Although many businesses cut back on marketing in difficult or uncertain economic times, smart operators continue to market their products and services. They know they can gain market share and cement customer loyalty while their competitors are losing ground.

The challenge in tough times is to continue to market your business effectively, but at a lower cost. However, this doesn’t mean just going down-market. Low cost materials are only low cost if they get results - if they don’t work they are simply a drain on your marketing budget. Marketing must be both low cost and high quality.

Low cost marketing needs to be driven by a high quality marketing strategy. Fortunately, you can develop a marketing strategy yourself. Although you can buy marketing information and specialist advice, you and your team have the best understanding of your business and are best placed to make final decisions on marketing strategy.

Devising a marketing strategy

Your marketing strategy should grow out of a written marketing plan. Although you may feel you don’t need a formal document - and writing one can be very time-consuming - the process of putting thoughts on paper can force you to rethink your marketing in a rigorous way.

For example, you will be required to precisely define your customers in terms of age, gender, occupation, income, education and location. The plan will specify how the features of your product or service will satisfy the needs of your (potential) customers. By defining these features as benefits to your customers, these benefits will then become the focus of your marketing materials.

The plan will also identify your best means of marketing communication, for example, the most appropriate print, radio and Internet advertising options.

The better you understand your customers, the better you can target your marketing materials and the more efficiently you can use your marketing budget. Your marketing message will be more effective because you know your customers’ ‘hot buttons’.

A good marketing plan can also be used to attract investment. Even if it is only for internal use, it can help your team members work towards common goals. It will also provide a marketing overview to give your materials a consistent look and feel.

So, the first step is to get the big picture sorted out. Then you can decide where to cut corners in terms of cost.

It’s unwise to scrimp on certain kinds of marketing material, for example, company brochures. A brochure can be a very useful marketing tool, summing up your company in a few pages, but it needs to be top quality. Potential customers will make assumptions about the quality of your products based on the look and feel of your brochure. The brochure should therefore look distinctive, be well designed, have good quality graphics and be printed on premium stock. All of this costs money.

Seek alternatives to brochures

However, there’s no need to send out an expensive brochure if a postcard will do the job instead. A well-designed postcard can look stunning and its production costs are naturally a lot less than a brochure. You can use postcards for launching new products, introducing yourself to potential customers and announcing sales or promotional events.

A postcard may be cheaper and more effective than a letter. It’s more likely to be looked at (because there’s no need to open an envelope). People may not even need to read it - if the card bears a strong headline you can communicate something at a glance.

In tough times, you are likely to rely more on networking as a low cost method of winning business. Your business card can be a valuable marketing tool in this area. It’s useful if your business or company name makes clear what you do. You can then add a brief tag line to the card that encapsulates the key benefit or unique selling proposition of your products or service.

Resist the temptation to go too down-market on card design. Although you may be able to use desktop publishing software to design cards yourself, a good design grows out of the designer’s skill.

You may not need professional design input for all your marketing materials. For example, a fax cover sheet is an effective low-key marketing tool and can easily carry a message about your business. Promotional faxes are better used with existing clients, however, as nobody likes unsolicited faxes clogging up their machine.

You sometimes need marketing materials to simply keep in contact with your customers. Keeping in touch every six weeks to three months ensures you stay in their minds. This isn’t costly, as you can stay in touch through fliers, emails, faxes or phone calls.

You may find that consistent, low-key contact with clients or prospects will give better results than a single contact with expensive marketing materials. For example, handing out fliers at the cash register can be a good way to build repeat business and increase your customers’ range of purchases.

Giveaways can also be a good way of maintaining your visibility. Put your logo and a tag line on giveaway mugs, for example. Or consider putting your logo on hats, T-shirts, ornaments or mouse pads - even offer your products as prizes in radio contests or competitions at local events.

You can also add value to marketing materials by including a personal touch. Try including a handwritten note, where practicable.

Depending on your line of work, consider writing articles for print or online publications. They can showcase your business’s knowledge and expertise, and only cost you time.

The main thing to remember is that, regardless of cost, your marketing materials are most likely to be effective when they highlight benefits to your customers and include a clear call to action.

Every 7.7 seconds someone in the United States turns 50, according to the National Business Association. The 50+ population controls more than US$7 trillion in wealth and is responsible for 50 percent of all discretionary spending.

It purchases 41 percent of all new cars, buys 80 percent of all luxury travel, and is 30 percent more likely to purchase products online than younger users.

Yet many businesses, which conduct part or all of their business online, miss this rich potential market, because they think older people are not Web-savvy.

However, older adults are often more “wired” than you may think, as they get encouragement from their children or grandchildren to go online. Once they have logged on, many become eager Internet users. Internet use is generally high among those over 50 who work and have college degrees. Many seniors say it has helped them connect better to their family and makes it easier to get information.

According to Joanne Fritz, a US-based specialist on retirement, there are many ways to reach this target market. It is very important for business owners to recognize that seniors are not all alike.

“They are more diverse than any other market segment, spanning those at the peak of their careers, to active, independent seniors, to the elderly in need of care,” says Fritz.

Fritz gives the following tips for communicating with and selling to the mature market:

• Do not talk down to them, or treat them as children, or remind them of their age. Most do not consider themselves “old”.
   

• There is disagreement about using words like “senior citizen”. You should generally reserve such terms for World War II veterans - not for baby boomers who started turning 55 in 2001.
   

• Use realistic but positive images of mature people. In your advertising you may show people with wrinkles, but have them doing something active.
   

• Stick to the facts about your product or service. Mature people make more independent judgments and base their decisions on information rather than peer pressure.
   

