Frugal Marketing For Entrepreneurs

How many e-mail messages do you send everyday? You're probable missing out on a simple, inexpensive marketing tool. Seize the opportunity to promote your business to a highly targeted market without spending a dime by utilizing your e-mail signature line.

If your email signature line only contains your name and contact information, you're missing out on advertising to e-mail recipients that have opted for communications from you.

These people are key members of your unofficial marketing network. They are your prospects, clients, press contacts and colleagues and your signature line is the perfect, unobtrusive space for a unique promotional pitch.

Try these tactics to turn your "sign-offs" into sales:
Ø Highlight what your company offers.
Ø Offer an incentive for recipients taken a specified action.
Ø Use the associated web address for the incentive, if it's also on your site.
Ø Give better visual positioning to the promotion rather than contact info.
Ø Play with eye-catching fonts and colors.
Ø Use less than 64 characters/line so that words don't wrap to a new line.
Ø Write a "signature" for different categories of recipients.
Ø Change your signature copy frequently.
Ø Never miss a chance to get your product or company noticed.

Another thing that many entrepreneurs don't think about is the letters they send out. They are merely accepted as solving a problem or answering a need, when you can carry the e-mail idea over into every piece of mail you generate.

On the company letterhead simply add a line at the bottom of page 1. It could be a "tag line" of sorts made up of a slogan that "brands" your services or business. Try to come up with something unique so that every time it's heard the prospect thinks of you.

Examples of this would be, "Good to the last drop," which of course is Maxwell House Coffee. "Finger-lickin' good," which is KFC chicken, and so on. You get the message of what I'm saying. Play around with this until you come up with a pearl that is uniquely you.

If your business/service does not lend itself to this idea, then focus on increasing your credibility by using a "membership" tag line. For instance a funeral home would be less than tasteful using the line, "Our clients are dying to visit us;" but they COULD use the line "Members of Undertakers Assoc. of America" at the foot of their letterhead. This establishes immediate credibility in the mind of the recipient, even if the letter they received was a direct mail advertising letter.

When you're an entrepreneur in today's marketplace you have to be inventive and creative to buck the "big boys" on the block. I suggest that every entrepreneur read about the life of P.T. Barnum to get a better understanding of a truly great entrepreneur.

It isn't always the almighty dollar that gets the best advertising for our business; it's the best IDEA that makes you stand out in the crowd.