Marketing Tips

Ways to Stretch A Shrinking Marketing Budget

By Cristine Drach

If you’ve been living under a rock, there’s a small chance that you haven’t heard that the economy is not doing so hot.  Uncertain economic times have led to significantly slashed budgets, and marketers struggle to adjust while still producing results.  So the question remains: What can you do to keep your marketing campaign moving forward while economizing fuel?

With a mix of public relations, synergistic partnerships and good, old fashioned strategy, you can stir up some amazing campaigns that will raise brand awareness, drive site traffic and increase sales.  There are actually many ways to gain exposure for your company that are free. Here are some ideas for marketing in tight financial times.  Ready, Set, Think Free!

First and foremost, the internet is an amazing resource.  There are hundreds of online directories in which you can apply to be listed and will provide a description of what you do and link to your website, which is not only good for your site traffic but also for your search engine ranking.

Next, creating synergistic partnerships with non-competing companies that share your target customer demographic is a cost-effective way to reach your target audience.  Create a list of companies in your industry that share the same target customer and contact their marketing managers. It takes some work, and cold calling is never fun, but a barter agreement can give you exposure to their clients and prospects.  Some ideas are exchanging banner ads for your websites or e-newsletters and trading blog posts.  Partnerships are a great way to network and open the door to a whole new prospect list.

What’s that? Your company doesn’t have a blog? Why not? They’re free, and fun, and can help you gain excellent exposure.  Creating a blog with real valuable content that caters to your customers and industry is the smartest way to draw in readers.  Today, especially in the marketing world, blogging is the status quo; a blog adds credibility and helps to personify a company.  If you want to be competitive in your industry, you should start a blog and link to it from your website.

If you feel confident in your writing skills, you should start writing articles on your topic of expertise to pitch to trade publications.  Trade publications will usually provide an author description for each article, which means exposure for both you and your company to thousands of people.  If your article is published online and you get a link to your website, this could mean site traffic and increased brand awareness. Also, it doesn’t hurt to add “published author” to your resume.

If you’re what some may consider an expert in your field, and you’ve been in the industry for a long time, leverage your years of hard work and exert your PR skills to secure a speaking position at an industry event!  Speaking at panel discussions or at conferences will secure not only yourself, but your company, access to hundreds or even thousands of people; you will be listed in the program for reference and usually listed on the event’s website as well. Hopefully (if you’re really good), conference attendees will review your speech in blogs or newsletters, thus gaining you even more exposure.

Lastly, venture into social media – don’t be scared.  In June 2009, ComScore reported that Twitter had 20.1 million visitors and Facebook had over 77 million. To take advantage of social networks, set your company up with a LinkedIn page and group; likewise for Facebook. However, if you are a b-to-b company, perhaps LinkedIn may be more appropriate due to the professional demographic while Facebook may be more beneficial to a b-to-c company.  Create a company Twitter account and connect with others in the industry through tweets; the more followers you can get, the farther your brand will reach. Social networking may be a big step to take, but it’s the direction marketing is going.

In conclusion, even though your marketing budgets may not be what they were, there’s still hope!  These strategies may take some time and effort but look on the bright side; they’re free and they work!