Low-cost marketing moves
Hone in on your ideal customer and practice cost-effective marketing to draw more clients to your business.
Tom Dunlap, La Verne, Calif.
I own a five-year-old Internet business that sells about $100,000 worth of printer toner a year. Our clients stick around due to the savings we provide – they typically cut 30% to 50% in costs – and our customer service. We'd like to stay small, but we also want to attract more customers. How can we accomplish this without spending much money? Advertising doesn't seem to be cost-effective, and hiring salespeople hasn't worked in the past.
By Leonora Chu, Fortune Small Business contributor
Dear Tom: Let's try a visualization exercise. Before you attempt to attract more clients, write a description of your ideal customer. Spencer Tyler, co-owner of the Los Angeles branch of OneCoach, a small business growth consultancy, says it's probably the person who spends the most, complains the least and sends you referrals.
Next, hone in on exactly what that client wants. It could be guaranteed product in stock, or hassle-free returns and free shipping. Once you've scribbled down these ideas, look at your list – that's your marketing message.
Completing this strategic exercise will help you to maximize your marketing dollars and initiate higher response rates from new customers, says Tyler. Rather than casting a wide net for any customers, you'll craft a pitch that's directed towards the ones you want. “You'll end up spending less and making more,” he says.
Now that you've got your message, what do you do with it? Tyler advises you to launch an e-mail campaign to attract new customers and reengage past clients. If you're looking to expand your list of contacts, consider purchasing a targeted e-mail list of potential customers from a broker.
Another way to expand your customer database is to form partnerships. Get in touch with complementary service providers such as printer manufacturers, paper suppliers or telecom equipment providers. This way, you can split marketing costs and offer multiple products at once.
Doug Williams, a Vancouver, Wash.-based market consultant, advises you to register for pay-per-click advertising with major search engines like Google (GOOG). Because you pay only when someone visits your website, pay-per-click offers a cost-effective marketing tool.
You should also focus on search-engine optimization, he says. Improving your placement on search results will drive traffic to your business. You can hire a consultant to analyze your site and make suggestions, but there are cheaper ways to work on your SEO.
Start by making sure your home page contains plenty of keywords that characterize your business. The text should appear in the upper quartile of the home page. “Keywords at the bottom of the page won't come up high on search engine rankings,” Williams says. “You can hit the sweet spot by using just 400 to 600 words of text.”
Another inexpensive way to get noticed is through social media. Set up a blog to share your expertise with potential customers. Williams' ideas: Write about what to look for in a toner supplier, the differences between different types of toner cartridges, and the pros and cons of buying versus leasing copiers. “People use blogs when they're looking for information, so it's about branding yourself as the authority or expert,” Williams says. “Everyone likes to buy from the authority or expert.”
You should maintain a consistent theme and schedule with your posts, says David Jaeger, the president of About Results Marketing in Los Angeles. Blogs are search-engine friendly, so posting frequently will help you pop up higher on results. “If you invest 10 to 15 hours a month blogging, you should start seeing an increase in your rankings and an increased readership within two to three months,” he says. Considering the low cost of blogging, that's time well spent.
Give us your advice: Check out recent “Ask & Answer” questions.
Related links:
Luring prospects to your website
4 ways to market your business online
How can I market on a shoestring?
From Dale Sturdevant (The CNY Small Biz Project), New York Hi Tom,
There are a lot of ways that you can market and increase your customer base without huge marketing budgets. However, and as suggested above, you really need to decide who your customer is. Once you do, use this only as a very flexible guideline, as market demand can sometimes come from the wierdest places.
AS far as actual cheap marketing, which has proven efffective: try sending press releases on your products, innovations, even new hirings to media which is focused on your target customer. Also make sure your page is ranked at or very near the top of all major search engines. Visit tradeshows (notice I didn't say to buy a booth) and make connections. Not just tradeshows which are oriented to your field, but to any other industry (an I am thinking toners cover about every industry there is) which you can sell to. I am also a believer in programs such as Google's Adwords, as long as the price is kept reasonable (its a bid based system). These are just a few of the ways you may be able to improve visibilit and maybe improve sales. Finally, and you probably know this, I would always suggest you start with a plan, perhaps working with a group such as SCORE, us, or even a local university/college. It is always good to get an outside perspective, especially if it is free.
From eric los angeles california I have a subprime loan using http://www.fakepaycheckstubs.com , now I want to refinance! Any suggestions!
From Vincent The answer to your question is easy.
Join an community like http://www.dutchmarshalls.com and you will find the customers you need for low cost. (FREE)
From angelinjones, Cummings, GA I took a look at your site and recommend it to my visitors. I agree with you on the importance of becoming valuable in many different areas. I believe that it sustains any entrepreneur during challenges that inevitably occur.
Angelinjones
From Ryan, Greenbelt, MD I also believe that there may be some fairly cost effective help in on-line lead generation. Often times these companies can develop leads strictly in your industry (or vertical) and these leads can cost a reasonable amount depending on the industry. I buy a variety of leads on-line through a number of firms and typically the companies that use more search marketing focused lead gen tactics will have the best performing leads. I actually have only run in to one company that was producing a lead that closed at lower than 2% and therefore because of our pricing on that particular product, the campaign was inneffective. I have many lead sources that close around 7-10%. So they can really be good sources.
Ryan – Maryland
Local Attorneys Online
From Chris Baggott, Indianapolis, IN And really focus on the blogging. Think about blogs as organic landing pages. You can have as many as you like..all titled with the keywords you are targeting. The key is to make each blog very focused on only one thing. If you sell a specific toner for a specific machine for example create a blog just about that. Write about your customers, the savings etc… or better yet, use email to solicit them to write. You would be suprised that if you send an email to your customers a week after they purchased and asked them to answer a couple of questions in a paragraph for your blog…lots of people will be happy to do this.
That content, organized around keyword topic blogs will generate a lot of well qualified traffic.
Best,
Chris Baggott
CEO
Compendium Blogware
http://www.compendiumblogware.com
From www.TerryReeves.com – Nashville, TN being a web based business with such a specialized product, I would think your website's rankings should be fairly good in search results. If not, you are missing a tremendous opportunity. Five years is forever on the Internet and site that old can rank very well in search results with the proper amount attention.
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Wow, a blog about ink toner??? That's a blog I'll definitely need to read!