Strategy: Direct Marketing on a Shoestring Budget

Many business owners (or mid-sized business marketers) are always aghast at the budget required to market their products/services. In direct marketing in particular, ever-rising postal costs, printing and even data management sticker shock can stop a project in its tracks.

The question is: How can you best use your precious marketing budget to accomplish the most? The answer is to work smarter, not harder:

1. Segment Your Customers and Your Messaging
Stop thinking about your customers as one homogenous group of people or businesses. If you’re in B-to-B, segment your customers by vertical industry (if you don’t know what industry they’re in, a reputable data broker can append that information to your customer file). Then select the top three to five industries you serve and use industry-specific messaging to that segment.

For example, if your company sells bookkeeping services and you want to cross-sell tax prep services, position it as “Tax Preparation Services for the Hotel Industry.” Highlight your knowledge of their category by using language or industry terms most familiar to them. Prospects want to know that you understand their businesses and the issues they’re facing, so include quotes from customers who are in the hotel industry to add credibility.

If you’re in the B-to-C space, a little data enhancement can help you segment your customers into life stages.

For example, if you own a bicycle shop, have a little data appended to your customer file so you can reach out to families with young children and promote free classes on how to attach a child carrier, or a session on how to choose and fit the best helmet. Meanwhile, singles would be more interested in a group bike outing, comfortable bike clothing or a bike tune-up.

Customer segmentation strategies can have the biggest impact on your results; no one wants to be treated “like everyone else.” If you’re having a sale, invite your long-standing (or more recent) customers to come the day before to a “pre-sale”—add a little wine and cheese and turn it into a customer appreciation event. Use a postcard to invite them (it will garner a better response than an email). But also advise them that they’re welcome to bring a friend (after all, who wants to shop alone?).

2. Use Content Marketing Wisely

People are information seekers—especially when it comes to a B-to-B purchase, and that’s when content marketing can be an extremely useful marketing tool.

Have you conducted a survey among your customers? Turn it into a research paper. Do you consider yourself an expert on a topic related to your business? Turn it into a whitepaper—or a series of whitepapers. Do customers and prospects ask a lot of the same types of questions? Turn that into a series of “how to” guides or videos.

With a few tweaks, you can use all of that content and reposition it to different vertical industries or customer life stages.

Great content is not merely an ad or a product brochure masquerading as insightful information—quite the opposite. Great content is insightful information delivered by people who know what they’re talking about, without any sales message.

And don’t forget a few rules about designing your content: Forget the heavy ink coverage. If you’re paying to print it and distribute it, that cost is on you. But these days, most content is downloaded, and no one wants to waste toner on your full-bleed cover. That means they may choose not to print it … or read it.

Break up your copy with plenty of subheads and visuals. People are scanners, and they’re looking for tidbits of information that are most relevant to them. Subheads allow fast scanning, while visuals (with captions) help reinforce the message you’re trying to deliver, while making your layout visually pleasing.

3. Content Across Channels

If you’re in B-to-B, you can post your industry content to third-party sites and leverage a guaranteed lead program, where you only pay for those who download your content. Take an excerpt from a whitepaper and turn it into a blog post—or a series of blog posts. Have a strong visual component to your product? Post it to Pinterest or Instagram or Facebook. Post content on LinkedIn, or post it to your website and tweet about it. Pitch it to a conference organizer as a speaker topic. Print it out and leave it as part of your “leave-behind” package, or email it as part of your “follow up.” Organize a breakfast roundtable, invite customers and prospects, and use the content as a basis for a conversation on a timely topic.

4. Low-cost Printer Alternatives

There are numerous reputable printers (found online) who will gang-print materials with other customers’ projects to lower costs for both of you. By combining print projects from multiple clients and laying them out on one “sheet,” it’s a more cost-efficient use of paper and ink.

5. Remnant Print Ad Space

If you have a message that doesn’t have to appear in print on a specific day, ask your print rep about remnant pricing. This is unsold ad space that a newspaper will fill with your ad if it’s already in the rep’s hands. Oftentimes, the newspaper media cost is a fraction of what you’d normally pay.

6. Test Affiliate Marketing

Work with a reputable partner and establish a fixed budget. They’ll identify and place digital ads on sites that can appeal to a wide variety of different target audiences. You only pay for clicks.

7. Creative Budget Busters

Small budget for graphics or copywriting? Consider reaching out to your local college and find a couple of students to help. There are plenty of seniors who would love some “real world” experience for their portfolios. Or, if you need help with strategic planning, contact a professor of marketing and see if his class wants to take on your business as a marketing assignment.

With a little ingenuity, there are plenty of ways you can stretch your marketing budget further and achieve your marketing goals.

Article From:  www.targetmarketingmag.com