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Ask Jane Applegate
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January 20, 2000: 3:29 p.m. ET
Making contacts through a worthy cause; creative ideas for marketing on a budget
By Jane Applegate
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Here are answers to your questions for CNNfn small-business columnist Jane Applegate:
Dear Jane: Everyone dreams of meeting a wealthy investor who will put money into their company. How can I rub shoulders with the rich and famous?
If you have an outgoing personality and a tuxedo or evening gown, consider attending benefits as a way of meeting wealthy people who may be interested in financing your dreams. This isn't as crazy as it sounds.
And figuring out where to go is as easy as reading the community events calendar and society pages of the local paper. If you live anywhere in the Northeast, the Sunday New York Times usually has extensive listings of benefits that anyone can attend if you have the money. While there are probably more benefits in New York City than elsewhere, there are thousands of high-profile events held across the country every month.
Here's a sampling of one week's benefits and how they could benefit a savvy entrepreneur: Fifty fashion companies sponsored a fundraising dinner dance to raise money for the Community Literacy Research project. If you were in the fashion business, your $1,000 ticket would have been the perfect ticket to meet "who's who" in the fashion world.
If you wanted to meet top advertising executives, their clients and friends, it would have cost you $500 to attend a benefit hosted by two ad agency bigwigs for the Starlight Foundation, which grants wishes to seriously ill children.
If doing business in the Middle East is on your agenda, you could have mixed with the international jet set at a glitzy benefit honoring King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan. Tickets to that black-tie dinner sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Tickets were a mere $750.
A friend with a new real estate license wanted to meet some very wealthy clients. She volunteered to welcome guests attending a benefit. Her job: pinning fresh carnations on the lapels of scores of New York's richest men. She not only collected an evening bag full of business cards but also ended up dating a billionaire! The romance fizzled, but her Rolodex is filled with high-level contacts.
If you can't afford to buy tickets to these kinds of events, call the hosting organization and volunteer to help. Organizations always need lots of warm bodies to staff these galas.
Dear Jane: We have a great product, but we just don't know how to get the word out. What can we do to market ourselves and our products?
Luckily, it takes more ingenuity than money to market and promote the merits of whatever you're selling. Clearly targeting your potential customers is the secret of marketing success, especially when you are on a limited budget.
Once you figure out who your core customers are, test a few things before moving forward. If you don't track the results, you'll never know whether your money is being well spent. While your marketing efforts may include advertising, they should not be limited to placing a few print or radio ads.
An effective marketing campaign includes many elements, including advertising, mass mailings, press releases, events and discounts.
Here are some great, low-cost marketing ideas:
1. Create a customer database using information collected from current orders. Add names from business cards you collect, registration lists from events you attend, membership lists, etc. You can buy affordable card-scanning software to input information from business cards.
2. Send a postcard, brochure or mailing to everyone on your list at least twice a year. Stamp "address correction requested" on the front of the envelopes, so the Postal Service will return the undeliverable mail with updated information. You'll pay the return postage, but it's worth it to keep your database current.
3. Ask customers to suggest new products or services you might offer. Consider setting up a customer advisory board to help you make marketing decisions before you spend any money.
4. Create a cross-promotion with a neighboring business. Example: If you offer interior design consultations, team up with a local carpet cleaner or florist to package your services and share referrals.
5. Rely on others to promote your products or services: A Web site designed to help people plan a wedding, relies on photographers to help market their services. They pay photographers a referral fee and let the photographers post the wedding photo proofs on the site, so family member can order copies. A woman whose company preserves bridal bouquets also markets her services through photographers, wedding planners and retailers serving the wedding industry.
6. Market your services in tandem with another consultant. A small computer hardware company teams up with a software consulting firm to offer special discounts to clients who used both companies to upgrade their computer systems.
7. Offer a free trial if you sell any sort of equipment. An equipment dealer offers business owners the free use of a high-end copier for two weeks. Once customers start using a machine in their office, they rarely send it back.
8. Attract publicity by doing something good for the community. Hold a Red Cross blood drive, organize a 10K charity run, help a local school.
9. Position yourself as an expert. Reporters are always looking for new, intelligent people to quote.
10. Go through your address book when you are having a slow day and call people you haven't heard from in a while.
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