Cost Effective Ways To Increase Sales In A Down Economy |
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Written by Lance Thompson
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Wednesday, 25 March 2009 11:21 |
 When money is coming in it's easy to spend money on advertising but when things like the economic downturn happen, we as business owners are forced to look at ways of trimming expenses and many times it's on our marketing budgets. Without sounding too self-serving as a marketing company, it seems like the best time to spend money on marketing is when sales are down and customers become more scarce. When your customer base starts shrinking, you can bet that your competition is looking for ways to get a bigger piece of the smaller pond and will continue to market and advertise to snag more of your customers.
Now, it's also vital that as business owners that we get the most mileage out of the money we spend so I wanted to spend a few minutes and brainstorm ways of marketing in some not so expensive ways.
Here are a few ideas I came up with:
- Leverage your email lists - Email is a great way to reach customers and potential customers in a cost effective way. Include special offers and time-limited deals in order to create a sense of urgency.
- SMS Campaigns - do u txt? Text messaging is another often overlooked method for reaching customers. Many businesses haven't taken the time to look into this method of communication because they believe it's too technical and time consuming.
- Make It Viral - Devise a promotion to offer incentives for having your customers refer other customers such as awarding the people with the most referrals, etc. Many times people will trust their friend's referrals more than other forms of advertising so do what you can to leverage their positive experience with your company in a viral campaign.
- Reward Customer Referrals - Devise a campaign to make sure your customers have the tools and incentive they need to refer you to other potential customers. This can be as simple as a "refer-a-friend" form on your website to awarding discounts on future purchases. Make sure your existing clients know about it (see above).
- Reward Employee Referrals - An often overlooked sales force is your non-sales people. The reality is that your entire company is your sales team and every interaction that your people have with your existing and potential customers is a sales opportunity. By giving your entire team incentives you can empower even your IT, accounting and janitorial staff to work to increase your customer base.Use Other People's Brain Cells - Don't get tunnel vision when it comes to your marketing. Think of ways outside of traditional advertising methods of raising awareness. Since every business is unique, get your most creative staff and have a brainstorming party with prizes for the best marketing ideas.
Do you have other great inexpensive marketing ideas? Share them below:
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