As companies and entrepreneurs decrease their marketing budgets, affordable tactics are in high demand for brands to sell their products to new audiences. There are a variety of affordable tactics that can be implemented in-house or by communications professionals to get results.
So as companies and small brands look to do marketing on a shoestring budget, here are 16 inexpensive marketing tactics that can reap big rewards:
- Draft a product launch press release: basic stuff but gives results. Use PRWeb.com to upload to the wire and follow up any requests in a timely manner.
- Take a reporter to lunch or coffee and tell them your story: do your research beforehand and work out who are the most influential journalists covering your sector. Keep the lunch or meeting to an hour or 90 minutes tops to make it effective and worthwhile for both parties.
- Sampling: while this can be expensive, allocating 50-100 product samples for media and influencers can produce a big return in the long run. Devise your perfect, targeted with-list and get the samples in front of the right people.
- Create an instructional video: whether this be for product assembly or how to access products and services, this not only gives confidence in your brand but should reduce customer service issues that can generate costs.
- Ask for feedback: by mapping the customer journey at every step of the way, you can easily determine how the consumer experience can be improved in each step, erasing future pitfalls and communications problems.
- Embrace AI: with more brands looking to technology to streamline their services, embracing AI using a chatbot on social media and your website is a great way to answer immediate responses. This can then be escalated to a human to solve customer queries.
- Purchase different URLs: do some research into words (spelled correctly and incorrectly) that are associated with your product or service. Purchase these as URLs and then place a simple redirect to your correct URL to capture as many customers as possible.
- Attend a local consumer event for the purpose of soliciting consumer feedback: this is a great way to do market research in person and to collect comments that can help develop your products and services.
- Keep track of the most frequently asked questions: if it is being asked by a customer then it’s likely they’re not the only person thinking it. Have a clear FAQ section on your website and keep it up to date, addressing any issues that you receive from customers.
- Capture consumer reactions via video: whether you ask customers to generate feedback via social media or work with them at a consumer activation event, this is a great and inexpensive way to create content. Ensure you collect signed waivers and keep customers informed as to how you will use the footage.
- Identify a product spokesperson or subject matter: there’s nothing better than an expert and using one that will speak on behalf of the brand is an effective technique. They can be used across all communication targets and will add authenticity and credibility to your marketing goals.
- Identify brand ambassadors to be product evangelists: similarly, work with brand ambassadors who can also add credibility but will help to generate sales through their social media platforms.
- Assemble an Advisory Board to provide additional credibility: sort of like a ‘council of elders,’ industry experts and established individuals can add another level of credibility and provide solid advice to brands- whatever stage of their business journey.
- Look into affiliate platforms: affiliate marketing is an effective way of generating reach and sales. Platforms like ShareASale and Rakuten are easy to set up and the clicks can add up in no time at all.
- Develop a blog editorial calendar with content to improve your SEO and thought leadership: when it comes to creating to content, start with an editorial calendar that maps out the key dates and days in your diary that you need to target. Weave in ideas for content- whether that is op-eds, blog posts, social media posts or multimedia and generate SEO around it.
- Set up a brand LinkedIn page: and don’t forget about the more corporate side of social media! Set up a branded LinkedIn page that will be useful for identifying the retail buyers you’d like to target.
While many of these techniques may sound very simplistic, they can help generate results in no time at all! Should you need assistance implementing any of these tactics, Marketing Maven is here to help: info@marketingmaven.com