When developing your marketing plan be aware that frugal marketing techniques take more time and a great deal of personal creativity but they DO produce results! Following are a few of my most successful frugal marketing techniques:

Website

It is not necessary to spend thousands of dollars on a beautiful website. Some of most effective and interesting websites I have seen were built on a frugal budget. Far more important than cost is content of a website. At a minimum your website should include your company name, contact information, tagline or slogan, company/owner biography, a list of services, a client list or list of testimonials, articles or press releases you have written and any interesting information related to your business that might be of help to your visitors. It is essential that you use a paid web host and not a free service. Free hosting may exclude you from search engine listings and may brand you as a neophyte in your field when that impression may not be correct. Inexpensive hosting is available and many hosts provide free or low cost web templates that will give your site a polished and consistent look. For a list of affordable web hosts visit Web Host Directory and Host Review. Having a well-developed website will help you leverage results of your other frugal marketing techniques and, in long run, will save you money by reducing overall cost and shipping of your marketing materials.

Public Relations

Create a press release and submit it to your local newspaper. Highlight unusual aspects of your business and educate reader about your business and your industry. Do not simply promote your own company, but promote industry as a whole. Position your business as unique in that industry by explaining, for example, how your company takes a novel approach to delivering products or services. Take same press release and format it for Internet. Submit it to as many free press release sites that you can find such as LocalBusiness.com, PRWeb.com and USA News. For added impact, search Newslink website to find other community newspapers in your state that might be interested in your business news. Follow standard press release formatting and be sure to add that you are available for interviews in your contact information section as this opens door for feature interviews during slow "news" weeks for local papers. Send out a press release every quarter or at least twice a year. Always include your website's URL in any marketing materials and press releases. For more information about press releases including formatting visit Netpreneur Exchange, Infoscavenger and Pertinent Information.

Contests

These 5 common advertising mistakes cause you to lose sales. But you can easily avoid these mistakes once you become aware of them.

1. STOP AND GO ADVERTISING

Many businesses reduce their advertising when they are getting plenty of sales. Then they increase their advertising when sales decline. This pattern of stop and go advertising creates a repeating cycle of high sales volume and low sales volume. It also prevents business from growing.

Develop and follow a plan of regularly scheduled advertising regardless of your sales volume. Continuous advertising produces steady growth. It also reduces time you have to spend on making advertising decisions.

2. ONE SHOT ADVERTISING

Businesses often devote all of their advertising efforts to attracting new customers. But they devote little or no effort to cultivating these prospects for future sales.

Most prospective customers will not buy first time they hear or see your sales message. But many will buy later if you follow up with them. Your follow up can be as simple as contacting them periodically with a new offer.

TIP: Customers are prospects too. Stay in contact with them. Find or develop other products or services you can offer them. It's easier to make a sale to a previous customer than to someone who never bought from you.

3. COPYCAT ADVERTISING

Businesses often copy their competitors advertising ideas. This can be effective for a short time. But results quickly decline as more and more competitors copy same idea.

Instead of copying your competitors advertising ideas, improve on them. Create something better - something your competitors cannot copy.

For example, give your customers a reason to buy from you instead of from a competitor. This can be as simple as including a unique bonus only you can offer - or providing personal attention your competitors are not willing or able to provide.