Marketing Budget in Tough Economic Times

     Financial Crisis.

     So we have to save money.

     1.In hard times, think about ramping up use of email, fax, and direct mail as inexpensive ways to deliver targeted offers to your best prospects. Instead of ’shotgun’ mailouts to purchased lists, repeat mailouts to those who inquired in the past. Perhaps you don’t have your own email list to market to. If not, think about renting a list from a publisher or putting ads in other targeted email newsletters. This can be a great way to generate quick response by reaching your market.

     2.Taking advantage of public relations opportunities can generate more bang for the buck. Writing an article for an industry publication is a great example. Article contributions can include success stories and customer testimonials, as well as article bylines that illustrate your expertise. Another method of keeping your company in your customers’ minds is the newsletter. By maintaining the newsletter circulation, a brief prerequisite survey can ask subscribers some qualifying questions. The answers to these questions should be entered into the database, and follow-up steps should be taken if appropriate. Both the newsletter and article contributions can be re purposed for the Web.

     3.Promoting your company executives as speakers at important meetings and conferences is another economical marketing tactic. These events can be used to generate leads by sending audience members a white paper or copy of the presentation in exchange for their business cards.

     4.Your company will most likely benefit more from a frequent presence in a couple of publications than from an infrequent presence in several. Ask your media reps for BPA statements, and study them to discover the percentage of a publication’s readers who are actually part of your target market. Also, in tough times ad sales tend to suffer. It may be possible to negotiate a lower rate with publishers.

     5.You can improve the return on your investment in a company website by working with other organizations, increasing the number of links to your site. Careful keyword selection can help your site rank well among your intended audience’s searches, and by posting article content and case studies on your site, you have more pages to register with search engines.

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