Seven Low Cost Marketing Strategy Ideas, like Conducting a Market Survey

Last week, The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) published a list of “7 low-cost marketing strategies to implement now” including everything from conducting a market survey to improving public relations.

The BDC offered up Marketing 101 type suggestions for small to medium sized companies to energize their businesses on a shoestring. While we at Suite 203 Communications liked all seven of their suggestions, we realize that without a marketing degree or some first-hand experience, executing these basic initiatives may not be as simple as they first seem.

Over the next few weeks, we will elaborate on our favourite BDC suggestions and provide you with some creative ways to think about marketing your business as well as pointers on taking it to the next level with a little help from the pros (like us!)

Strategy #1: Conduct a survey
BDC advised readers to conduct a market survey to get to know their target market a little better. Great advice! But where to begin? Here are Suite 203’s tips to creating a relevant survey:

• Define the goal of your survey. What information do you need to know? What information would be nice to know? Are you looking for specific buying habits of your customers or have you still not figured out who exactly these customers are?
• Design your survey based on your target market and survey distribution method. Check box or ranking type surveys are great for quick, in-person responses, while open-ended questions lead to more in-depth responses but take more time to answer. For the latter, you may have to compensate respondents for their time.
• Write the questions from an unbiased, mass-appeal standpoint. Avoid leading, loaded and technical questions, unless you are targeting a specific, sophisticated group.
• Use a free questionnaire program for a professional looking survey format. Check out the likes of Survey Monkey and Kwik Surveys that both feature a polished questionnaire template and valuable analytics.
• Analyze your results and see how you can use this information to have a positive impact on your business. Your newly acquired data means nothing if you can’t make heads or tails of it. Organize it and address the key findings.
• Take it to the next level: A creative marketing firm (like Suite 203 Communications) can help you organize a survey that does so much more than provide basic consumer information. Imagine mining intriguing data that can lead to media coverage or be the inspiration for your next marketing or sales campaign. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more….