Ken Lapp - President, Standard Marketing
There are many free or inexpensive marketing initiatives a business can pursue. Although we specialize in Internet marketing, we recommend a combination of initiatives:
Give free educational presentations: People don’t want to be sold. They want to buy. Putting yourself in the role of expert means people will come to you. But don’t sell. As soon as you sell you turn into a salesman. The strange thing is that if you empower people to do it themselves, most will ask you to do it for them.
Direct response: If you try an ad and it doesn’t bring business, stop. And don’t run any ad unless it: (a) has an enticing offer, (b) shows how your product or service will improve customers’ lives, (c) has an explicit call to action with a sense of urgency, limited time or short supply, and (d) includes contact information.
Google My Business: This has the red dots on the map beside the listings. It’s free and is the quickest way to the top of page 1 of Google search results. To choose the best category, search Google for one of your keywords and find the category of the business in the top spot now.
Website: A templated WordPress website is the cheapest way to get a professional-looking website, if you can have a different title tag and description tag on every page. Choose a niche and have enough content to enable Google to see you as an authority. Add original-content blog articles once a week, and on your home page put all the best reasons to deal with you and as many features that inspire trust, such as testimonials, as you can.
Kathleen Cummins - Principal, Cummins Consulting
When you buy a product, you can see it, feel it and compare its construction and price to its competitors. But buying professional services (from a lawyer, accountant, engineer, dentist, etc.) relies on good faith. The client must trust that the service provider knows what he or she is doing and can achieve the result desired.
Similarly, the foundations of marketing professional services are the provision of access to reassuring information and the development of relationships over time.
If you’re on a tight marketing budget, focus on two areas that will give you the most bang for your buck:
Website: Everyone has one but few ensure they really serve their purpose. Work with your service provider to optimize your site with the right keywords, and update your site regularly. Think about what clients need to know about you and make it easy to find that information. Be accessible – place your contact information in a prominent spot. Be credible – show them you’ve done what they need you to do for them with representative client and work lists. Provide reassurance – consider including a few testimonials on your site. To keep your update costs down, prepare all your content changes and keywords in advance.
LinkedIn: Of its 375 million users worldwide, 40% check LinkedIn every single day. And participation is free, making this the least expensive and most powerful marketing tool at your disposal. Develop a strong profile, seek to have over 500 connections and post regular updates.You’ll be surprised at how effective it can be in helping to build relationships over time.
Heather Gray-Grant - Principal, Heather Gray-Grant Consulting
If you want the most effective marketing possible on a minimal budget, allocate your spending the way you would buy a house. The process would look something like this:
1. Determine your budget. No point looking at $5 million properties if that’s a pipe dream. What should you spend on marketing? For professional services, it’s usually 3.5% to 5% of the previous year’s gross revenues. For retail, 5% to 20%.
2. Determine your needs. No point in getting a five-bedroom place if you need only one or two. Come up with specific goals for your marketing. “More sales” doesn’t cut it. More sales with which demographic? More sales of which product or services?
3. Pick a location and check out the available inventory. In a marketing context, determine your marketing vehicles. To do this, consider how the people in your target market make buying decisions. What information do they need to know about your product/service, and about you? How do they get their information? Where can you most easily and cost-effectively connect with those people? Newspaper ads? Website and social media? Flyers at the local shopping mall? Free seminars? Direct mail?
4. Make your decision and put in an offer. For a marketing plan, this means that you need to decide what your marketing mix will be – usually based on budget, ability to touch your target market and ease of execution – and then carefully implement that plan.
In other words, the best and most cost-effective marketing you can do doesn’t start with marketing. It begins with goal setting, continues with planning and ends with disciplined execution of your plan.
