Low-Cost Marketing Trends for 2007

Most businesses don't have unlimited budgets and need to concentrate on getting the most out of their marketing. So smart marketers this year will use "guerrilla marketing" -- nontraditional, low- or no-cost market tactics -- to boost awareness without wasting hard-earned profits.

Al Lautenslager, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days and Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days Workbook, recommends that businesses focus their efforts on a few key areas that will become big trends this year.

Local Search

Most small businesses do business within their community, suburb or city -- typically staying within about a 50- to 100-mile radius, Lautenslager says. Entrepreneurs don't need to invest in marketing that reaches beyond their local audience, like search engines that reach the whole world. The desired goal is to isolate search engine listings and related online advertising dollars in an area with the highest return.

Podcasts

Never before has the online community had such an opportunity to reach its audience offline. To be effective, podcasts should be of interest and value to the target market. A once-a-month delivery promoted through all other marketing channels will give a real synergistic boost to a small business's marketing.

Blogs

Blogging is a cost-effective way to create marketing buzz and communities of support. It allows entrepreneurs to have a conversation with their target market. It also provides an interactive forum for the target market to talk back. And a blog done in conjunction with a business's website provides one more way to reach prospects. Lautenslager recommends that business owners who are not able to support a blog on their own, contribute to someone else's. This will help them gain exposure and position them as an expert in their field.

Online Advertising

Ad dollars are continuing to shift to the internet and will continue to do so as new opportunities such as video open up. Online ad spending increases have been driven by the growing ability to measure campaigns effectively and a relatively high ROI. As a result, for many businesses, the question isn't whether to advertise online or even where or when, but rather how to stretch every dollar spent.

For the everyday entrepreneur and guerrilla marketer, this translates into a focused pay-per-click campaign on Yahoo! or Google AdWords. It's possible to focus on a particular target market searching particular keywords and test a campaign instantly, all for fewer dollars than the old mass-market banner ads and certainly for a lot less than the cost of print ads.

Expanding to Global Markets

Borders are being removed in the business world because international labor rates and talent levels make location irrelevant on the internet. No longer is going global just for large corporations; Sally's e-commerce bead shop operating from a home office can now do business in as many countries as have internet access.

For the aggressive entrepreneur, marketing globally is done mostly online. Using pay-per-click campaigns, a focused opt-in e-mail campaign or other traffic-generation techniques, a local entrepreneur can easily reach a global market.

Lautenslager provides action-oriented, hands-on exercises for guerrilla marketers to take advantage of the latest trends in Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days Workbook, http://www.entrepreneurpress.com/.