6 Low-Cost & No-Cost Marketing Strategies

Any business can pay for advertising to get their message out and many do, spending tens of thousands of pounds to reach consumers. A smart business with a marketing savvy leader, however, can achieve the same goal for free if they know how.

Strategy #1

Email Magazines or Ezines

An ezine is a magazine sent via email...simple as that. All the rules that apply to printed magazines apply here too, but in an electronic format. Businesses are scrambling to build email lists and start their own customer ezines. And why not?

The average ezine response rate is 5% - 15% That is huge! Especially when you consider that the average response rate for average direct mail pieces is somewhere between 3% and 5%.

Strategy #2

Telemarketing

Although it is often maligned and frequently misunderstood, telemarketing is one of the fastest growing forms of direct marketing today. It provides an opportunity to make one-to-one contact with the prospective buyer at a very low cost.

Telemarketing prices have been coming down while mailing prices have been going up. With the cost of hiring salespeople, training them, and getting them into the field, more companies will find the value in telemarketing.

Telemarketing can be used to take orders over the phone following up direct mail or direct media advertising. Products ranging from 25-pence fasteners to 10 million airplanes are sold over the phone.

Strategy #3

Marketing with Flyers

Flyers can be an effective way to spread the word about your business. Generally, they are single sheets printed front and back, and used to announce a sale, open house or other limited-time event. Mail it, hand it out, hang it up, and leave it wherever prospects congregate a flyer is among the least expensive, easiest to produce, and hardest working marketing tools.Put them on local bulletin boards. Leave them in reception areas and waiting rooms (with permission of course) where people are looking to read something to pass the time.

Strategy #4

Newspaper Ads

This is direct response advertising at its best. A newspaper ad is designed to create responses and generate customers. Every ad should always remind the reader of your unique selling proposition, even though you are featuring a particular product or promotion. In creating an ad for newspapers, you should start by striving for an editorial rather than advertising style. People going through a newspaper will not read your ad unless they notice it. An editorial style will differentiate your ad from others in the paper.
Remember: the more you tell, the more you sell. And approach your article as if you were a reporter who had just come on to a hot news item and wanted to share it with the rest of the community. Write it in this editorial fashion and people will read the ad.

Strategy #5

Radio

Studies have shown that the average consumer listens to the radio almost two hours a day. This makes radio advertising a favourite for small businesses trying to get their marketing message in front of their target market affordably.

Compared with television advertising, radio advertising is much less expensive. Radio also allows you to use your advertising dollars in a mass communication format, but to a targeted type of demographic.

Radio ads need to create interest, build desire, and cause action. So, the top 5 copywriting elements should be included in radio advertising:

1. Use the same headlines as your newspaper ads or as your direct mail letters to create the interest in a radio spot

2. The first two or three sentences should capture the listeners attention

3. The body of the radio ad works the same way as a print ad it fulfils your promise in the headline

4. Direct the listener as to what action to take

5. Have a measurable response to your ad

Strategy #6

Television Advertising

It used to be that only those with massive marketing budgets could ever afford to place an ad on network television. However, there are some times in the evening when it is more affordable.

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