Cut Marketing Costs Part 1

As business owners and/or marketers, we're all under pressure to cut costs. Unfortunately, many business owners get so intent on reducing costs, they lose sight of what it's going to do to the business. It's hard to grow - or even survive - if you don't have any customers.

Reducing marketing costs without screwing up your ability to grow is easier than you might think.

Here are five ways to do that.

1. Eliminate waste

Over the years I've looked at hundreds of marketing programs, and I can tell you honestly that nearly all of them have some kind of hole that either drains money directly or allows leads to be lost.Before you cut anything, take a good hard look at what you're doing. Are there programs that aren't delivering the results you anticipated? Fix them or get rid of them.

Is there anything that can't be traced to increasing sales opportunities? Unless you have a pile of extra money, now is not the time to be spending money on marketing efforts that don't generate more leads or develop the ones you have.