Frugal Marketing for Entrepreneurs

How do you market when chips are low? You think smarter than other guys. Here are few ideas to get your brains in gear.

Referrals : This is what you call “Words of Mouth” Marketing. People talk about you and you get business. But How do you get people talking about you? Isn’t that pain to think about it?

Yesterday I was doing an extensive consultation with a client. His Jaw dropped when I explained Referral Strategy for his business. There was nothing new about it (at least not to me). This strategy was very simple. Contact Existing clients and give them reason (incentive) to talk about his services.

I had him create 3 different lists of his clients/ New clients and prospects. Now you have to approach all of them with a different message to provide him referral.

For example here’s what I do, when someone consults me, I give them 2 Free Critiques Coupon of their advertisements (that’s $700 worth). They can use their first critique without any obligation. But If they need a second one, They’d have to provide this free coupon to their friends/colleagues or business partner, Only then their 2nd coupon will be valid.

Now after consulting with me and critique, often business owners want to get that free critique as its not just sham, the critique is real deal. It’s helping me generate business.

Email Signature: This is so simple that even experts miss them. How many e-mail messages do you send everyday?  You’re probable missing out on a simple, inexpensive marketing tool.  Seize the opportunity to promote your business to a highly targeted market without spending a dime by utilizing your e-mail signature line.

If your email signature line only contains your name and contact information, you’re missing out on advertising to e-mail recipients that have opted for communications from you.

These people are key members of your unofficial marketing network.  They are your prospects, clients, press contacts and colleagues and your signature line is the perfect, unobtrusive space for a unique promotional pitch.

Try these tactics to turn your “sign-offs” into sales:
?    Highlight what your company offers.
?    Offer an incentive for recipients taken a specified action.
?    Use the associated web address for the incentive, if it’s also on your site.
?    Give better visual positioning to the promotion rather than contact info.
?    Play with eye-catching fonts and colors.
?    Use less than 64 characters/line so that words don’t wrap to a new line.
?    Write a “signature” for different categories of recipients.
?    Change your signature copy frequently.
?    Never miss a chance to get your product or company noticed.

White Paper Writing:  This one is so underused and misunderstood technique, its unbelievable. Now Another thing you can do is create a white paper on some important topic in your niche.

You can always highlight the Obvious problems in your industry. You can always talk about changing trend in the industry. Again the Idea is to have a reason why people should ask for this document.

Now whenever a prospect calls, you can give this white paper away for free to educate them about your services and industry. This is good way to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

How much time it takes to write a White Paper? Well, not much actually. You don’t need to write a complete bible on the topic. All you need is good 4-6 pages of content and you are set. I can crank out 6 pages in about an hour. It’ll take couple of days, if you are really bad.

So what I am saying is You can always market your business when chips are down. If you are not doing it, you are just playing games.