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Although many businesses cut back on marketing in difficult or uncertain economic times, smart operators continue to market their products and services. They know they can gain market share and cement customer loyalty while their competitors are losing ground.

The challenge in tough times is to continue to market your business effectively, but at a lower cost. However, this doesn’t mean just going down-market. Low cost materials are only low cost if they get results - if they don’t work they are simply a drain on your marketing budget. Marketing must be both low cost and high quality.
Low cost marketing needs to be driven by a high quality marketing strategy. Fortunately, you can develop a marketing strategy yourself.

Although you can buy marketing information and specialist advice, you and your team have the best understanding of your business and are best placed to make final decisions on marketing strategy.

Devising a marketing strategy
Your marketing strategy should grow out of a written marketing plan. Although you may feel you don’t need a formal document - and writing one can be very time-consuming - the process of putting thoughts on paper can force you to rethink your marketing in a rigorous way.
For example, you will be required to precisely define your customers in terms of age, gender, occupation, income, education and location. The plan will specify how the features of your product or service will satisfy the needs of your (potential) customers. By defining these features as benefits to your customers, these benefits will then become the focus of your marketing materials.

The plan will also identify your best means of marketing communication, for example, the most appropriate print, radio and Internet advertising options.

The better you understand your customers, the better you can target your marketing materials and the more efficiently you can use your marketing budget. Your marketing message will be more effective because you know your customers’ ‘hot buttons’.

A good marketing plan can also be used to attract investment. Even if it is only for internal use, it can help your team members work towards common goals. It will also provide a marketing overview to give your materials a consistent look and feel.

So, the first step is to get the big picture sorted out. Then you can decide where to cut corners in terms of cost.

It’s unwise to scrimp on certain kinds of marketing material, for example, company brochures. A brochure can be a very useful marketing tool, summing up your company in a few pages, but it needs to be top quality. Potential customers will make assumptions about the quality of your products based on the look and feel of your brochure. The brochure should therefore look distinctive, be well designed, have good quality graphics and be printed on premium stock. All of this costs money.

Seek alternatives to brochures
However, there’s no need to send out an expensive brochure if a postcard will do the job instead. A well-designed postcard can look stunning and its production costs are naturally a lot less than a brochure. You can use postcards for launching new products, introducing yourself to potential customers and announcing sales or promotional events.
A postcard may be cheaper and more effective than a letter. It’s more likely to be looked at (because there’s no need to open an envelope). People may not even need to read it - if the card bears a strong headline you can communicate something at a glance.

In tough times, you are likely to rely more on networking as a low cost method of winning business. Your business card can be a valuable marketing tool in this area. It’s useful if your business or company name makes clear what you do. You can then add a brief tag line to the card that encapsulates the key benefit or unique selling proposition of your products or service.

Resist the temptation to go too down-market on card design. Although you may be able to use desktop publishing software to design cards yourself, a good design grows out of the designer’s skill.
You may not need professional design input for all your marketing materials. For example, a fax cover sheet is an effective low-key marketing tool and can easily carry a message about your business. Promotional faxes are better used with existing clients, however, as nobody likes unsolicited faxes clogging up their machine.

You sometimes need marketing materials to simply keep in contact with your customers. Keeping in touch every six weeks to three months ensures you stay in their minds. This isn’t costly, as you can stay in touch through fliers, emails, faxes or phone calls.
You may find that consistent, low-key contact with clients or prospects will give better results than a single contact with expensive marketing materials. For example, handing out fliers at the cash register can be a good way to build repeat business and increase your customers’ range of purchases.

Giveaways can also be a good way of maintaining your visibility. Put your logo and a tag line on giveaway mugs, for example. Or consider putting your logo on hats, T-shirts, ornaments or mouse pads - even offer your products as prizes in radio contests or competitions at local events.
You can also add value to marketing materials by including a personal touch. Try including a handwritten note, where practicable.
Depending on your line of work, consider writing articles for print or online publications. They can showcase your business’s knowledge and expertise, and only cost you time.

The main thing to remember is that, regardless of cost, your marketing materials are most likely to be effective when they highlight benefits to your customers and include a clear call to action.
The better you understand your customers, the easier it will be to frame your marketing messages. When you get the message right, you will find it much easier to market on a tight budget.