7 ways for to improve your bottom-line with low-cost marketing

It’s a myth that Marketing needs to be overly expensive or needs to take up a lot of time or resources in your business to achieve real measurable results and add to your bottom line.

Most small business can implement some low-cost (or even better – no cost) Marketing activities effectively and easily.

Here are some key marketing practices that are easy to implement, cost-effective and will increase the number of leads and sales they receive. Addressing the SMEs directly…

1. Find out who your customers are and what turns them on!

Many businesses think they know who their customers are and the reasons why they buy their product or services, most often though, they don’t really know.

2. Take a good, hard look at your marketing material!

When was the last time you looked at the information you send to people to sell them your product or service? Maybe it’s time to take another look.

Do the key sales messages reflect what your customers say when you ask them why they’ve used your services?
Does your corporate image and identity (your look) reflect what you’re about, what your company stands for?
Do you have short concise statement that accurately communicates to potential customers what it is that you do?

3. Talk to the people who pay you!

Many organizations spend a lot of money trying to create awareness of their product or brand to new target markets. Why not start your marketing with your most precious, current customers?

Do you have a database and if so what state is it in? Is it accurate and up-to-date?
Do you have a system set-up to regularly communicate to your current customers to maximise up-sell and cross-sell opportunities?
Do you have a specific referral program in place to encourage current customers to pass on the good word?

4. Review your website and Search Engine Marketing Angels

Does your website reflect who you are and is it written from the customer’s perspective or the company’s?
Is there a Google Adwords campaign in place to drive the right traffic to the site?

5. Track and measure marketing performance

Are you tracking where all of your leads come from and comparing that to spend?
A simple tick-sheet used by your sales representatives or receptionist asking, “how did you find about our service?” will suffice as a way to track your marketing spend.

6. Are you throwing money away!

After point 4 has been put in place you can ask….
Are you allocating your budget in the right areas? Where do you get the most leads from and, do these result in real sales?

For example, do you get your best leads from your Yellow Pages Ad? Have a look and see if this money could be better spent elsewhere?

7. Are you doing enough bragging!

Are you too busy working in the business rather than on the business
Are you attending events or looking at other opportunities, which allow you to communicate to people about your business?Have you got your 60 second “positioning line” on what you do and what you stand for ‘down

About Jane Toohey

Jane Toohey | Principle Marketing Angels, based in Brisbane.
Jane created the concept of Marketing Angels in October 2001, with her business partner in Sydney. It is a Marketing Consultancy delivering tangible results for Small to Medium Enterprises. They develop brand marketing strategies and tactical plans that integrate with the business, are simple, understandable and hence, fully implemented.

Marketing Angels currently operates across four states in Australia and is opening in New Zealand in March 2006. Marketing Angels has clients across many industries, testimonials from some of those clients can be found on the Marketing Angels website.

Before starting Marketing Angels 5 years ago, Jane was Managing Director of Emery Vincent Design in Melbourne. A specific focus was to develop the brand strategy for major clients including Mallesons, Village Roadshow and Powercor. As Marketing Director for Worldxchange in Sydney, she created a new position for them in the market, developing new branding and a complete holistic marketing strategy.

She has also been a Project Manager for a major CRM implementation, a Business Development Manager and a full-time consultant. She worked for Compaq developing the marketing strategy for the top 100 clients. She was part of the internet marketing revolution from early days, including launching On Australia (now the MSN), a joint venture between Telstra and Microsoft.

Having managed all aspects of a business, setting strategic direction and developing marketing strategy and client relationships. Jane has experience in sales, marketing and technology related disciplines. In past projects she has worked across areas such as brand creation and development, organisational transformation, business strategy and planning, Internet technologies and the development of integrated interactive and marketing strategies.

Jane has 20 years experience in the finance, technology and telecommunications industries. Her formal qualifications include a bachelor of science from the UK in Computer Science, and a certificate of advertising from the University of NSW. Jane is a resource speaker for TEC, a company that coaches groups of CEOs around the country. She sits on the board of the Royal Blind Foundation and is active in driving the marketing strategy for the Silverlining Foundation in Queensland. Jane is a keen cyclist and participates in road and criterion racing.

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