Everyone else is doing it, so why not apply the recession beating approach to your marketing this month. Here are some simple tips for improving your marketing at no cost to your business.

1. Ask for referrals from existing customers
If your clients and customers are happy with what you do for them why not ask them to refer other people to you? Larger organisations often have formal ‘introduce a friend’ promotions (I see Sky are running one at the moment) but just asking is the first step and when you do ask you are often surprised at the response. I’ve had clients report that people have said to them ‘Oh, I didn’t think you wanted any more clients at the moment’ or ‘I didn’t realise – yes of course I’ll recommend you’.

As they say – ‘ask and you shall receive’.

2. Give better service
Delight and amaze your customers. Just doing this can create a real buzz around your business and once customers start talking about how great you are, especially if they do it online via industry forums, or social networking sites like Twitter, you’d be surprised how quickly the word can spread.

To illustrate the point I was reading an article earlier in which someone referred to a great example of exceptional customer service by Bose. A businessman bought himself a new set of £100 Bose headphones for a series of long flights. Towards the end of his first flight using the headphones the passenger next to him tripped over the wire rendering the headphones useless. You can imagine how annoyed he felt.

At his next airport stop he decided we would buy himself a new set as he couldn’t imagine the remaining flights without them. He wasn’t best pleased at the thought of spending another £100 but the decision was made. He walked into the Bose shop at the airport and asked the assistant for a set identical to the one’s he already had (in working order of course). Having explained what had happened to the sales assistant he was GIVEN a new set of headphones for nothing. Now that’s customer service.

It actually cost Bose very little to engender a massive feeling of good will from that customer and create such a positive response that this story has been repeated over and over again not only raising brand awareness of Bose but also creating a very positive impression of a company that some might have seen only interested in selling expensive gadgets.

3. Create the news
Come up with a newsworthy story about your business or products and get the local newspaper or radio station interested. This sort of no cost publicity is obviously ideal if you have a new product or service that you are launching but can also work if you are creating or bucking trends. So if for example your business is doing really well inspite of or because of the current economic climate you could create a story around that.

Bear in mind your story does need to be innovative or topical – it needs to be NEWs – the clue is in the word.

4. Use your network
When was the last time you contacted each of the people in your network on a one to one basis to find out what’s going on in their business and let them know about yours?

If you contact enough people again you’ll create a buzz and very likely generate new business ideas – they may not result in immediate sales but could develop into longer term business partnerships, result in changes to your product or service or highlight new market opportunities you are not aware of.

Let’s not under-estimate the potential power of a network. The average business person apparently has about 300 people in their network. Maybe you have more, or fewer but regardless of the exact number the power of your network is not just in the people that you know, but in the contacts you could reach through your network. So if you have a small network of say 50 people and they each know 50 other people that gives you access to 2500 contacts (50 x 50). All of a sudden there’s a whole new potential audience for you to market to, use as a sounding board or for researching new ideas.

5. Make yourself understood
Now would be a good time to go through any marketing materials you have – sales brochures, websites, even things like your invoices and standard letters to clients – to make sure they really do sell your business and it’s products and services in your best light.

At the most basic level check for and remove any TLAs (three letter acronyms) and industry jargon (unless of course you are selling into an industry that speaks such jargon). Maybe you can ask someone not directly connected to your business (maybe even people in your network) to review your website or sales leaflets and give you feedback.

Getting your marketing message right is so important and in tough times you need to be more convincing than ever.

I hope your business isn’t suffering during this recession and that you are one of the many really taking advantage of new opportunities that are being presented in this new set of business circumstances.

Further Reading
How to avoid expensive marketing mistakes
Using a coach to improve your marketing results

Written by Teresa Harris, Second Opinion Marketing. Teresa is an independent marketing consultant working with professional practices, small businesses and public sector bodies to develop effective marketing plans which achieve their business objectives.

As a marketing coach Teresa works with new marketing managers and small business owners to enhance their marketing performance.