5 SMART Ways to Trim Marketing Costs
More Results - Less $
Streamlining costs is a critical component of an overall plan to beat this recession. We have a few easy tips to help you stretch your marketing dollars:
1) BE FOCUSED: Be assured, companies still need office space, meeting rooms, virtual offices, videoconference capabilities and business support services. There are people who are looking for your products, right now. Identify the key media sources where they are looking (on-line, classifieds, brokers, signage etc…) and ensure that you are there – all day, everyday. We’ll talk about the types of ads, call to action and offers that work another time, so start to identify your key media sources now.
2) TAP INTO THE GOLDMINE SITTING IN YOUR SEATS: The notion that it costs 10 times as much to acquire a new client than to retain an existing one is like fine wine to customer-driven companies. All stats show that happy clients stay longer, buy more and refer business. Invest in your clients: (a) Reinforce their decision to buy from you on a regular and frequent basis. (b) Educate them on how you can enhance their business (c) Use promotion to drive response.
3) CONVERT THE LIVING and RAISE THE DEAD: You may “think” your prospect is dead – but your prospect may not “know” he is dead. I’ve run a number of campaigns where I’ve reached out to prospects “deemed dead” only to find out that they stopped responding because their project was on hold, the office we showed them was too expensive or they weren’t ready to make a decision. These prospects are alive and well and ready to convert! You paid to have them call you in the first place. See them as once interested, always interested. Go get ‘em.
4) BROKERS: Yes, they charge 10%+ but these pay for performance deals still make sense and the commission paid may be less that your average acquisition cost . Keep building and maintaining those broker relationships. See my top tips for working with brokers to see how to get more leads from this valuable source.
5) USE YOUR WEDGE PRODUCTS: In these challenging economic times, many start up companies still can’t afford an office. Use Virtual Office or meeting rooms by the hour to get them in. Promote a “part time office” option, don’t have that offering? It might be time to create a recession bundle package. Regardless, WOW them with your service and they will buy more.
Andrea Pirrotti is a ROI-driven marketing maven with proven successes in creating, executing, monitoring and optimizing marketing programs in the business center category.
From of 1999 to 2005 Andrea worked for The Regus Group and ultimately served as Vice President of Global Marketing in charge of 750 locations across 60+ countries. She was the marketing lead and member of the executive team that fueled the firm’s growth from $200 million to $1 billion in revenue over a six-year period. During her tenure she crafted the marketing strategy for Regus’ IPO, the firm’s product, location and country launches, bankruptcy (and early emergence) and acquisitions. She has been consulting in the industry ever since.
In addition to her experience in the business center world, Andrea served as the outsourced head of direct sales and marketing for Helicor where she re-launched the StressEraser, a FDA regulated biofeedback device that eliminates the harmful impact of stress on your body. She exceed sales and costs per acquisition targets while achieving a 100%+ increase in sales volume year on year.
While at Antares, a private equity firm with $5 billion in real estate assets, Andrea reduced marketing costs by 62% while increasing leads by 35%. Notable press placements include: VH-1, Fortune, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The New York Times, Alpha Magazine and Deal Maker.
From 1991-1999 she headed up marketing for the Technology, Communication and Entertainment tri-state group at Ernst & Young LLP, Graduate programs at the Princeton review and served in Product Management roles at WarnerVision (now Warner Home video) and Gramavision records.
Andrea received a BS in Communications from Boston University and an MBA in Marketing from Pace, Lubin School of Business. She lives in Fairfield, CT with her husband Johnny and their newest addition to the family – baby Johnny and Sophia.