It seems that businesses are cutting back as much as they can. Unfortunately, this often means that marketing and advertising budgets take a back seat. This is one of the worst things to do! Remaining consistent with your advertising while others are cutting back and disappearing results in gaining market share and more customers!

However, we all realize that sometimes budget cuts are inevitable. Here are some marketing tricks and hints that will help your business boost marketing effectiveness, even when money is tight.

• Begin Employing a Social Media Strategy: If you haven’t heard about the massive power and impact social media marketing holds for your business, you may need to check your pulse! Social media presents the perfect avenue for customer conversation and interaction! Get your customers and potential customers involved, talk to them, and ask for feedback. There are SO many ways social media can be used to benefit your business. Just a few of them include:

• Build relationships with loyal customers
• Communicate, communicate, communicate!
• Drive traffic to your blog and website
• Market your brand and your business
• Share your expertise
• Answer questions/ ask questions
• Stay current with the latest industry trends
• Search engine optimization
• Avenue for promotions

Confused about getting started? These entries may also be helpful for you to check out:

A Social Media Strategy Is a Must

Twitter for Business

• Get Creative – Use Guerrilla Marketing Techniques: Guerrilla marketing encompasses a vast category of methods, but at the core I like to explain it as “marketing with an added value.” This may be entertainment, information, or just making someone feel good! For example, guerrilla marketing could be sending out a quarterly or monthly newsletter. The newsletter must contain valuable information (i.e. preview of new products, tips and advice). Another example could be using unusual, attention-getting media, like sidewalk displays. Yet another example would be to record your customer’s birthdays, anniversaries, and other occasions and send them a special note from your business. The possibilities are endless! Guerrilla marketing requires more creativity, but works wonderfully for those on a tight marketing budget.

• In-Store Marketing: A sometimes ignored method, in-store marketing is extremely important in turning the people coming through your door into loyal, long-term and repeat customers. There are a variety of inexpensive methods that can take your business to new levels in the mind’s of your customers.

• Offer your customers complimentary coffee
• Collect names for a drawing or contest
• Offer a gift with purchase
• Create a loyalty program

These are just some of the ways you can inexpensively market in your store and turn customers into fans!

Have other “Marketing on a Tight Budget” Tips? I would love to hear them! Please share below.

With so many restaurant choices available, how do restaurant owners gain, build and maintain their broad base of clientele? Competition is fierce and the decision as to where hungry patrons go lies completely in experience. You’ve seen it a hundred times! One restaurant has a 2 hour wait while the one across the street has empty tables. Restaurant owners will say time and time again, our food is better, our prices are cheaper, we spend more in advertising, but my competitor still has more patrons.

How do you build up such a loyal following, even if your food isn’t as good as the guy across the street? I challenge you to think about the experience you offer your customers. Does that experience match your advertising? What is your customer’s first impression? More importantly, what is the last?

1) Offer the experience you advertise. I had a client who, two years ago, promoted an event that turned into complete failure. Why? What was advertised and what he was actually offering were two very different things. When you build up people’s expectations, you better be able to deliver. His was offering a great product, it just didn’t align with what people were expecting. We made a few tweaks in his advertising, and a number of changes at his business. Patrons quickly turned around their opinion and became beacons, actually advertising his business for him.

2) Your staff is your marketing team. I feel like we say this all of the time. You may have the hottest place in town, but if your staff doesn’t love it and know it like you do, it doesn’t matter how great it is. You servers, bartenders, greeters and even bussers need to add to the atmosphere and experience. Every detail matters. They are the first point of contact and the last memory. Lackluster or even, so/so performance simply will not do. There are a number of ways to get your staff on board and cheering louder than you do, but that’s another blog!

3) What feeling does your restaurant create when someone first walks in? Are you helping people escape their lives for an hour or two? Do they feel rushed or panicked because the waiting area is packed? Do they feel on edge, or afraid to talk because it is too quite? Does the music match the lighting? Does color of the table cloths match the style of dining you’re offering? Does you restaurant make people hungry, happy or relaxed?

4) Do your patrons feel like they matter? We’ve all been to that restaurant where you feel like no one cares you’re there, or even worse, they act like they don’t want you there. Growing up I went to the same place every Friday night with my parents and grandmother. This casual dining Greek restaurant made decent food and the prices were good. But you could never get a table after 4:30. Why? Every patron knew they mattered. The owners, a husband and wife team, would walk around to every table and make sure to thank everyone for coming in and check on the meal. They took the time to learn everyone’s name. I mean everyone! How many names of your regular customers do you know? It makes a difference. Each person will either tell 2 people they love you, or 10 people they hate you. If they feel like they mean something, which do you think they’ll choose?

5) When you screw up, admit it. Nothing makes a stronger statement about someone’s integrity than when they can admit they’ve made a mistake. Turn off your ego for a second and think about the consequences of your actions. Is it worth the small investment of a comp’d meal, drinks or desert to get that person back? Yes! Of course, every place knows the repeat offenders and you can handle them differently. But always being willing to admit you’ve made a mistake and move on. Trust me when I tell you, it’s not worth the hassle.