How to get big marketing results with a small budget?
As Cecilia introduced in her interesting post “Don’t underestimate cheap marketing“, marketing tactics that make innovative use of limited financial resources can be very effective. When times are challenging, small business has to maximize results and get the most from every direct marketing dollar. . Learning from the simple, original, and effective marketing campaign conducted by Guangyin Yoga Club (which costs £74 in total), I think the following two aspects can make a big difference for low budget marketing.
- Make It Memorable
You don’t have to host a bungee jumping contest to stand out. The owner of San Francisco mission-district restaurant, Casa Sanchez, came up with this idea: offering free lunch for life to anyone who got a tattoo of their Jimmy the Corn Man logo. Through the course of the promotion, 39 people were willing to be tattooed with the sombrero-wearing mariachi boy riding a blazing corn cob. Associated Press, LA Weekly, USA Today and local TV stations were among the media that picked up the story, affording the restaurant extensive coverage for what was essentially a free promotion.
- Get Customers Involved
Also, the best way to motivate customers for very little money is to get them involved on an emotional or experiential level. Here’s a great example featuring a familiar product. The LifeSavers five-flavor pack has been around for years, and the company has consistently studied consumer response to each individual flavor. But it wasn’t until LifeSavers considered phasing out its pineapple flavor that it turned research into a highly effective promotion.LifeSavers set up a special Web site and toll-free number asking customers to vote to keep pineapple or replace it with strawberry or watermelon. When more than 1 million passionate responses were tallied overall, the pineapple flavor was saved from extinction. LifeSavers got tremendous publicity from media reports on the company’s responsiveness to the overwhelming public demand. And LifeSavers energized its customer base with an extremely low-cost promotion, when compared with what it would have paid to gain the equivalent number of gross impressions through advertising or any other marketing means.
Marketing doesn’t have to cost a lot to have a big impact. The challenge lies in making your promotion memorable, consistent with your company image, closely linked to your product or service and above all, being motivational.