By Chris Lohman
Guest Columnist

In today’s "real world" of business, marketing budgets are getting tighter, staffs are getting leaner and turn-around demands are getting, well, more demanding. There are a number of ways to skin the proverbial cat when you need to execute a timely and targeted limited-budget marketing campaign. Here is a faux scenario to help guide you the next time you’re feeling the pressure to deliver on an "impossible" request.

Conundrum: To date, you’ve exhausted 99% of your marketing budget and the president of your company turns to you to promote a new service/product developed by a peer team in your company. He establishes an insane deadline to launch a strategic, aggressive and targeted campaign. What do you do next, and what resources are you going to pull from thin air?

First things first: Drill down and define your target as finitely as you can.

Guerilla, Guerilla, Guerilla: You don’t have time or the budget to put your new product/service on the side of a blimp, and traditional promotion (TV, radio, print ads) may be out of the question due to budget constraints. Time to unleash the creativity.

Start with opt-in communication: This is only viable if you already have a base to communicate with. The audience for this communication should feel like they are receiving true insider info (special product benefits) or receiving a unique offer (discount, pre-launch buy). Follow-up immediately with those who reply in earnest.

Production of marketing communications: With little budget and a need for a quick turn-around, you best start calling you closest friends/vendors. And if you don’t have an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend or vendor-savior to call on, don’t hesitate calling around and shopping your project. This would also be a good time to call on a print broker. Someone is bound to have an opening on a qualified press and is looking to turn a low-margin job to keep the wheels spinning. For design, look to freelancers or students who are hungry for a project. For web, keep it simple and straightforward.

Media relations: Don’t be afraid to make a strategic pitch to targeted media who match up with your finite audience. Assuming you’re sans PR firm, pull together a press release (plenty of sound examples available on the net if you don’t have a template to work from) and send it out via fax and email. What you learn from this exercise may entice you to make PR a greater focus in the future. For the grunt work, turn to an intern or a friend-of-a-friend looking to experience the "real world."

Cause-related partner: Align with a beneficiary who will help you get your message out. Certainly there is a cause out there that matches up well with your finite target in some form or fashion. Savvy not-for-profits are built from the inside out to market activities that directly benefit their member-base and/or help raise needed funds. A quid-pro-quo strategic partnership could grant you direct access to a public who will pay attention and listen to your spiel. Your marketing efforts will be magnified when your campaign is featured on your partner’s website, newsletters and constituent-targeted internal communications.

Chris Lohman is principal of Altruistic Communications, a Bellevue, Washington-based branding and public relations consultancy targeting community-advancing companies and initiatives. Email huskylohman@comcast.net.