5 Ways to Stretch your Marketing Dollars

Consultant and author Nicole Shields suggests these often-neglected ways to produce more bang from your marketing bucks:

Build up a library of promotional photos

Seek out photographers who charge by the half-day or day. Then order more than one picture at a time, save the resulting images, and keep them on hand, ready to use at no extra cost in the future. Most companies waste money by ordering one photograph at a time. They could save big bucks by keeping a library of standing photos, using them as needed, and taking new pictures only for unique occasions.

Do things in-house when you can

By all means, hire professional art directors, copywriters, photographers, printers, and illustrators to do the things they do best. But why pay them for unskilled but necessary tasks such as stuffing envelopes, for instance? Your office staff can do the job much cheaper.

Save money by smart print buying

It costs very little to print overruns of one or two or more thousand copies of most documents. Printing multiple items in the same print run saves on setup and wash costs.
So, if you think that the information in your document will remain valid for a long period, print enough extra copies to last a year or even longer.

Reproduce favorable media articles

Magazine or other media coverage packs a lot of weight with your customers and prospects. So print copies (which cost very little) and insert them in your promotional and billing mailings. And do the same with testimonials.

Make reprints of productive ads

If an ad works for you in one medium, chances are it will work for you in others. Use copies of good ads at every point of contact with your customers and sales prospects, including:

mailing-stuffers
on the back surfaces of spec sheets and price lists
in customer-service communications
on the backs of letters
in press releases
on memos
as part of e-mail messages