6 Ways to Maximize Your Budget in a Down Economy

It's time to hunker in the bunker for all businesses out there in this economy. The greatest asset you have? Your customers, so remember to treat them really well, but you've also got to think about new business too. We've got a few ways you can think about getting new business and maybe even cutting costs.

Convert Your Prospect Into Customers

Do you have a lot of opt-ins that have not purchased? Do you have a ton of business cards in a shoebox? When was the last time you data-entered the people who signed up for your newsletter at your counter?

Why not do a special email marketing campaign to them with a "New Customer" discount. Check your reporting to see which offers are getting the most opens or clicks and send those who haven't purchased that winning offer with a discount code.

Ways to get at non purchasers: 

• Upload a list of "Purchasers" and "Non purchasers" from your contact management system.
• If you're purchase data is in your VerticalResponse account segment your list  based on people who have not purchased.
  
• If you have a list to upload and you think it's mixed with both purchasers and non-purchasers, one idea is to segment on who you've emailed before if you're sure those you're mailing are customers. Then take the rest and give them the code.  

You've spent a lot of money to get those people signed up, now it's time to get them purchasing.

Cost: $7+ per month depending on how large your non-purchaser list is.
Gain: New customers!

Your Print Advertising

Re-negotiate It! - Look, we all know print can be expensive, but in a lot of cases it works! Furthermore, publications you advertise in don't want you to leave and they don't want to be responsible for you going out of business because they want to be paid either. Maybe you can ask to cut back on the number of ads you're running or better yet, keep running but ask for a discounted rate for the next 6 months. It's worth a shot. It's in their best interest for you to stay in business.

Share It! - If you do get stuck in a contract, see if you have friends who run businesses that you can share the cost and  placement with. One month you run, the next month your colleague runs. It's great for any business as long as the publication agrees to it. Maybe you can even split the ad in half! We did that at Wine Business Monthly with another company that wanted to get in front of the wine industry.

Cost: Either of these will reduce costs.

Run Advertising in Your Email Campaigns

You've spent dollars acquiring your customers, why not offer relevant advertisements to them in your emails. You can't include Google Adsense in your emails, Google doesn't like it. But you can do it on your own. Simply post a link on your site that says "Advertise" and have a page where you write about the makeup of your customers. Are they more women than men? Are they interested in specific items? Do they live in certain areas of the country? Then either have a "mail to:" email pop up to someone in your business directly or give pricing for advertising right on your site. You might even want to put how many emails you have to email to as well.

• Restaurants/Bars - Offer specials on a specific beverage and get your distributors or liquor companies to sponsor it. You can even get a neighboring business to put an offer in your email.
  
• Retailers - Anything you sell can be sponsored by the distributor or manufacturer.
• Real Estate Execs - Get a neighboring home improvement company to sponsor emails.

VR Customers that do a great job of this: Splendora, Due Maternity, Mavericks Surf Ventures, Love to Eat and Travel.

Cost: No cost.
Gain: You could cover your email marketing budget and even MAKE money on advertising in your email campaigns.

Collect Email Addresses from EVERYWHERE

• Do you have a VerticalResponse sign up form or link on every page of your site? Do it now, it's free.
• Take a guest book or clipboard to every event you go to for your business.
• Pay your employees per valid email they get in the door. It's cheaper than advertising.
• Restaurants, ask server staff to mention that there is a card in the bill holder. Retail, ask in the guest book at the counter. Salons/Spas, get the email for the appointment reminder and ask if you can add them to your list.
• Offer a birthday club.
• Take that stack of business cards you've collected and send an opt-in email. If they already opted-in when they gave it to you ("Can I add you to my email list?") send an email reminding them where they met you.
• Input this data into your VR account or your contact manager no less than WEEKLY. Then MAKE SURE they get a welcome email from you with a New Customer discount.

Cost: Nothing to host additional email addresses, cost is for sending email.
Gain: New customers!

Stick With Google Adwords

It's important for you to be where your prospective customers are searching for you. What's great about Adwords is you can really figure out what your customer acquisition costs are and limit your monthly budget spend.

Here's a quick example:

• Cost per click for your keyword = .10
• Click Budget per month = $200
• Clicks you'd like to get per month = 2000
• New customers from clicks = 20
• Customer Conversion = 1%
• Cost per customer = $10

If you know that a customer purchases from you 2-3 times a year and the average price is $20, your payback happens pretty quickly. What we love about Adwords is that you really can test quickly by bidding more for your keywords or adjusting your budget. If you need help getting started, check out our partner MerchEngines.

Cost: MerchEngines: $179 per month for 1000 guaranteed clicks. They do the work. Do it yourself and you control the budget.
Gain: New customers!

Create a Blog

The more you post about relevant things the more you'll get picked up by Search Engines in the natural rankings and the more you'll get site visitors. Put a VerticalResponse opt-in form on the blog to collect email addresses free. Check out our partner TypePad.

Cost: $5 per month on the lowest end for TypePad. Email collection from VR is free.
Gain: Overtime, more people are seeing you, great for PR too!

What are you doing to cut costs while still maintaining your business in this economy? We'd love to hear!

Comments

[Dart Wooden]

Thanks for the idea of dividing the list into people who have bought and those that have not yet bought.

[Colin]

A colleague has given me a list of 93,000 email addresses. How do I convert this to an opt-in list without upsetting my ISP?

[Five Diamond Hospitality]

You are right on with the blog info. Since we started our blog, many more potential customers have found our site!