Cost Effective Marketing Strategies for your Business – Part One

1. March 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant for ABC Business Consulting.

There are so many great ways to market a small business and they don’t have to be expensive. Over the next few blogs, I will provide Cost Effective Marketing Strategies that you can implement today for your company’s success. I will start at the conceptual level, building a good foundation. Then in later blogs, I will explore specific strategies. Let’s get to it!

Marketing Keys

Ø  Committed to a well developed Marketing Plan

Ø  Your Company is Customer-Centric and involved with your customers.  Understand your target customer base.

Ø  Consistent Customer Follow Up

Ø  Consent based marketing leads to sales.

Ø  Sell Value & Benefits, not sizzle.  Sell Substance.

Ø  Follow on Marketing or Subsequent to the Sale Marketing is highly economical, yet, exponentially grows profits.

Ø  Have accurate Measurement and Tracking systems for all your Marketing Campaigns, Actions and Strategies.

Important Marketing Plan Components

Ø  Positioning:  What specific niche needs will be filled by your product and service offering?

ü  Objectives

ü  Strengths & Weaknesses

ü  Competition

ü  Target Markets Defined

ü  Target Market Needs

ü  Market Trends

Tips:  Home-based small businesses are exploding.  Could this be a good Target for your products and services?  50 percent of small business start ups are from women.  Could this target benefit from your offering or a variation of your offering?

Ø  Define your Market Position

ü  Does your position provide customer driven benefits?

ü  How specifically does the customer benefit?

ü  Does your position define a competitive edge?

ü  How Unique is your market position?

Ø  The Simple Ten Step Marketing Strategy Process

ü  Step One:  Define your Business Identity

ü  Step Two:  Determine the exact Purpose of the Marketing Plan

ü  Step Three:  Establish Customer Benefits and your Competitive Edge

ü  Step Four:  Determine the Target Markets

ü  Step Five:  Exact Marketing Tools that will be used

ü  Step Six:  Narrow your Market Niche

ü  Step Seven:  Develop your Marketing Positioning

ü  Step Eight:  Establish your Marketing Budget

ü  Step Nine:  Apply the Marketing Strategy Budget to your Strategic Planning Process.  Does it produce a cost effective and profit laden Sales Forecast?

ü  Step Ten:  Re-work as necessary & Take ACTION!

Tips:  Your Marketing Strategy Process should build into the plan certain flexibility and ability to adapt – include contingency based planning.

Ø  Important Objectives of the Marketing Plan

ü  Flexible Plan to change and adapt with the changing market.

ü  Competitive Advantage

ü  Strengthen your Company’s Positive Identity

ü  Keep, resell and up sell your current customers

Creative Marketing

Creative Marketing is effective Strategic Marketing, which simply means the Marketing translates into profits through specific, well planned tools, strategies and plans, which are out-of-the-box and highly targeted.

Ø  A Creative Marketing Strategy has Three Parts

ü  A Purpose

ü  The Benefits Offered

ü  The Brand

Ø  Implementing the Creative Marketing Strategy

ü  Offering must be interesting

ü  Translate the interesting features to concrete benefits

ü  Benefits must be Believable

ü  Get and Hold Attention

ü  Motivate Action

ü  Very clear Communication

ü  Measure, Track & Adjust against the strategy

Ø  Creativity Comes from Knowledge of:

ü  Products & Services

ü  Competition

ü  Target Market Audience

ü  Marketing Area

ü  Marketing Trends

ü  Economic Trends

ü  World & News Events

Ø  Creative Marketing Starts at the End Point

ü  Understand what the customer thinks, wants and needs at the purchase decision event.

ü  Work backwards from the purchase decision back through your Marketing Strategy to its genesis.

Ø  Creative Marketing is Forward Thinking

ü  Help the customer clearly see and feel the end results, benefits and value received after the purchase.

In the next Blog I will get into specific marketing strategies…stayed tuned!

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