How to become effective marketers with little money?

The first step to cheap and effective marketing is to identify your target customer. "You can waste a heck of a lot of money if you aren't clear who your client is,". So you need to determine the demographic profile of your best prospects and where they tend to shop.

Next you need to find partners who can help you communicate with your target affordably. You could, for instance, propose a co-op program in which relevant stores would place your flyer in their shopping bags in return for a slice of your resulting sales.

The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive;^[1] and consumers are targeted in unexpected places.^[2] The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks.

Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as intercept encounters in public places, street giveaways of products, PR stunts, any unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. More innovative approaches to Guerrilla marketing now utilize cutting edge mobile digital technologies to really engage the consumer and create a memorable brand experience.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_marketing
• http://www.gmarketing.com/articles/

I personally have my own complete printed set, and use them as a bible of marketing from time to time. if your budget is low to none, this is the marketing concept for you ! I made millions by using these simple marketing tactics and got my product out to the public !

If your client base is going to be common people i am not very sure how effective telecalling is... because in this case it will involve hell lot of calling. But, if your focus is corporate/big companies telecalling will do. Through telecalling (Telecalling - is something like marketing your product over phone) you can atleast understand what are the client expectations, what really do they need and it will also reduce the travelling of sales and marketing team. Telecalling does not need huge resources as well, Just one people one internet connection and phone connection will serve the purpose.

After investing in enough data mining towards identifying your target customers and a well designed Marketing Strategy, its equally important that  you set a  reasonable and workable deadline towards implementing the strategy.

Giving up on a strategy before giving it enough Chance to payback is  perhaps  the biggest  blunder any entrepreneur can do. This way money is spent on multiple options and  yet no time is given for any of these options to payback.

If we want to sell our product as a entrepreneur with low cost then Personal selling is most important tool for effective marketing. which include direct meeting, tele-calling, reference selling and formation of commission agents.  Just to spend on printed stationery i.e. Pen, small posters, calenders, note pads and paste/provide all this to your existing customers.

One major & leading idea of web marketing are also helpful for our plan. If we can sell our product online then it will be more effective due to more reachable & less expensive.

Rather than answering this question straighaway one needs to analyse why this problem came up in the first place. That is becuase when a small businessman gets into a new venture, they provide only for the infrastructure cost and not for marketing or human resources. Also small businesses that are typically family run try to pocket the profits in the first year itself rather than reinvesting it into the business.