What are your typical marketing methods?

[The Profit Frog]

I recently received an email that had this information in it:According to new research, women who own or operate their own business overwhelmingly believe they can successfully weather the tough economic times. The survey of working women commissioned for the 2009 Telstra Business Women's Awards revealed that while 90 percent of women who own or operate their own business are concerned about the state of the economy, 88 percent are confident of leading their business successfully through the recession.
The survey also revealed that 75 percent of women who own and operate their own business are taking positive action to combat the downturn.
The most common actions women are taking in their business are cutting costs and improving efficiency (23%) and working harder (18%).
I noticed when I read the quoted information that the last sentence was most interesting; of the methods indicated as "positive action" to combat the downturn, marketing is not noted as the most common.

If anything I would be thinking the most vital steps to take are not working harder, and cutting costs and improving efficiency - but rather smarter marketing and improved efficiency.

So what are your typical marketing methods?
How do you usually market your small business?
Better yet - what are your top 3 marketing strategies?

I'm interested to know how others are dealing with this in the current economy.

Terri Mitchell
Response Copywriting (http://www.responsecopywriting.com.au)
Professional Copywriting Services - Freelance Direct Response - Copywriter Professional Writing Services Freelance Web Copy Direct Copy Marketing (http://www.twohandsdancing.com)

[Brendan]

Hey Terri,

In these sorts of times one of the things we focus on is to increase contact with current clients, make sure they are content with our services, and see if there is anything else you can offer them.

Ensuring that your current client base isn't looking elsewhere to save costs is vital.

As a side to this we may offer incentives for clients to network with other businesses that may need our services.

We also think that in these times new markets may emerge, or smaller markets pick up, such as more people starting new businesses, current businesses looking to save costs and businesses focussing on internal improvement and using this downtime to improve their current business.

[gerryonline]

I have focussed a lot on SEO and paid links lately, this has lead to a lot more traffic to my sites and hopefully exposure for my brand.

Since I make money from having ads on my site, I have noticed my income has increased slightly.. so this has been working well - I havent looked into offline marketing just yet

[JamesGG]

The way that I see it, there are four basic ways of generating revenue for a business. This is by selling, in order of general ease;

- Existing services (ie, things you already do) to existing clients (ie, people you already deal with)
- New services to existing clients
- Existing services to new clients
- New services to new clients

Marketing is simply how you communicate that intention :-)

[Slade]

Also, don't shove products and new services down your clients throats! You should target the new service or product or feature specifically to the clients needs.. that way they know when they hear from you, that the advice you have to give is of good quality and is relevant.

[JamesGG]

Also, don't shove products and new services down your clients throats! You should target the new service or product or feature specifically to the clients needs.. that way they know when they hear from you, that the advice you have to give is of good quality and is relevant.

Absolutely. You should never shove anything down anyone's throat unless you want to gag them. So, generally best not to do that with your clients...

That said; your clients won't buy from you unless they know what you have for sale. So, keeping regular contact with them and telling them the benefits of each thing that you can do / provide for them is well worthwhile.

By way of example; we're an accounting firm, exclusively looking after investors. Each year in February, we remind our clients of the benefits of updating their PAYGW variation, or submitting one if they haven't done so already. Response rate is always pretty damn high, and - get this - people thank us for telling them about it, as they wouldn't have known otherwise about a service that they were happy to pay for.

Gotta love that!!