Advertising doesn't have to be expensive to be effective. It can make or break your business...but it doesn't have to break your bank account in the process. Even though good business ideas are difficult to discover, there's plenty around if you care to look. But what really matters is turning ideas into practice, theory into reality! But question is this at what cost? Commonly quoted figures for a budget marketing method are around 10% of turnover for a large business & around 20% for smaller businesses. Remember, marketing and advertising is an investment not a cost.
To be effective, advertising must be interruptive—that is, it must make you stop thumbing through the newspaper or thinking about your day long enough to read or hear the ad. Advertising must also be credible, unique, and memorable in order to work. Before making an advertise you must check an advertise through this list, of course, there are no ready formula for beating bull’s eye design, creative solutions, however, look at the basic strategies for successful advertising ;
· To have success, must offer the advertising a consumer benefit or a problem to solve.
· The fact that the benefit or solution must be obtained by consumers.
· The product or service offered should be directly linked to the benefits or the solution.
· The benefit or solution must be clearly communicated through media advertising. In other words, be clear, forget the brilliance of advertising and ensure that the message is not lost on the ad.
In Pakistan there are many small firms working or entering the market, their products are good enough to compete with MNC‘s product, but they cannot compete them in advertising and publicizing their product, because MNC’s spend a huge amount of their revenue every year on advertising and marketing that is the reason why many small local firms in Pakistan do not make a lot of business because they lack the resources to compete. Unfortunately in Pakistan there is not much concept of low budget advertising, these firms can concentrate on low budget advertising techniques that can help these companies to compete with these MNC’s while remaining in their budget.
Some low budget marketing ideas help you to achieve a constant flow of new customers into your business by using simple, low budget marketing methods. They can be of great help if someone starting a new business... or losing customers... or want to boost profits... or all of the above.
· Place your ads on free time or in unusual places at discounted prices. This will help in containing costs. Often, you can still reach your target audience with these points.
· Instead of a welcome sign of a great time, consistent with frequent small ads that continue to remind customers of their present work.
· Consider advertising in regional issues of national magazines. The costs are lower, and you can reach your target audience. TV Guide is also a good option.
· Sponsor a community event, if you can, as a fun run, cricket tournament or other event that are well known in the community.
· Use the media to choose the maximum. If your message is verbal, does not need television. With radio, posters and newspapers as possible.
· Rent an advertising design agency that is not on top of the stack, but can be creative and offer specializing in interactive campaigns for creative design solutions.
· Send classified ads through weekly newspapers, metropolitan dailies, and national magazines. Readers in these areas may not be looking for your product, but your ad will be seen by individuals who are looking for specific information. On that note, classified ads need to be written in a clear and simple manner. Only feature one product/service per ad. If you offer more than one product, consider running a separate ad for each product you want featured.
· Coupon Mailers contain cards advertising several different companies and their products. These are also known as "card decks" and reduce the cost of mailing.
· Distribute handbills on the street; you can hire a high school or college student to do the grunt work for you. There are even distribution services you can hire at a low cost to pass these handbills out.
· Print attractive and informative business cards that include your logo and hand them out everywhere, consistently! If you use letterhead stationery in your business, have it match your business card. Keep your identity as consistent as possible.
· Print up some gift certificates. These let your customers introduce you to new customers. Since you get paid up front for the product or service, they are good for your cash flow.
· Brochures let you provide a lot of detail about your product or service.
· Flyers can be created very inexpensively on your computer, or by a local print shop.
· Door hangers are very effective and widely used by fast food and home delivery and service businesses. If you choose this medium, use heavy stock so it won't blow off doorknobs and litter the neighborhood.
· Paper or plastic bags and packaging make economical billboards. Print your name, logo, and message on anything you can, on all sides.
· On the Internet there are many low budget advertising alternatives and methods to promote a website of your own and these are considered the best for reaching a targeted audience and low cost advertisements which can be implemented in many online ways. To create a website is one way of advertising, because what you do is to place your website link on different websites and if you have optimized your website properly, then your website will rank accordingly in the search engines and the more good strong and relevant backlinks you have for your website. Having an online space is cheaper than other advertising alternatives as the webhosting is very inexpensive with monthly fees and domain name charges are yearly. The main cost that you will have is the time to promote and market your website as this takes up a large percentage of your time.
· An auto responder is a low cost way particularly if you rely solely on email advertising to build up your sites credibility through email communication and they can be very useful by providing updates to your products or your affiliate products, but also by building trust and providing quality information for your subscribers. But if you're a smart advertiser you will learn to combine many different advertising methods into a full force advertising campaign that reaches people on many levels.
· Yellow pages is the obvious other way of advertising your business, although many might argue that the Yellow pages is becoming obsolete because of the Internet, but no as the Yellow pages is online too, so this adds to the power of the Yellow Pages advertising as people can find your business, website or phone number and contact your directly.
· If you are a whizz with PowerPoint or an overhead projector and an drive home the point of your business, then you could include your presentation as part of a potential sales pitch where you would apply the presentation to a group of targeted people who just might purchase your product or help promote your business if you give them enough incentives to do so.
· A newsletter is a vital update t new and existing client and can be sent through email or direct mail if your budget allows. I'd go with an email newsletter as this is far cheaper, but a photocopied newsletter sometimes can work wonders depending on your market.
· One last thing about low cost advertising, one of the best forms of advertising is simply just talking about it. If you can relay the enthusiasm for something like your business and do it in a memorable way, then others will remember it and mention it to someone who they think would benefit from it, this is the age old Word Of Mouth and you cannot beat it, for its viral marketing capacity can be just as good as any other method, of course it's who you know and not necessarily what you know sometimes that can create some business for you.
- Whatever your business is whether a salon, a boutique, a surf shop, a restaurant or a store that sells widget or any other small business…. The lesson to be learned here is... If you have more time than you have money to advertise your business, don't stand around waiting for people to hopefully walk through your door-- Get out there and pound the pavement and do whatever it takes to bring customers to your business!
