Low-cost marketing ideas

Corporate giants like Ayala Land and Robinsons Land are undoubtedly omnipresent, with their billboards scattered everywhere, furnished booths in innumerable trade shows, larger than life LED screens flashing their witty and creative commercials, ads on public utilities, and commercials on TV and even in cinemas.

This seems a common marketing strategy among enterprises, on account of the number of tarpaulins hanging in EDSA and the flyers we receive when we go to malls that we, more often than not, actually read. But for an SME to do the same publicity stunt is far from feasible.

SMEs have a very limited budget to spend on marketing. Often, we try to think that effective marketing can be attained by spending a lot for it. True, the most premium of advertisements come with a large price tag, but it does not follow that premium advertisements are the only reliable and effective means to market your company. This is where you have to get creative.

There are a lot of new and low-cost strategies today that are actually SME-friendly. Here are some strategies you can try out:

Become a member of a professional organization. There are a lot of professional organizations out there that you can enlist your company in. Organizations like these will help you promote your company in their social events and gatherings, and let you meet new people that you can eventually partner up with in your company activities. Just remember that by enlisting your company in an organization, you are subjecting yourself to the organization’s policies to maintain your membership—so choose well and understand which organization won’t put you in a tight spot.

Cross-deal with clients. If you know some clients who would be able to help you promote your company, offer them an exchange of a product or service for them to market your business. Of course, this means that you will be giving away a part of your inventory without receiving any monetary return, but an increased number of clients may make this a pretty good deal.

Some companies invite bloggers to their events, product launches and tours for free to get free coverage and publicity via their blog sites. Bloggers have followers who visit their sites regularly, so if even if there would only be just one blogger with plenty of readers who would post a review on your new product or service, it would still be of great help to you.

Come up with livelihood and outreach programs. Corporate social responsibility is not just good for our society, but also for business. Not only are you helping people, you also get to add an achievement to your portfolio and promote your company in the vicinity of the outreach area. Creative companies would ask different companies to join in on their event as partners, sponsors or media partners to build a more collaborative and exciting event.

Learn Internet marketing. Internet marketing is probably the easiest low-cost marketing strategy to date. Websites like YouTube, Facebook, WordPress, and ad sites like OLX and Ayosdito are like daily TV shows that generate a great amount of daily viewers. People spend hours on the Internet. Online business owners know too well the power of online marketing. With the right postings, key words, network and design, simple posters become viral over the web, and eventually attract more attention than you expected.

However, Internet marketing requires you to do some homework, such as learn how to edit photos or layout posters, know which websites gain more attention, which key words are used by people in searching, some basic HTML if you plan on leveling up your posts or building your own website, and a bit of Search Engine Optimization to gain the lead in Google’s search results. Non-strategized Internet marketing is as good as nothing because the point of it all is for netizens to look at your post, actually read through it, be enticed by it, and eventually want to avail of what is in it.

There are many ways a small- or medium-sized company can market effectively without breaking the budget. What is needed is to study the options available to small firms that are currently running successful campaigns. Learn from them and go further by making adaptations and improvements. With plenty of options available, there is no reason for even a small company not to do marketing.

*Originally published by the Manila Bulletin. C-6, Sunday, June 29, 2014. Written by Ruben Anlacan, Jr. (President, BusinessCoach, Inc.) All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or copied without express written permission of the copyright holders.