Marketing has to generate profits. That is why tips to cut prices or to increase spending are like cheating at sports to win games. Every proposal to increase business must reflect on the bottom line of a profit and loss statement. It is with this caveat that I list the following tips which have worked remarkably well during my business career:
1.
Address customer complaints as new opportunities: determine to convert every unsatisfied customer in to a delighted one.
2.
Reduce your response time. Surprise customers with the speed with which you attend to their requests.
3.
Claw your way up brand rank and market share ladders. Focus on the competition just ahead of you, and steal their clients one by one. Avoid ambitions of copying leaders in another league.
4.
Take budgets away from external marketing and put parts of it in to interactive marketing. Substitute mass media spending with demonstrators at points-of-purchase.
5.
Intensify customer engagement. Again, this has to be done without increasing total cash outflow. Try reducing fixed remuneration for sales-people, and offer better incentives for customer contacts.
6.
Reach out to new markets: this was impossible without additional resources in the brick-and-mortar days, but the Internet and e-commerce have fixed such matters.
7.
Trade in allied but non-competing products and services. Allow a friend to sell sandwiches at your lemonade stand (for a commission naturally).
8.
Entice the distribution chain: leverage your marginal costs to nudge sellers in to higher volumes of off-take.
9.
Reduce capital employed: Sell excess manufacturing capacity. Ask suppliers to reduce lead-times. Pass interest costs to other cogs in your business cycle.
10.
Address your Gross Margin. Introduce new features that cost you next to nothing, but which consumers love. Do not overlook lower price-point opportunities either.
Tips, whether in business or at a race-course, can do more harm than good. Do not take major risks with any ideas, including the ones I have expressed above. Experiment with one tip at a time in a market of secondary importance. Rapidly expand successes and shut down ideas that do not work for your business.
Stay focused on the long-term. Avoid short-term gains that affect branding and reputation. Never lose the trust of your existing clientele. Sales-people, who need their bonuses at the end of this month will try and sucker promotions out of the company. You will really and truly foot the bill for such follies.