Help! I have no marketing budget!
- Tue, October 31 2006
- Filed under: Marketing essentials
Picking up the topic from my last post, the second most common question I receive is:
Q: Is marketing really possible with practically no marketing budget?
A: Yes, if you do it right.
A lack of funds should force us to be creative, not to complain. Most of us are never going to have fat marketing budgets. But we don’t need a glossy brochure to succeed. Don’t believe me? Then I will tell you my favorite story—the chicken story. I tell this at all my workshops, and I’ve mentioned it on my Amazon blog.
A few months back, a creative leader at a small nonprofit told me he wanted to get heavy coverage in the press and on TV, start an online donation program and just generally make a big marketing splash with almost no money. His name was David Levinger, and his organization was Feet First in Seattle, a local group advocating for a more livable, walkable community. A classic nonprofit mission: worthwhile, ambitious and very hard to talk about in catchy, relevant terms. Until David started talking about chickens. “It’s like we’re in this town where the chicken can’t cross the road,” he said. In fact, that simile was so apt that he’d bought a chicken suit. For about $125, if I recall correctly. That chicken then went around Seattle trying to cross the road.
Guess what happened. Coverage. In all media. Talk about photogenic.
I loved the story and told David a chicken suit was the best non-brochure I could imagine. But it got better with a few brainstorms - plastic eggs with a chick and message inside asking for donations. A Network for Good recurring giving program where you “click the chicken.”
The moral(s) of the story? If you are dangling by a marketing shoestring - or even if you have a healthy budget, remember:
1. When everyone is doing wristbands, brochures or whatever, don’t try to compete. You don’t have enough money to stand out in a herd. Do something entirely different, far away from the herd. Chicken eggs are different.
2. Make yourself a story that gets covered instead of buying ads. Chicken + rush hour = visual story for media.
3. Invest your marketing energy in “open-minded moments” when your audience is most likely to be thinking of your issue—like when they are about to cross the road and can’t.
4. Get a recurring online giving program going and give people a compelling reason to participate. Regular, automatic gifts mean you don’t have to spend money asking those donors for money over and over. All you have to do is thank them.
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Comments
Is marketing really possible with practically no marketing budget? Yes agree with you lots of things for free on the internet if you know where to look. Wordpress blogs are brilliant, gumtree for free advertising. Thanks for the tips
Well, I guest becomes unique is the main key of this marketing strategy right?
thank you for this case study! it was really interesting
This is a great story. Next time someone asks for a marketing miracle on a shoestring budget I will remember the chicken suit.
When marketing is done right, it doesn’t cost anything. You can start an Adwords account with $5. If you pick the right keywords, you can use your profits to reinvest. This is the approach I took. I started small 7 years ago. Last year, I spent more than 200K with Adwords.
what are marketing ideas of executives and officers?
what are necessary plans for marketing of any product in market?
i would agree with the PPC, if it is done properly it is indeed a great marketing trick!
I think this post was right on point! Thanks.
Hi,
”Buy your flat now and start payments in September” or, if you prefer, “buy your flat and we give you a holiday”. These are two of the campaigns that are being carried out by real estate agents to sell flats these days, particularly ones in difficult areas.
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People get mortgages because they qualify for the bank mortgage. If you had a job and long working history and saved some amount of money every month, had no huge debts, normally you would qualify for the mortgage.
There are an unlimited number of ways that you can market your business, however, with a new or small business, your options may be limited by your budget.
Your options are limited only by your imagination. You may not be able to invest in a large scale direct mail campaign or a series of powerful television commercials, but there are still a lot of ways to reach your prospects and clients on a smaller budget. The key is to leverage low-cost and free ways to reach your market on a smaller scale, and then use the additional revenue generated to increase your marketing budget.
The most common way to look for a positively geared property is to find out the average rental price in each suburb. Then calculate what the mortgage repayments will be and associated costs. Then find out what the mortgage must be to make this a positively geared or break even property.
We have vacation property all over the world, but we always end up visiting our beach properties the most…there is just something amazing about watching God’s creation in full glory!
this is very good cause and exactly the type of ideas people will remember.
Wordpress blogs are brilliant, good places for free advertising. Thanks for the tips
An excellent idea for a marketing campaign, with a few jokes that could be thrown in too.
In recent years, adjustable mortgage rates have allowed people to easily buy a home or other real state. However, the assumption that income would increase over time to allow the higher charges once the introductory rates expired has failed for many people. Homes for rent back plans can be a good option for home owners who are facing foreclosure or eviction to allow them to stay in their homes. Under this plan, a home owner can enter into a contract with a financial institution to sell and rent back the home from the financial institution, with the option to buy it back again later.
a local wealthy entrepreneurs often tells me that the marketing budget should be at least a third of your initial capital.
Do it effectively, combined it with a great product/service and you’ll have your hands full dealing with plenty of consumers.
many business closed down prematurely due to lack of marketing effort, with hardly 5% of entire capital
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Yes i believe marketing is possible even on practically no budget at all. Its all about being creative, especially in today’s current climate.