power team, because when one of them gets a new client, it’s likely that they will need the services of the others. In the same way, a commercial printer, copywriter, web designer and graphic designer make a great power team.

4. Institute a system to keep track of all of the people who are interested in your product or services, and find creative ways of keeping in touch with them on a regular basis. To start, go through your notes. Put together a list of all of the people you’ve spoken to in the last 6-9 months who’ve showed interest in you but haven’t become paying customers.

Then, follow up with them in a variety of ways: call them to touch base, use email, ask them to subscribe to a newsletter, send them interesting articles, or invite them to join you at events.

It takes many impressions to make the sale; that’s why you see commercials on TV over and over again for the same products. By keeping track of all of the people who’ve showed interest and keeping your business on their radar screen you’ll turn more of them into paying customers.

5. Let your satisfied customers help you sell your products or services. Here are a couple of ways to do this:

Ask them for referrals at the right time, when the memory of the service you delighted them with is still fresh in their mind. (if you were a car salesman you wouldn’t wait for the new car to get dirty and dented!)

Ask them to write testimonials for you, and compile a list of testimonials to use in your all of your marketing collateral.

6. Create a marketing calendar and keep to it consistently. Scheduling marketing activities that take place weekly, bi monthly, monthly and quarterly will help you to avoid the feast or famine syndrome that most independent professionals fall prey to. And, by doing so, marketing will become easier since it becomes a regular part of your business life.

7. Identify innovative ways to get more business from existing customers. It’s much easier to get business from customers who are already happy with your services or products. So develop additional services or products to keep customers coming back for more.

Need help developing low cost marketing strategies for your business? Learn more about my marketing coaching services.

"Susan taught me how to think about my law practice as a business. She helped me to build confidence in my role as a business owner and boss, showed me how to use my financial records as profitability tools and focus my marketing on a select target market so I attract more of my ideal clients and cases. I would highly recommend Susan to anyone who wants to run a profitable, sane and productive business. Thank you Susan!" -Lisa Eisenberg, Immigration Attorney

"I am one of two partners in a small law firm. When I started working with Susan, I was completely wedded to the idea that I was a "practicing attorney" rather than a small business owner, which meant that I often failed do any long range business planning or to maintain solid control of my firm's profitability and finances. Susan cured me of that and has helped me create a business plan for myself and for my small firm, and the results have been dramatic." Erica Bell, Esq., Weiss, Buell & Bell

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