Duct Tape Marketing

A year ago, would you have thought that 'twitter' was an effective marketing strategy?  Or that 'tweeting' in public would not earn you weird looks?  That was before Twitter, Inc. asked the world, “What are you doing?”  Twitter.com, a fusion of social networking and instant messaging, is a rapidly rising social media site that welcomes nearly 2 million visitors each month.

The key to any successful business is successful marketing.  Here are eight ways you can successfully promote your business, gain more visibility, and increase your Web site traffic - without spending a lot of money.

There is no arguing that we are facing a down turn in our economy, I’m not ready to call it a recession yet, but we are definitely feeling the pinch. That is the nature of business-it goes in cycles of ups and downs.

When the market slows and sales start to drop, owners’ first instinct is to cut their costs. One of the first to be slashed is the marketing/advertising budget. Ad budgets are often at the top of a cost-conscious small business owner’s hit list because it’s an easy decision to make and it has an immediate impact to the bottom line.

This is a grave mistake. Smart business owners know this is the time to spend more!

Let me explain. When the economy shrinks it tends to shrink as a whole, meaning that people are still buying there are just less of them; the pie has shrunk. If you currently own say, 3% of your market and if the total market is $300m then your sales are $9m.

During a slow down let’s say that the market potential has shrunk by 50% to $150M, assuming you are continuing to do the same income producing activities (marketing, sales, promotions ect) your sales should be $4.5M. I know, as an owner that is scary because your sales on that marketing budget has gone way down and your instinct is to cut budgets, sit back and “wait for it to turn”.

What you do at times like this really depends on how you view marketing. Is your marketing viewed as an expense- something you just have to do? Or do you view it as an investment?

Smart marketers know that while all the competition is standing on the sidelines, if they have the audacity to actually spend more (invest), they will capture more of the market share(because competition is waiting) and when the markets turns around they will reap the huge benefits because they have a greater market share and the pie is now bigger.

So in our above example if you were to get just 2% more market share, which would be 5%. When the economy recovers and the market value goes from $150MM to $300MM your sales would grow and now be $15M.

When is the best time to buy in real estate? When the market is down. When is the best time buy stocks? When the market is down. The same principle holds true for small business marketing.