12 Ways To Stretch a Tight Budget
In 35 years of developing advertising campaigns for clients ranging from garage shop start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, I have never heard a client say they have too much money to spend. But a tight budget should never be an excuse to do nothing. After all the way to get a bigger budget is to sell more and you can't sell anything to people who don't know who you are or what you offer.
Today there are more ways than ever to spread your selling story without spending more than you can afford. Certainly there are sensible, proven things you can do … such as develop a solid year-long plan so that you don't waste money on "ideas-of-the-day" while your most likely prospects wait to hear from you. But, here are 12 things we have found helpful to clients whose dreams are bigger than their budget. We know a lot more tricks of the trade, but an even dozen seemed like a good number to start. Call us if you'd like to hear more.
1.Target your best prospects
Focus builds cost-efficiency. Many times it is better to spend more per prospect on a select group of prospects than to spread your budget too thin to be seen trying to reach everyone.
When you focus on the low-hanging fruit, you can use higher-impact mailers. If you want to ensure your message gets noticed, put it in a box. In 2004 dimensional mail averaged the highest overall response rate at 5.49%, of any direct-response medium according to the Direct Marketing Association.* Our own experience shows response rates can go significantly higher when dimensionally mailers are skillfully used.
For example, we once sent "golden egg" mailers to a group of 150 prospective dealers for Frick-Gallagher industrial storage products. Over 35% responded to our offer featuring an informative presentation. For just a few thousand dollars, Frick-Gallagher was able to start relationships with dealers who returned the investment over 100 times within one year.
2.Master Paid Search
According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project report, nearly 85% of internet users perform online searches. There are two ways to take advantage of this ongoing search for information: (1) pay to guarantee your message reaches prospects actively looking to buy what you sell. (2) Be at the top of "organic" search results.
Paid search on engines such as Google and Bing allows you to declare how much you are willing to pay for a searcher to click through to your site. Paid Search is also controllable since you set the budget and control when to turn the lead faucet on and off. Set a ceiling on how much you will spend per day. Once your ceiling is reached your ad disappears until the next day. By identifying the right keywords, and developing short ads Paid Search will deliver exceptional value. One of our clients, a major national label producer, kept detailed records of their Google Adwords program and noticed they generated 5 times as many leads from the same budget as they did with banner ads on leading industry web sites and newsletters.
3.Optimize your web site
Ranking high in "organic" search results can be an even more cost-effective way of gathering sales leads and sales. The ultimate goal is to have your site turn up near the top of search results. One study concluded that sites appearing on the first page of results may attract six times the traffic as those on subsequent pages.
Today, the key to effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization)is to create fresh content for your site. In this case “fresh” means content not available elsewhere. Your business most likely knows more about a particular business than anyone else. Use that knowledge to attract prospects. Make sure your site signals that it has the kind of information searchers usually look for. Common sense mirrors reality. Sites with lots of content and links to important information sites rate higher than "brochure-ware" sites that are little more than cyber-sales pitches.
4. Develop a community of prospects
People buy from people they trust. Once you have attracted a prospect's attention, you have earned the right to start a conversation with them. Yet most marketers fail to plan for what happens after they get a sales lead. Face it, how often have you made a sale the first time you met someone. The same holds true for sales leads. Start looking at them as people who have simply raised their hands and indicated they are interested in what you have to sell. Use basic database management techniques to form a community of prospects and treat them as valued friends rather than targets. Give them valuable information. Stay in touch. Today's technology allows you to do all of this in an automated fashion and advanced personalization. Use it to treat prospects with the respect they deserve.
We have used e-newsletters, planned e-mail campaigns and personalized mailers to nuture communities of prospects to great success. But perhaps the best marketer we have seen in this regard is Southwest Airlines. Try buying a ticket from this discount carrier and see if you ever again celebrate a birthday without at least one card from your friends at Southwest.
5. Create a third-party newsletter
In an information-hungry age, a simple newsletter can be an invaluable marketing tool. Every marketer knows things that can help their prospects lead a happier life or do things better in business. Share it and make friends. Better yet, create a third-party entity with independent authority and position yourself as a sponsor. We have done this with great effect for our client Clockwork Home Services, North America’s leading developer of home service franchises. We developed a helpful newsletter titled, The Successful Contractor and packed it full of information helpful to potential franchisees. Every issue of this e-newsletter attracted 200 or more prospects.
