Skinny Marketing

As small business owners, we need to market our products and services, but who has big budgets they can set aside for this? Not many people that I know of, especially with the current economy. Since starting my business, I've been doing something that I call, "Skinny Marketing." 

Here is how I define the term (as stated in, VA Secrets Revealed! An Insider's Guide to Being a Successful Virtual Assistant):

Skinny Marketing
is a process based on completing a set of activities that when taken as
a whole gives your business the strongest positive impact achievable
for the least amount of investment. The idea is that a well-planned and
successfully executed targeted marketing campaign can be relatively
quick and inexpensive.

The concept is based on doing
cheap, or free, marketing activities in a planned and strategic way while trying to get the biggest bang
for your buck — i.e. Skinny Marketing.

The key to successfully executing a Skinny Marketing campaign is knowing who you are targeting and what
activities have the most potential before you begin. Before you spend even $1 on marketing, you need to
do a few things:

1. Identify your target audience
2. Get to know your target audience (not just who they are but why they do what they do)
3. Find your target audience (where do they market themselves?)
4. Analyze your competitors
5. Develop a list of possible activities
6. Set your budget
7. Create a marketing plan (should include specific activities and a timeline for completing them)

Check out a previous post on low- or no-cost marketing activities, Marketing on a Budget.

Technorati Tags: affordable marketing, free marketing, marketing on a budget, skinny marketing, small business

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