Going for the prescribed marketing technique and spending thousands of pounds may not be any more profitable than handing out a few leaflets or speaking to friends.
Try the obvious marketing techniques which can be effective for startups and small business. Dont always think glossy mag or broad sheets unless you know what you are doing. They may seem attractive at first but might not be ideal for smaller enterprises which especially in the early days of their business need to maintain a positive and healthy cash flow.
It can be very expensive and painful it you get it wrong which is why I always recommend testing any marketing solution at a micro level. Marketing firms sell you the smell of success before you fee ever touch the ground. Don't fall into that trap & be on guard and be ready to test. At Hewitt & May we specialise in selling formal shirt, ties and cufflinks and that is a very competative market and it can be tempting to just push the button and go for it big. Ensure micro testing takes place before committing to any larger marketing solution. So for example, before buying a large list of mailing data we would first trial it on 10,000 records and measure the results before proceeding with even larger numbers. Use a less popular magazines for glossy page adverts and check the response rates. You will also end up learning a great deal about placement and copy text which is money not wasted on a small time mag. Of course too much testing can lead to paralysis which ends up with no real marketing at all. The results should be used in an informative manner to ascertain how useful the campaign might be rather than how big the bank balance might grow. Take conservative figures and worst case scenarios even if the figures are looking very positive. Be careful about borrowing money to finance such a large execution until you have tested it thoroughly.Hewitt & May recently did some advertising for a special offer on our formal shirt range soley by e-mail but instead of using bought lists and a snazzy graphical eyepiece Hewitt & may wrote a small personal text only e-mail and sent it to all their contacts as a 'pls fwd' viral e-mail. We measured this against a bought list and the conversions were almost identical. So it goes to show that paid marketing is not all it adds up to be.
Hewitt & May(Formal shirts, ties and cufflinks retailer) recently carried out some on-site corporate events where our shirts were being exhibited. We sold more shirts on these corporate events than we did with any other off the page marketing approach. That is not say that off the page marketing does not work but is shouldn't be the all and be all of your marketing matrix.
The moral here is don't just trust the so called marketing goooooruuuu. Always look out for the cheaper non paying option as it will surprise you how effective it can be.
Hewitt & May, 08456 80 00 96
http://www.hewittandmay.co.uk