• Design your communications so that older people will stick around and read what you have to say.
   

• Avoid overly busy website design - small type sizes, garish colors, and gratuitous design elements such as flash or slow-loading graphics.
   

• Avoid “hype” - mature consumers have seen it all and are naturally skeptical.
   

• You can win mature people over gradually by gaining their trust.
   

• Give them content. Older people are avid readers and will appreciate the information you provide.

• Sell what appeals to the mature audience such as health products and information. You can give them tips on managing their retirement assets, ideas for low cost travel, help with buying gifts for their grandchildren, the low-down on the best places to retire, products that make it easier for them to stay in their own homes, ways to earn extra income, and opportunities to save money.

Workplaces shouldn’t be all work and no play. A workplace where team members have fun can actually be much more productive.

Some employers might snort at the idea of fun in the workplace. It’s an understandable attitude. However, it’s also a big mistake, as they risk losing the loyalty and enthusiasm of their team members.

All workplaces at some stage face difficult, brain-taxing and sometimes back-breaking situations with heaps of frustration, long hours, and short breaks. In this case, you would want to try to make work fun for your team members. They need to be able to joke around and create a good atmosphere for themselves.

Let them do it, and they’ll be likely to work their hearts out. Stop them, and they’re likely to turn up late, find excuses for slacking off, or even go off to work for another company, leaving you in the lurch.

The buttoned-down boss of the fifties and sixties is a dinosaur. To be a good boss these days, you need to understand the equation of “fun workplace equals happy team members equals increased productivity”, and know how to stay in control without appearing to.

In the US, companies now advertise fun as a perk, and have been for some time.

According to myprimetime.com, job applicants “rank a great work environment second only to pay and benefits.”

People are thinking: “If you can’t guarantee me a job next week, at least give me a compelling reason why I should give my best today.” Sure, they might turn up on time and do their jobs, but why should they put in a special effort for you if you might have to sack them next month?

They’ll only do it if they love working for you. And they’ll only love working for you if - as Bradford Swift wrote in Human Resources magazine - you have created “a workplace that is like a playground of excitement and ongoing growth.”

Okay, let’s face it. Some jobs will never be fun. Some jobs will never even be interesting. They just have to be done. The job you offer might be one of them. How do you get around that?

First, realize that fun in the workplace is about making the work you do fun or letting people do this for themselves. At another level, it’s about boosting creativity and problem solving, and fostering teamwork.

If you can’t make the job itself fun, you can at least foster a fun work environment.

Sometimes, you don’t have to do anything – your team members will already be doing it.

Watch the way they might joke around while they’re working. You’ll probably notice they’re working very efficiently and having a good time doing it.

Of course, any joking around has to be appropriate and within limits. Any form of “fun” at the expense of other people’s dignity or well-being is not acceptable.

That proviso aside, Benita Collings, trainer and writer with Corporate Trends magazine, says it’s “a proven fact that laughing releases endorphins and makes you feel great. People who feel good are generally happy in their work and work more productively.”

Humorist and business consultant, Jeff Albers, notes that happy people are healthy people. On his website, he writes: “Along with a good sense of humor comes laughter which…generates an environment that is emotionally and morally healthy…which, in turn, reduces stress and blood pressure.”

Albers noticed fewer mistakes in companies that had a fun atmosphere and concluded this was because team members felt more comfortable. He also noticed that such companies enjoyed a steady increase in sales.

To get some fun into your workplace, try the following:

• Schedule frequent but affordable social events such as movie nights, barbecues, picnics, or paintball skirmishes.
   

• Play games now and again. Turn hallways into makeshift bowling alleys. Erect a basketball hoop in the car park and hold lunchtime tournaments.
   

• Distribute small toys. Research has shown that manipulating toys frees the mind to be creative.
   

• Have a “role reversal” day where team members can do each other’s jobs instead of their own. This can foster a greater sense of respect and teamwork among your team members.
   

• Let everyone go home early once a month, or take them out to lunch.

One of the biggest challenges for a business owner in managing team members is the issue of jealousy, according to Amanda Stevens, who started her business Splash Advertising, when she was only 21.

When a team member becomes jealous of a young achiever, managers need to act quickly before the dissent goes through the office, she says. “Either talk with them openly or get them out,” says Stevens.

This consistent, open and honest flow of communication is important to Stevens and something she suspects comes easier with youth. Youth does bring with it a set of challenges for business owners when it comes to managing team members. However, Stevens says the disadvantages of youth can often be turned into points in favor of a young business manager.

Youth, for example, may not sit well with many traditional methods of autocratic management. Stevens says she was uncomfortable with most of the styles in the many management books she has read.

“It is important to find a leadership style that you feel comfortable with and fits with your personality,” Stevens says. “It is not congruent otherwise. My leadership style is quite unique - I am friends with my staff.”

One of Stevens’ main aims in managing team members is to empower the people around her. Empowering team members means managing from within instead of giving orders from above. Stevens says she empowers people through meetings where everyone helps make business decisions and bi-annual weekends away to set longer-term goals for the business as well as individuals.

Stevens says she has learnt to hire people who are complementary to her style of working and right for the job involved. She says a common mistake younger managers can make in hiring people is to choose someone they like. “The best staff I’ve got are people who complement my skill set with different ways of thinking.”

Be sure to read each article with the mindset “How could this apply to our business.” Thinking of it that way will guarantee that you get value. Better yet, take notes as you read and commit to having the ideas implemented by the time the next edition arrives. Also, make copies for each team member. To really make sure something positive happens, work with your business development specialist to talk your team through the ideas and how to set a schedule for getting them implemented. We’re here to help you get started.

“Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

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