Book Smarts: October 2011

The cost of even a modest marketing campaign can give you sticker shock. But it doesn’t have to, argues Cameron Herold, a Vancouver-based business coach. In Double Double: How to Double Your Revenue and Profit in 3 Years or Less, the veteran growth-company exec suggests ways to make every penny count:

Be open to getting bumped: Advertising gets cheaper the closer to publication or airing. TV and radio stations will give you 50% off for pre-emptable airtime, in which they’ll cancel your ad if someone else comes along willing to pay full price. Buy as many half-off ads as you can and let the competition pay full price.

Wear your brand at industry events: Shirts prominently adorned with your logo will stand out in a sea of business garb. When four employees wearing 1-800-GOT-JUNK? shirts circulated among 2,000 conference attendees, they were so visible that many attendees thought the firm had at least 20 people there. And, Herold says, every time he wears logoed clothing, someone asks him about his company.

Let the crowd do it: Plenty of websites exist through which you can get dozens of people to produce marketing materials, then pay only the one whose work you like best. More than 25,000 SMEs worldwide have used one such site, CrowdSpring, for writing services or graphic design.

Use “parketing” to get noticed: Turn company vehicles with your logo into low-cost billboards by parking them in spots highly visible to passersby. Some College Pro Painter franchisees found parking in a gas station yielded such great exposure they struck barter deals, agreeing to buy gas from that station all summer.