You might not have the resources that your larger competitors have, but you can still establish a strong market presence without needing to match the marketing budget of your bigger competitors.

In fact, with just a little cleverness and ambition, you can conduct very sophisticated marketing activities at little or no cost. This includes learning what you can do to provide for your customers wants or needs, then effectively promote it to them, and build your organization in the process.

The initial step is in understanding what your customers want or need. In the past, expensive market research was the only path to find out what issues your visitors had. Now, with the mass acceptance of social media marketing, you have a solution to start a dialogue together with your customers–and all it will cost you is a few of your time.

Start by establishing a business page on Facebook. Add information on your products and services in the profile. Ensure it is fun and interesting, not really a dry recitation of features. Then use the page to engage your visitors:

Use the status update feature to supply tips, news about products or services, and previews on upcoming enhancements.
Allow your “fans” to create comments on the page.
Add applications such as a message board or perhaps a survey (all available from Facebook for free) to facilitate gathering input from your customers.
Next, concentrate on providing more than a product or service. Think about tips on how to make doing business with your company into a satisfying and interesting experience. Your visitors expect this and your competitors are thinking about how to do it as well. The best experience can drive more loyalty than the best product or best price.

Now, promote your organization with announcements in publications and on the web. Write and distribute pr announcements which are newsworthy, and send them to newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations, and sites that distribute news in your industry. It only takes one outlet to feature the story and you will have free usage of thousands of people.

When writing the press release, design the headline to grab readers’ attention in as few words as possible. Use jump start services near me and place the most crucial facts in the beginning, with a lead sentence that will draw the reader right into a convincing piece. Be sure you write the story from the client perspective so it is relevant to them.

Lastly, take advantage of the bad economy! There are plenty of cost-effective marketing resources available now. People who have big name corporate experience who is able to give you added expertise at a reasonable price. In fact, outsourcing your marketing can be quite a cost effective method of level the playing field together with your bigger competition.