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Creative strategies I used to grow my business during a recession

Guest post by: Peter Geisheker

Article Overview: Here are a few marketing tactics my marketing firm did to grow our business over the past 2-years and these tactics worked very well...

Creative strategies I used to grow my business during a recession

Here are a few marketing tactics my marketing firm did to grow our business over the past 2-years and these tactics worked very well.

PR
A PR Strategy that worked well for my marketing firm, and helped us acquire several new clients, was offering 30-minute marketing brainstorming sessions for free and with no-obligation to hire us. Just call us, tell us about your business, and we will tell you strategies you can implement to better market your company and attract new customers. This strategy generated a flood of calls and several of the companies that called us decided to hire us to build marketing programs for them.

They way we got the word out about our brainstorming program was sending out a press release, sending an announcement to our marketing ezine, posting it on our blog, and posting it in a small business ezine. I believe our total cost for this campaign was about $1000. So, very affordable. We generated well over $25,000 in new business, so our ROI was outstanding.


Here is how I launched my viral campaign and keep it alive:

1. As my goal was to use my viral ebook to build a database of prospects and generate sales, the first thing I did was create a webpage with an email subscription form so people had to give me their name and email address to get my free ebook. Upon entering their name and email address, my ebook would automatically be emailed to them.

2. Then, I wrote and distributed a press release announcing that I was giving away a free marketing plan outline and marketing strategy ebook. My cost for this was around $200.00 on prweb. This got my press releases posted on over 20 blogs and websites where their visitors could see they could download my ebook for free. I soon will be sending out another press release as doing this worked so well the first time.

3. I setup a Google AdWords account and bid on search terms such as "marketing plan", "marketing plan outline", and several other terms. My cost per click was around 25 cents. This immediately got people to my website where they could download my ebook for free if they gave me their name and email address. Over the course of 2-years I have spent a couple thousand dollars doing this and it has worked incredibly well.

4. I advertised my free ebook on my website, which I have number one search engine rankings for the terms marketing firm and marketing firms. This brings me a lot of targeted web traffic and people downloading my ebook.

5. I advertised in a couple of small business ezines (electronic newsletters) that had tens of thousands of subscribers. Total cost for this was around $500.

Doing the above 5 items is what got my ebook into the hands of my target market. By telling them they can freely give away my ebook on their website and forward it to friends, family, colleagues, etc., viral marketing was launched as other people were doing my marketing for me.


Results of my viral campaign to date:

1. My ebook has been downloaded countless times.

2. Many websites offer my ebook as a free gift/resource to their visitors. This is viral marketing at its best – other people talking about and giving away my "viral offering" to others.

3. I have built a database of prospects that I market to each month with my automated marketing newsletter.

4. I get many of my clients from my marketing newsletter. My investment of about $4000 to date to market my free ebook has generated over $100,000 in sales in the past two years. So, although my example of viral marketing is a very small scale example, it is a very profitable example. Most viral campaigns are NOT profitable because the business is focusing on building brand instead of building a database of prospects and generating sales. In my opinion, spending money on branding alone and not on building a database of targeted prospects to sell to is throwing your money away.

Related Articles
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  Are there any businesses that are recession-proof?
  “A Strategic Action Plan For Recession Resistant Marketing”

Article Tags: alive 1, business ezine, cost per click, free ebook, free marketing plan, google, google adwords, marketing firm, marketing plan outline, marketing programs, marketing strategy, marketing tactics, minute marketing, plan marketing, pr strategy, press release announcing that, prweb, search terms, subscription form, time 3



Related Forum Posts
Re: Hello - Hi Ryan, Sounds like a really interesting business. This is a really great place to pick up ideas and proven strategies for success. I hope your business can grow as a result of being a part of our group. We look forward to hearing more about you.
Persistence gives live to small business. - While I was reading about the 10th year anniversary of google, I counted back 10 years and what I see was persistent. Every small business can grow big if we will be persistent. Persistent actually brings consistence. There is no business that cannot grow big if the owner will not be too haste to succeed. Hastiness has always been the bane of colapsed small business. Whatever you do as antergreneur keep at it and be innovative about it, you will soon be celebrating growth. To me, there is no business that cannot grow be if persistence is employed.
surviving an economic crisis - I'm moving to Idaho then I'm building a bunker and stockpiling 2 years worth of supplies. I'm buying a fishing rod, a hunting rifle and bunch of chickens to produce eggs... I like chickens because they don't care about recessions or depressions. OK... that may be Plan C - let's hope it doesn't get to that. So far, our business is doing well, we often target affluent markets and from our experience in the early 90's recession this worked well. BUT - what we're seeing this time around is not a simple recession. I think it could get bumpy. What type of businesses thrive in an economic downturn?
The Hidden Hand Effecting Your Bottom Line - If you are based outside the U.S and run an online business, you'll probably receive a lot of your payments in U.S dollars. When the recession hit I saw a lot of non-U.S business people boasting how they [u:20bfadx5]hadn't been effected by the recession[/u:20bfadx5], brushing off the recession as something that was not important. But they [u:20bfadx5]overlooked the hidden hand[/u:20bfadx5] effecting their profits. The currency markets which for non-U.S businesses paid in U.S dollars has masked the effect of the recession somewhat, and has an incredible effect on your overall profits. Looking at my profits over the past several months I can see fluctuations up and down. I may have a hard time attributing what is causing these fluctuations if I believed the recession didn't effect me because overall my earnings and traffic are up. But then I compare to the U.S - ££ exchange rate, and notice a [u:20bfadx5]strong correlation[/u:20bfadx5] with my profits. When the dollar is strong my profits are higher, and when it is weak they are weaker. It didn't account for all fluctuations but the effect was very strong. I know most people are aware that exchange rates effect their business, but I don't think people realize how strongly it's effects can be, and how closely related to the economy this is. So to say "the recession didn't effect me" because your profits went up can be [u:20bfadx5]very wrong[/u:20bfadx5]. The hidden hand of exchange rates could have improved your profits, and the exchange rates changed due to changes in the economy, i.e the recession. The recession has caused this fluctuation in exchange rate as people fled from the stock market into cash, and with the $$ being the biggest currency in the world, more people fled into the dollar, pushing up its value against other currencies. When the stock market bounced in March and people moved back into stocks and other investments, the dollar weakened. In addition I did see a overall drop in advertiser spend which wasn't just attributed to the dollar weakening after March. I attribute this to advertisers cutting back their budget in response to the economy, but given a change in mood and outlook in recent months this is now reversing and advertiser income is up despite a weaker dollar. So the recession has played a bigger role in my business than at first glance, so just because profits are up does not mean my business is not being thrown around by external economic factors. For this reason I've studied the economy, made a prediction on what is most likely to happen based on trusted sources with the strongest track record, and made a plan for that eventuality, and then also plans for less likely scenarios, so that my business can prosper in either situation. Instead of overlooking this hidden hand it is important to recognize it is there, and not accept it as a mystical force your business is a slave to, but something you can react to and plan for in order to take your business further.
Re: Obama Wants Social Security for Illegals - [quote="Lucy Wu":2dlphfqu]I think America's biggest problem right now is clearly the recession, and that should be the main focus as of now.[/quote:2dlphfqu] I agree. Do you think President Elect Obama is doing or will do what is best in terms of beating this recession?


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