• Be realistic: Make the most of your limited budget by thinking creatively. TV and radio ads, glossy brochures and flash-enabled websites can work magic – making your marketing budget disappear in the wink of an eye. Instead, consider using low-budget, high creative marketing to get your message out. Lots of marketing tools like your website, enewsletters and blogs can do a lot more than you may think.
  
• Do you really need a (fill in the blank)? Brochures and other marketing pieces are great ways to promote your business, but before you invest time and money, ask yourself and others some pointed questions. Lots of companies will tell you they have boxes of costly brochures gathering dust. Fact sheets and sales sheets are low-cost substitutes. You can print them as you need them, updating your capabilities, client list, contact changes and new products as necessary. You can even go paperless and convert all documents to pdf for easy emailing and distribution.
  
• Increase your marketing impact by using multiple channels. The more you stretch your marketing dollars to reach your target market, the higher the impact of your marketing message.
  
• Prospects are much more likely to become buyers if they:
  Read about your company in the newspaper
  Attend a seminar and take home a brochure (or fact/sales sheet) and/or
  Visit your website
  
• Target, target, target. Going after the right customer is essential. Targeting small niche markets often trumps focusing on the mass market.
  
• Are you newsworthy? A reference about your company in the media or from the right person will deliver your message at low (or no) cost. Even if you haven’t saved a puppy from drowning lately, doing a bit of pro-bono work is also likely to garner positive attention.
  
• The mother of all referrals. Of course, the best and most cost-effective way to reach new customers is by referrals. A happy customer will get you far, so the time spent encouraging and creating regular customer referrals will be well worth it, maybe many times over. (And remember, you need to give to receive.)

Labels: brochures, low-budget marketing, marketing, referrals, small business