Advertising

Young businesses often face the age-old dilemma of finding the money to spend on advertising. You know you need to spend money to bring in customers, but you don't have the money to spend until you get those customers. The fact is, you do have to spend something. The good news is, you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg. With a little creative thinking, and some effort, you can spend a lot less money.

Advertising

Young businesses often face the age-old dilemma of finding the money to spend on advertising. You know you need to spend money to bring in customers, but you don't have the money to spend until you get those customers. The fact is, you do have to spend something. The good news is, you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg. With a little creative thinking, and some effort, you can spend a lot less money.  You must, however, be prepared to spend more time. That’s the trade-off. If you have unlimited cash, you can buy advertising. If your financial resources are limited, you will have to spend more time on marketing.  A good place to start is with a marketing plan.

A good marketing plan means setting goals, planning strategies and preparing budgets for both time and money. Strategic assessment of your marketing needs allows you to make the most of buying opportunities, discounts, volume pricing etc. It also helps to keep you focused. In order to make sure that you are making the most of the minimal budget that you have, you will always have to maintain a focus on who your target customer is. You will have to assess every advertising/marketing opportunity out there to determine if it will hit your target audience and if it is cost effective.

If you do decide that an opportunity is a wise investment for your business, make sure that you also take the time to get the most exposure out of it that you can. In other words, advertise the advertising. If you have taken out a website – let people know about it by putting it on your signs and business cards and in your ads. If you are having an event – send out a press release, put signs in your windows, on your website, send emails out to your customers and get out to networking events to let people know about it.

Using other businesses to help market yours is another great way to stretch your advertising dollars. Teaming up with other entrepreneurs with whom you share a target market will create extra business for all of you as you refer and promote to each other through links to each other’s websites and showcasing each other’s brochures and business cards.

Keeping your existing customers happy is also a good way to increase sales. Happy customers will not only be repeat customers, but they will bring in new customers by their referrals. Their testimonials will help market your business. Everyone likes to do business with people that have come recommended.

And remember -  bigger is not always better.  Don’t put on a big show and blow the budget on one campaign or event and then have nothing left to follow it up with. The key to a good marketing plan is consistency and frequency. It is far better to find several small ways to keep your name out there over a longer period of time.

For some good marketing ideas, check with your competitors – What is working for them? What is not? What does their budget look like? Copy good ideas, adapt others and learn what mistakes to avoid. Networking events, websites and business consultants are also excellent sources of inspiration and advice. But the bottom line is that you are the best judge of what you can afford. It takes a combination of both time and money to make a name for yourself. How much of each is up to you. The worst thing that you can do is to do nothing.

One of the most important things to remember with marketing is that you can’t manage it if you can’t measure it. Tracking your results will make sure that your efforts are paying off. Use feedback forms, draws, coded coupons, a database etc to keep track of your marketing successes and failures. This can save you money and time.

Best Advice:

Focus on your customer.  Targeted marketing is far more cost effective than mass marketing.

Concentrate on one clear message.  It must be easily read and identified as a benefit to your targeted customer quickly.

Be consistent.  All of your marketing materials should look as if they are from the same company to be effective. Consider using a catchy tag line.

Don't stop marketing when cash flow is poor. That’s when promotion is most important.  Get creative and get out there!

Seek out help where it is free and freely given first before paying the big bucks. There are many sources of online help and government  sponsored resources like the Greater Barrie Business Enterprise Centre. If you are unsure where to get the help you need – Call us. If we can’t help you, we will know who can!