Given it away for free lately?

Yes, it's an anathema to many business people, but the fact remains: giving something away for free can be the best way to attract future customers.

I saw this again in action at a recent regional tourism marketing conference I was speaking at.

There was a relatively new massage/health spa in the area and they were at the conference giving massages at breaks to attendees. The two owners were there in branded outfits. They covered all the accomodation owners and, importantly, the MC for the day, Lawrence Mooney from Postcards. So they took the opportunity to let important prospectiver referers "sample" their service free of charge - which will translate to referrals and perhaps even a spot on tv should Postcards ever cover the region. Plus they got to attend the conference, network and learn from the various presenters. What a smart zero budget marketing tip put into action!

It's all in the application!

Last night I was speaking on networking skills at an event for mentors and mentees (otherwise known as heros) from a great program run by the City of Glen Eira and City of Kingston.

One of the ladies in the program came up to me after the event to tell me she'd seen me speak a few months previously on Zero Budget Marketing. And I was very excited to hear she's applied some of the simple ideas she'd come up with from my talk- to great result apparently. Her business is a specialist painting business (http://www.tuscantrellis.com.au/) . She'd successfully used a promotion of a family ticket to the Guggenheim Collection as a means of getting people to update their database details. So for $50 she heard back from people who she'd been chasing previously with no result!

She'd also remembered the tip about marketing to people you'd worked with before - and when she got back in touch with past customers, found she got four jobs straight away - apparently enough work to make her wonder how they'd get it all done. And all for the cost of a few phone calls!

It was a great reminder that no matter what time we spend learning and listening - nothing happens unless we put things into action! So the zero budget additional tip for the day is "get moving"!