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"!

Brains over brawn gets me every time

The site coolhunter.com.au recently published a story about a launch that is a reminder that a really great idea doesn't need to cost a bundle to implement.

It could even cost as little as a few coloured packs of post-it notes.

"Hot on the heels of this fad, gaming giant Nintendo have promoted their latest baby Wii in Italy with this interesting wall display created by a series of posted notes. The post it notes make a nice 3D representation of a 2D pixel. "

Gee, that's a clever idea...I'm sure the agency charged a bundle for it, but what's to stop you coming up with your own version of this gem? Go on, get creative!

If anything but free is too expensive...

I was advising a landscape designer the other day - a one-man band, country based - who would like a website but was finding the prospect of putting one together as a big job.

I asked who might use the site, and it was really only people who had been referred to him, so it was a place he wanted to showcase his work.

Like most of us, he didn't have a big budget handy to pay someone to do the site. And though I recommended a number of great third-party providers than would be quite cheap - under $1k for the whole lot, content management, hosting and even a custom design - it still sounded like a lot to him.

So I thought a great place to start was with something like this - a blog. Blogging has gone far beyond the concept of an Internet diary and has moved into the realm of a great potential - and search engine friendly - business tool.

You can bit some great design templates through the various blog sites out there. We found a lovely, semi-abstract plant one for him. You can use free add ons, like zookoda, to allow people to subscribe to your blog or conduct email marketing. You can upload pictures of your jobs and tell the stories about how they're created. You can add your business profile and your contact details. You can even buy a cheap .com of your own (TPP Internet will sell you one for two years for around $70) and automatically re-route it to your blog's domain, so it gives the appearance of a stand alone site.

So if your actual level of investment available to build a website is ZERO, give a blog a go!

Selective advertising + targeting = low cost lead generation

Sometimes a little bit of regular advertising may be just what a business needs to keep awareness up or leads flowing in. But advertising is too expensive, isn't it?

Well, not always. I was recently reminded of this when buying 10 spots on Melbourne's Triple RRR -for around $500, including the ad's production. Now 10 spots over a month isn't much - but if the audience is targted enough, this won't necessarily matter. These ads, over 3 months, have continued to bring in 3-4 customers a month for my client - which covers more than the aquisition cost - plus it has the benefit of spreading awareness among others who may join in the future.

Another option I've used with success before was a small print advertisement in one of Melbourne's gay/lesbian papers. It was for a small laser hair removal studio. Now the first thing most people think of when thinking hair removal is girls. But we didn't have the budget for advertising in female glossies. So it came down to thinking about who else is looks conscious and living around South Yarra? The small and inexpensive weekly ads - again including production - generated MOST of their business from then on.

So if you've got a targeted product or service, there may be a relatively inexpensive media vehicle out there that YOU may not consume, but that your target audience does.

All hail the public library!

I was out speaking about Zero Budget Marketing the other night at the Glen Eira Women in Business network and a very smart lady in the audience pointed out a great "zero budget" tip that we too often forget - visit the library. Whether it's your local library, the State Library or - for ridiculous amounts of great information - a University Library.

I have recently gone back to University part-time and my student log-in gives me access to thousands of journals and business publications online. So much so, that I actually think if you regularly needed to do a lot of research, it would be a lot cheaper to maintain a part-time student status than subscribe to various publications. I'm talking access to anything from business press to scientific journals.

So next time you're plotting a new venture, or researching your competitors, wanting to learn a new skill or looking for ideas, don't forget the humble library!

ps. My local library in North Melbourne has great seminar rooms upstairs that you can rent for a huge $7.20 for THREE hours. So if you're looking to run a prospecting event or something similar, your local library may be good for more than just the books!

When you're time poor, zero budget gets tougher!

Yes, I've been rather remiss in blogging on zero budget marketing ideas because I've been working 12 hour days finalising speakers and marketing Networx's first conference: www.evolveconference.com. evolve 07 is a marketing trends and issues conference for which I got a tad enthusiastic and planned 8 of the 10 sessions as panels - so great for the audience, hell for the organiser (aka me) as it means I needed 24 people for one day! It's due to all happen on Thursday 14 June in Melbourne, so I'm in serious marketing mode and serious slack mode in my blogging!

I HAVE employed some zero budget principles, in the way of tapping into my personal favourite - CONTRA. I needed theming and entertainment for the post-conference drinks and was able to "swap" these with suppliers for conference tickets and an exhibition space. Same goes for promotion via Marketing magazine and some of my design.

I am still going to be spending some money on Google AdWords - although having set up a host of keywords, I don't know that enough people actually search for phrases like Marketing Conference. Stay posted for an update - and come along if you're in the mood for a jam-packed day of insights and clever people from companies like Cirque du Soleil, Sportsgirl, AMEX, Trading Post, Mind Share, M&C Saatchi and loads more!