15 Steps To Maximize Leads During any Economy
by: Susan Allocco, Freelance Copywriter

Companies that prosper during economic slowdowns have some common traits: they're innovative, focused, and continue to aggressively market their products.

Here are 15 innovative, low-cost, or no-cost, marketing ideas that will help your company prosper through any economy:

# 1. Reallocate your marketing dollars.

Now is the time to eliminate poor performing products and transfer the corresponding budget to products that have done well.

# 2. Contact past clients and leads.

It costs about five times more to find a new customer than to keep an existing one. Go through your records to find clients that stopped buying from you, and qualified leads that were never closed. Send them a letter or email, and then call. It's important to remind them of who you are and how you can help.

# 3. Clean your mailing lists.

Be sure your in-house mailing lists are up-to-date. A clean list will generate a higher response rate and reduce your mailing costs.

# 4. Add new components to your marketing mix.

There are free, or inexpensive, components that can be added to your marketing mix, like newsletters, email, blogging, and business networking sites.

# 5. Increase results and lower costs with Organic SEO.

Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get a higher ranking in search engine results. SEO — especially organic — is an inexpensive and highly measurable way to get your product in front of prospects while they're researching and shopping.

There are a number of great, free tools available:

With Google's free, Insights for Search you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames.

Google provides free webmaster tools to help your ranking.

When you're not sure which two words or phrases to use, Smackdown tells you which ones appear in more pages.

The SEO ToolBox is a collection of FREE SEO tools. Use them to find out whether your URL has been indexed by Google, Yahoo! & MSN; the number of backlinks to a URL (also shows a historical view of previous backlinks); what external pages your domain is linking to; page rank of a URL, and historical view of previous PR scores; which pages are the strongest on another domain; which pages are the strongest on your domain, and more.

To build valuable links, Link Tree lets you find sites that link to your competitors' web sites, but not to yours.

# 6. Aggressively promote your USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

Your USP sets you apart from your competitors and is the main reason a prospect will choose to do business with you. Your USP can be a particular expertise, award-winning customer support, a lifetime refund policy, etc.

# 7. Get creative.

Think about new ways to bring in customers. Use partnerships, referral discounts, free informational seminars, and white papers.

# 8. Send traffic to landing pages.

When promoting your product or service, use a URL to a landing page. They're designed specifically to close the sale or capture lead information.

# 9. Vigorously track and test all promotions.

Business-to-business marketers are notorious for not tracking campaign results. If you're one of them, now is the time to start. By tracking and testing promotions, you can justify your budget, and continuously improve your results and ROI.

# 10. Stand behind your products.

A strong guarantee is the strongest way to communicate confidence in your product, and reduce your prospect's resistance to buy. Make sure the guarantee is shown prominently and frequently on your web site, and in all promotional and collateral materials.

# 11. Mandate meetings between marketing and sales.

Your sales representatives are out in the trenches speaking with clients and prospects every day. As a result, they have a great deal of valuable information you can use to improve campaigns, customer and sales support, and the product or service itself. If you're a mail-order company, your customer service representatives are your go-to source for vital information, such as common questions, concerns and problems.

# 12. Research new markets.

If your product is not highly specialized, look for new, viable markets to sell into. But, do your research first: subscribe to industry trade publications; speak with potential customers; and send out a survey to determine how viable the market is for what you offer.

# 13. Closely monitor your competitors.

It's never been easier to watch what your competitors' are doing. Here are just some of the tools available online:

Set up alerts using a competitor's company or product name to get email notifications of the latest and most relevant Google search results.

CodeMonitor is a free online tool that notifies you of any changes to the html of a competitor's web site.

To find out where online your competitors' products are being promoted, type your competitor's URL here.

# 14. Use public relations to bolster other marketing programs.

Public relations is an inexpensive and effective way to get your company and product name in front of prospects.

# 15. Work closely with your retailers and distributors.

If you sell through retailers and other distributors, treat them like an extension of your business. Provide the marketing, training, and support they need to move your product off their shelves.

Susan Allocco is a freelance copywriter with over 20 years of experience helping companies succeed through direct response marketing programs. She can be reached at 212-986-6961, Susan@MarketingRenaissance.com, or visit her website at www.MarketingRenaissance.com