Many of our clients come to us wondering how to divide their marketing budgets. Whether you’ve got an endless stream of cash to spend on high-production commercials or you’re working with a more modest annual sum it’s important to consider your particular situation when allocating your company’s marketing dollars. You don’t have to have a lot of money to market your business effectively, you just have to know how to spend it.
The first step to determining where to put your money is figuring out your marketing goals. Are you a new business looking to make your brand more visible or are you more established and looking to cement brand loyalty among your current customers? You’ll reach out to each target in different ways so you have to know where you’re going before you start.
Once you’ve decided what you’d like to accomplish this year, say, obtaining 150 new clients, it’s time to figure out how to reach them. Start with the low-hanging fruit: the ways in which you can find new business without spending a lot of money. This can mean reaching out via social media or simply making a few door-to-door appointments with potential clients in your area. Try a few different tactics and see what works best.
After you’ve found a few ways in which people seem to be responding to your “pitch” you can start funneling money in that direction. Had a lot of luck reaching out to businesses directly about your product? Why not spend the money to set up a booth at a national trade show in an industry you’re targeting? Once you’ve narrowed down a pool of potential targets you can effectively spend money on things like promotional bags and giveaways without worrying you’re wasting your marketing dollars.
If your goal is less focused on earning new business and more so on maintaining your current customer base you may want to market in different ways. Marketing isn’t just reaching people who’ve never heard of you, it’s solidifying the bond you have with your current customers and business community. Show clients you care by sending out “Thanks for the Business” tote bags or call a few of your biggest buyers and take them out to lunch. The more personal they perceive your business connection the less likely they’ll be to stray.
If you’d prefer a two-pronged approach to marketing – both keeping the old and bringing in the new – mine your successful business relationships for information. Talk to your longtime clients about what’s kept them coming back and reach out to past clients about why they left (and while you’ve got them, win that business back!) Your customers are the most valuable source of marketing information you have and they’re friendlier than you think.
Marketing isn’t about the budget, it’s about the plan. Effective marketing doesn’t necessarily cost a lot of money, it simply spends the money allocated in an effective, efficient way. Whether you can only afford simple custom plastic bags or you’re taking out full-page newspaper ads, no marketing dollars spent are wasted unless they’re not backed up by research. A marketing plan is the small business owner’s best friend.