6. Use your web site to attract rather than just fulfill
While we are on the topic of information, remember that information and social networking make the web go 'round. Both can be used to make your web site a popular destination point. If you have something to offer, its easy to get people to visit without spending very much money. VetPetMD.com, a site we developed attracted over 80,000 visitors from one e-mail. The total cost to our client was less than $300. Once people come to the site we are able to capture e-mail addresses from many. Now we have a community of prospects that we regularly correspond with. We never could have achieved this level of success with a traditional web site designed to sell the company rather than lend a helping hand to their prospects.
7. Help an editor
The modern drive to cut costs has affected the media as well as marketers. Editorial staffs are tighter. There is less money for research and development of new initiatives. A quick look through any trade publication, newspaper or web site will show a wealth of contributed editorial. Make some of it yours. Find a different slant on popular topics of the day. Use your industy contacts to generate interesting stories or collect information that will be helpful to the media.
We have used this technique to great effect for a client who markets to the emerging Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) market. Recognizing that many more companies are currently exploring the technology than are actually using it, we developed a series of articles concerning how the RFID revolution will affect different groups of professionals. These articles are published on an area of the company's web site titled, RFID Effect. But all articles are also being made available to editors of key industry publications and web sites.
8. Add on-line PR
Little known fact: The most popular page on most web sites is the "News" page. Think of new ways to use it. Every company has some news important to the industry, but there is probably even more news that might be more important to prospects than media. Prospects often visit the News section of your web site to better understand what's happening at your company. They want to know about the people, your successes, how you helped others, your new technologies, and anything else that will help them form a judgement about you. All of it is important communication between you and your prospects. And it is some of the lowest cost communication you will ever undertake.
9. Throw away your #10 envelopes
Developing more affordable communications often means eliminating waste. And nothing wastes money like mailers sent in #10 envelopes to prospects who barely know you. Especially if the envelope is addressed using a computer-generated stick-on label. Why not just write "Nothing in Here is Important" on the front of the envelope? There are any number of mailing formats available for about the same budget and far more likely to be opened. Consider, for example, how often you throw away a colored envelope that looks like it contains a greeting card. No need for fancy art on the envelope. Just make it look like something that might have a more personal feel than a bank letter. The only thing required is a little imagination.
10.Develop partnership marketing opportunities
One of our clients developed a program to sell foodservice equipment made from a new high-temperature plastic. The plastics manufacturer had as much interest in developing a new application as our client. The result was a joint marketing program that was a win-win situation for both. Marketing partnerships no longer mean joint sales efforts. Today they are most often used to allow both companies to cut the costs of their marketing activities.
We once designed a promotional catalog mailer for a manufacturer of industrial storage products who partnered with a manufacturer of ladders used by the same group of prospects. The result was a high-impact mailing of double value to the people who received it.
11. Its good to be king. Target niche markets
The smaller the market the lower the marketing costs and the easier it is to identify decision-makers. If you consider that mass markets are really collections of special interest groups, it is easy to see how you can use niche marketing techniques to build affordability and impact at the same time.
Once I was working with a manufacturer of industrial vacuums who noticed an exceptional response to a news release from a small niche market of plastic resin manufacturers. It turned out that this market had a real need for a vacuum system to handle scrap plastic from molding processes. As a result this client became the innovator in the market and enjoyed many years of profitable sales.
12. Design an event
How many times do you have the opportunity to talk to lots of prospects at the same time … especially when they are all hanging on your every word. Use your knowledge and experience to develop a seminar or webinar of interest to your prospects. "How To" events are great draws and today the technology exists to pull off high-impact events more affordably than ever.
In the 1980's (it seems like a lifetime ago) I worked on a 32-city traveling presentation for a major trade magazine. It included an inspirational multi-media presentation chock full of information generated from a book on advertising sales leads we had just written for this client. It was information of great value to potential advertisers in this magazine and they filled the room at every stop. The costs added up the largest promotional expenditure this client had ever made.
Today we are working on a webinar for a Fortune 500 company that will attract the same amount of interest for less money than they will spend on a page of advertising in their least expensive trade publication. Times have changed.
Today, there are a world of new opportunities for marketers, whether you are selling to consumers, retailers, distributors or other businesses.
