I work frequently with small business owners who are scrambling for creative ways to keep their business visible and vibrant on a very limited budget.

Many of them are asking:

It is possible to remain competitive while spending less on marketing?

Answer: Yes!

What Kind Of Magic Is This?

Update Your Website and Change Your Hosting Plan

In a land of nearly non-existent human attention spans, it has become more important than ever to refresh your Website and make sure that it is concise, informative and relevant.

Since a website is one of the most cost-effective ways to disseminate core information about your business – keeping your site tidy and up-to-date is essential for your success.

Web Hosting (the storing of your site on “servers” that keep your site live) can be notoriously overpriced. I would suggest that you look carefully at your plan and see if you can save some money there.

If you think you are being overcharged for web hosting, contact us and we’ll take a look.

Start A Blog

If you want your Business to have it’s own voice on the Internet, then setting up a Blog is the fastest, easiest way to get started.

Even with no marketing budget at all, you can set up a free hosted Blog at Wordpress.com.

So, you are only making excuses for yourself if you are saying “I can’t afford to be on the Internet”.

You can’t afford FREE??

Evaluate Your Message

Surely every small business owner knows how important it is to stand out with memorable marketing messages.

But as things become even more competitive, you’ll need to step up quickly – and have something NEW to say today; preferably something relevant to the current economic climate.

Just remain focused on your customers, and adjust your advertising to address their current interests and needs.

Look at your core marketing message: what are you really saying to your clients and customers?

Get Some Social Media Buzz

Twitter, Facebook, Stumble, Digg…

There are seemingly endless varieties of social media networks that help get you some media buzz FAST.

If it is true that over half of the global internet population visits social networks, then why would you NOT use one of these free social media tools?

Network Like Crazy

Rather than complain about “how slow business is”, why not use any extra time to network with other small business owners in your area.

Reaching out and being helpful in these difficult times can generate a lot of positive feedback for your business.

Get it right the first time.

Build long-term relationships with your customers, and this will increase your sales while reducing your customer acquisition costs.

And what could be better than that!

Overall, I’d say that the television commercials which were broadcast during “The Big Game” on Sunday were pretty lame.

And boring.

And stupid.

I haven’t decided if they were more boring than stupid, or more stupid than boring.

But here is our vote for the “Best of the Worst”.

(Actually, this one was quite good).

And…congratulations to the New Orleans Saints!

(Email subscribers, click the title above to visit our Blog and see the embedded Video).

Yes, Google is at it again…

Google Wave is a new Internet communications platform which makes it easy for collaborators to communicate online without email.

Check it out here:

It’s currently available by invitation only from Google.