If no one knows who you are, how will they know to buy your
products or services? There are ways to reduce the costs, but you cannot
survive as a company without spending a little. Marketing budgets are
the most important part of doing business.
Critical must haves for marketing: The age old saying about it takes money to make money. The saying refers to the cost of doing business to spread the word that you are in business - Marketing!
• Logo creation - do not cut corners. There is a huge difference in image types. Vector logos will not loose resolution as they are enlarged for large marketing pieces. Raster images will be blurry when enlarged. If the graphic artist or marketing company has no idea how to create a vector image, run like the wind. You can expect to pay around $50 to $200 for an individual artist vs. $800 to $3000 with a marketing firm. Here are few resources to find graphic artists and marketing companies: guru.com, freelancer.com, angieslist.com and Elance.com.
• Business cards - do not cut corners. This will be the first printed marketing material that is handed to a potential customer. You don't have to spend $50 to $100 on business cards. You can get 250 for free plus the cost of shipping which can be as low as $6. That means that each card cost you.02 cents! You can't print business cards at home for that cost. Vistaprint.com is an online resource for all printing material needed for business. Be careful of the extras you may not need right now.
• Websites - Do not over spend, but don't let your neighbor or high school student design your website for next to nothing. You can't expect to get a professional website for around $200. You don't have to spend $30 for a domain name each year. Godaddy.com offers names of all kinds for as little as $12. It is even cheaper if you buy hosting from them as well. Hosting is as low as $5 a month. Vistaprint.com offers a similar package on hosting. Dreamhost.com offers unlimited everything for about $9 a month.
• SEO - Do not over spend, but do set up a fixed amount to spend each month. You have a choice, time or money. There are some really great SEO marketing companies out there that will get your company and site noticed. They don't come cheap! You can expect to pay upwards of $1,000 a month for services. Software is out there that can do some of it for you and its worth the money spent if the software will submit your site to search engines; otherwise don't bother with it. Axandra.com offers iBusiness Promoter software. It caters to Google's search algorithms in order to help you get your site ranked in a good position which is the first page. If you follow the rules and make the changes, your site will rank high. Pay per click (PPC) campaigns are worth it if you know the right keywords so you aren't spending too much on a keyword and not really getting the right kind of traffic. For example: Your business deals in vacuums. One of your keywords is vacuums. You will pay more for that one word and get all kinds of traffic that may not be in your area. If you are located in New York, you want to market to people who are local and will visit your store. The key words New York vacuums will cost you less as now you are competing with only people in New York that own vacuum stores.
Critical must haves for marketing: The age old saying about it takes money to make money. The saying refers to the cost of doing business to spread the word that you are in business - Marketing!
• Logo creation - do not cut corners. There is a huge difference in image types. Vector logos will not loose resolution as they are enlarged for large marketing pieces. Raster images will be blurry when enlarged. If the graphic artist or marketing company has no idea how to create a vector image, run like the wind. You can expect to pay around $50 to $200 for an individual artist vs. $800 to $3000 with a marketing firm. Here are few resources to find graphic artists and marketing companies: guru.com, freelancer.com, angieslist.com and Elance.com.
• Business cards - do not cut corners. This will be the first printed marketing material that is handed to a potential customer. You don't have to spend $50 to $100 on business cards. You can get 250 for free plus the cost of shipping which can be as low as $6. That means that each card cost you.02 cents! You can't print business cards at home for that cost. Vistaprint.com is an online resource for all printing material needed for business. Be careful of the extras you may not need right now.
• Websites - Do not over spend, but don't let your neighbor or high school student design your website for next to nothing. You can't expect to get a professional website for around $200. You don't have to spend $30 for a domain name each year. Godaddy.com offers names of all kinds for as little as $12. It is even cheaper if you buy hosting from them as well. Hosting is as low as $5 a month. Vistaprint.com offers a similar package on hosting. Dreamhost.com offers unlimited everything for about $9 a month.
• SEO - Do not over spend, but do set up a fixed amount to spend each month. You have a choice, time or money. There are some really great SEO marketing companies out there that will get your company and site noticed. They don't come cheap! You can expect to pay upwards of $1,000 a month for services. Software is out there that can do some of it for you and its worth the money spent if the software will submit your site to search engines; otherwise don't bother with it. Axandra.com offers iBusiness Promoter software. It caters to Google's search algorithms in order to help you get your site ranked in a good position which is the first page. If you follow the rules and make the changes, your site will rank high. Pay per click (PPC) campaigns are worth it if you know the right keywords so you aren't spending too much on a keyword and not really getting the right kind of traffic. For example: Your business deals in vacuums. One of your keywords is vacuums. You will pay more for that one word and get all kinds of traffic that may not be in your area. If you are located in New York, you want to market to people who are local and will visit your store. The key words New York vacuums will cost you less as now you are competing with only people in New York that own vacuum stores.
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