Fresh Business Thinking - Grow your Business without Breaking the Bank

Growing a business is never easy. Trying to grow that business as the country comes out of a recession can be even harder. It's therefore vital you are constantly seeking new ways to set your organisation apart from the rest. And it doesn't have to be expensive. Here are some cost-effective nuggets of advice to help you propel your business to success.

Understand Your Customer
You want your product or service to become a real hit amongst your target market. But do you really know who buys it? Is it one specific demographic group? Do you know if it is men, women, the young, or old? Is your target market driven by price, quality or, perhaps, desperation? There are many factors to consider, and these could change with emerging trends. So before you embark on any marketing activity, it's important you gain an understanding of who is buying and what are the biggest driving forces that make someone choose you, your expertise, your brand, your product, your service.

Get Online
The internet is undoubtedly a low-cost billboard for you to showcase your brand and business, and perhaps actively sell your products and services. But the prospect of hiring a web designer can be daunting. You could be wading through countless basic items while your website grows in cost and complexity before you have even considered the hosting charges, how to make regular changes or how to improve on the services you offer at a later date.

The good news is that a modern range of software is demystifying web design. There are simple, drag-and-drop visual web design programs not a million miles away from an office word processor. Indeed some packages boast even more potential, producing feature-rich websites without using any HTML coding. You are able to combine hosting, easy page and logo design, photo editing, navigation bars, secure e-commerce wizards, YouTube videos, embedded feeds from news sources and social networks, and even search engine optimisation without hiring an expert. A professional-looking site can be produced and online in a matter of hours with no prior experience and without the typical £500 fee designers charge for basic business sites.

Advertise
Word of mouth alone works for the lucky few and is not a tool to be ignored, but advertising obviously maintains and grows businesses and brands. Stay local or spread your wings. Consider placing an advert in a targeted publication so you can be seen by the right people. Consider your budget. Are radio and TV a possibility? How about ads in mobile phone applications? If you need to keep your costs as low as possible, a do-it-yourself approach to creating an ad still work wonders. If you leaflet potential customers yourself, you fully control the message you want to communicate. Distil what you want to say and make it an attractive proposition. Decide what your brand values are and keep messages within brand guidelines. Focus on an easy-to-remember call to action. Consider the life of the ad, its audience, for how long it will be visible and its placement in proximity to other advertising or features, and whether its performance should be tracked to monitor cost-effectiveness.

Go Direct and Save a Small Fortune
For many printed marketing materials you can cut out the middle men by producing designs yourself and sending them straight to a professional printer. The added comfort of a graphic designer is a costly one and their originality or design skill can be overkill for small businesses. Some flexible design and publishing programs are made to be used by non-professionals, and being faced with a blank canvas isn't a problem. Templates offer a quick way to make polished publications and your designs can be shared in a professional, compatible format such as PDF for accurate printing at any print shop. With a few clicks your static print designs can become interactive electronic documents available for download, and your design themes can be used across different materials and stationery with ease.

You Only Get One Chance to Make a First Impression
Don't rush out any type of advertising material without checking all the text for spelling and grammar mistakes. Use software to help, but remember to check for errors with your own eye. Even though there are proofing tools built into popular desktop publishing packages, design products and word processors, they might not pick up correctly-spelled words if they are used in the wrong context. Don't lose sight of the importance of first impressions.

Don't Over Bake the Cake
When you decide to produce your own marketing material, it's often said that less is more: a clearer message can have more impact. If you create a dozen bright star flashes to show off prices or other key information, they could detract from each other and the overall design. Only combine special graphical effects such as bevels, glows, shadows and textures if there's a specific end result you want to create. Don't use them all for the sake of it. If you have a coloured area or image as a background, you might want it to go right up to the edge of your page, but headlines, text, logos, key photo elements and other important information should be well inside the edge of your design. Don't use too many different fonts and sizes, otherwise the design may seem 'amateurish'. What is it you like about other advertising which you consider to be effective? Bear those points in mind when you work on your own materials, whether editing a design template or creating a design from scratch.


Dale Cook is product marketing manager for Serif, which specialises in software for small business. Serif's software range includes desk top publishing, photo editing and website design software. Founded in 1987 with the mission to develop low-cost alternatives to high-end publishing and graphics packages, Serif has been repeatedly praised for its powerful yet easy-to-use software.