Not all business companies have large marketing budgets. In fact, a great percentage of the companies have small to medium marketing budgets. Due to this deficit, companies are trying to find ways in order to stretch their marketing budget. In other words, they are trying to make the most out of the little resources they have got. For the new companies, here are the ten best ways to stretch their marketing projects.
1. First is using ads in everything and not just on space advertising. Most low budget companies do not engage on TV advertising and they just settle on printed advertising. There are ways to capitalize on this situation while spending the least possible amount.
The company must order large amount of printed ads such as brochures, flyers and leaflet. Distributing them everywhere will bring customers and prospects. When a customer is interested in the ad and makes some further inquiries through mails, attach a copy of the ad to refresh the prospect of the reason of inquiries on the responding mail.
Distribute ads inside the company among the employees of other departments. This act will make them feel the marketing and promotional efforts of the company. Sales agents of the company should have a copy of the ad so they can give the ads to their customers during their visits.
Reinforcing the ad with the product specifications and other information on the product will expose the readers deeply about the product. This will not only save the advertising cost but also gives the reader a sense of sincerity from the company.
Attaching ad reprint on sales letters and reply cards will save a lot of money. Letter is less expensive that the ad while reaching the intended targets.
Sometimes, company creates several advertisements for the same product or product line. Instead of creating a new brochure for the product, they can use those ad reprints and bound them into a single brochure to provide additional exposure to prospects.
Informative ads can be use as an educational material by other companies. This will increase the exposure of the product without much cost. In other cases, cool graphical ads can be distributed for framing purposes.
Do not settle for one time ads. Use the ads repeatedly to save the company budget.
2. Stick to Workable Concepts. It is hard to come up with advertising and promotional concepts, but it is harder to create concepts that work well for the business. Once the selling power of a concept is high, make it run for as long as possible. Include updates to cope up with the changes but retain the concept. This will save the company lots of money from advertising.
3. Avoid Excessive Presentations. One common mistake on small companies is that when their marketing budget increases, they think that they are obliged to improve their advertising campaigns. However, they lost sight on their objective and ended up exaggerating in their actions. They try to make their printed materials more beautiful instead of making it informative and easy to understand.
One example of this is a brochure which is printed in multi-colored. Sometimes, the company tries to imitate the ad materials of other companies which might confuse the customers. Make sure that the printed ad materials embody the brand and goal of the company and not on anyone else.
4. Use "modular" product ad printouts. Product brochures generally have basic information about the product. However, products are bought by different people to cater different needs. In order to feature each application of the product, the company must create separate brochures for each need. This is costly especially for low budget companies.
In order to solve this problem, the company will use modular literature on its brochures. It is easy and less expensive to do. Using the same basic layout and graphic design on the brochure, the company will provide sections to accommodate each market needs. The brochure will look the same except for the additional contents which provides information of different specifications.
5. Use article reprints as supplementary sales literature. Specialized markets differ in interest, background and purpose of purchasing a single product. Therefore it is necessary for the reps and sales agents to be backed with a sale literature that coincide with their specifications. However, for a low budget marketing department, it is impossible to come up with specialized sales literature. One solution to this is by creating articles of different specialization and submitting them on journals. The journals will be the one to provide the layout and print the article. The journal containing the article will then be used as a supplementary sales literature. Since it is written by a respectable journal, the article will gain credibility as a sales literature.
6. Find less expensive options in generating leads. Instead of focusing on brand recognition, some companies rely on the number of inquiries about a product. Banner advertising, organic search and PR are some alternatives to generate leads.
The most successful method of generating leads is by press releases featuring new products. Using the website for press releases is also an effective way of generating leads.
7. Pay the minimum amount for outside marketing experts. Do not hire experts without thinking. Make sure to take in consideration the amount of budget the company can afford. There are lots of freelance creative talents. Find talents whose expertise and price fit the planned project.
8. Do it yourself. Do not rely on marketing agencies to do all tasks. There are easier jobs than can be done by company employees instead of hiring agencies. It is less expensive to do tasks using the company manpower.
9. Capitalize on existing marketing materials and concepts as much as possible. Printouts, brochures, article contents, graphic designs and other layouts can be utilize on other company campaigns. An example is the article content from the website can be printed in brochures or the graphic design on a brochure can be use on flyers and other sales materials.
10. Pay the business partners on time. When the company acquires services from freelancers and other marketing agencies, paying those services at the agreed arrangements means good business. This act will lead to better services from them.
Marketing budget has always been the basis of all marketing activities of a company. Sometimes, a company will have to think twice of hiring marketing agencies because of their budget. There is a marketing agency that offers services which will fit to any budget, Creatus. They offer marketing consultations at http://4creatus.com at affordable price.




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