Budget Marketing
Choose The Right Strategy &
Fatten Your Wallet
Do It Easier With Business Budgeting Software.
Budget marketing is a big enough headache on its own without considering ongoing, small business budgeting for day to day costs. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just keep throwing truck loads of money at our marketing until we found the strategy that gave us the best results. Dream On! In the real world you can’t do that… at least I can’t. "Hey, we’re on a budget here" Every man and his dog knows that around 50 cents out of every marketing dollar is wasted. Too true. Running a
SWOT analysis
over your business is a good place to start. It will reveal things like your Strengths, Weaknesses, your Opportunities and Threats.
Marketing Should Fatten Your Wallet... NOT Your Ego.
By that I mean don’t fall for big, color, yellow page ads that are only good for attracting tyre kickers and doubling the estimator’s workload.You know how it goes… "my ad’s bigger than yours" Instead… test and measure your marketing so you know what works and what doesn’t. Being in the printing industry for many years I’ve witnessed so many business owners waste so much money on printed marketing material such as brochures & flyers. Often their entire budget marketing effort consists of filling up the local letterboxes with badly designed, cheap flyers & hoping the phone is going to ring off the hook. "Guess what... it doesn't" Another classic is placing a small ad in the local paper and hoping it does the same. No surprise results there. There are a number of questions to ask yourself if you wish to create a successful low budget marketing campaign...
What Do I Want To Do?
• Target new business.
• Increase profit margins.
• Sell more to existing customers.
• Open a new outlet.
• Introduce a new product line.We need to be crystal clear on what we want to do so we’re not wasting money & time on strategies that do not work... we’re on a budget after all.
What Type Customers Do I Want for My Business?
Again, we’re on the money conservation trail so we need to know exactly who to target.This is where some
marketing intelligence
really pays off. Where do my qualified prospects hangout? What keeps them awake at night? What’s the most cost effective way to find them? You may wish to get hold of a list of prospects from a list broker or you may already have your own list. Either way, keep in mind exactly who you want as customers.
What are My Points of Difference?
Try & remain sharply focussed on your particular strengths, it’s an expensive exercise trying to be all things to all people.We’re All in The Problem Solving Business. “Keep solving my problems and I’ll keep coming back” There’s a hardware shop near where I used to live and one day I dropped in to get some help. I wanted to make a garden box for my young son to grow some herbs and the guy at the hardware shop spent ages wandering around finding the best bits of wood and the right size screws and even gave me the address of a website where I could download a plan. I reckon he would have made $5.00 profit tops for about 10 minutes work, not your average king’s ransom. He solved my problem & won a customer for life. I guess if he charged me a lot of money I wouldn’t be a customer for life. Now that’s real budget marketing,
UFO? – no… USP!
What’s your unique selling proposition?"What's my what?" How can you explain in 8 words or less, the things you do that no one else does. No... not THAT party trick. The USP of the hardware shop I previously talked about could be - “You’ll want to be my customer for life” Ideally, your USP should be a natural follow-on from your business name, ie Joe Bloggs Hardware, you’ll want to be my customer for life. And it should create some interest and leave the reader thinking - “Gee, I’d like to know more about that” A USP also helps qualify potential customers as it communicates to them the benefits that they’ll receive if they do business with you. All your printed stationery should have your USP printed on it. This in itself is a cost cutting & time saving exercise. Research the most efficient and cost effective solution to for delivering your message to your prospects, make the best use of your marketing budget without cutting corners.
Here’s a High Priority Budget Marketing Point.
We all know that it costs more to get a new customer than it does to retain a current customer, it’s old news.However, did you know that, based on studies, profitability increases by more than 30% if you can squeeze 5% more business from your existing customers. Strange but true. So… focus on selling more to existing customers. It’ll cost less than finding new ones and your profits will sky rocket. By creating a structured budget marketing plan the success of your business is guaranteed.
Modern Net-Wit:
"Wal-mart... do they, like, make walls there?" .............................................................................Paris Hilton
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