When showcasing your organization to consumers is a necessity in order to be profitable and your marketing budget is less than generous, how can you ensure that you effectively get your message out to your target audience?

The first step is recognizing who your target audience is. There are several marketing channels that you can utilize on a limited budget, but most importantly you want to invest your time and money in those efforts that will prove to be successful.

Analyze your organization and the services or products it offers; what are the benefits that consumers will receive? Now who would these benefits be attractive to? What are the lifestyles of these consumers? What marketing channels are they consistently exposed to? Which will produce timely responses in line with your expectations?

Once you know the channels you want to use and the priority you want to place upon each, how can you efficiently utilize those channels?

Online resources - Become familiar with all the well-known and frequently visited community Web sites: television stations, radio stations, newspapers, visitors bureau, chambers of commerce, etc. Aside from paid banner advertising, these sites usually have a community calendar and will allow organizations to list upcoming events.

As far as utilizing your contact list, create an online newsletter and distribute to all of your contacts, encouraging them to send to others. Be sure to create value within the newsletter so that it is more than just a selling piece and is worthy of attention and circulation. This can be achieved through offering discounts, including trivial information and anything else of interest to your audience that is in relation to your business.

Radio and television resources - Knowing which station will effectively reach your target audience will reduce your spending. Be sure to ask for demographic information and high peak listening and viewing times. These times may cost more, but if you advertise based on the lowest rate, you may be overspending in the long run because the response you receive may be drastically lower than that of a more costly option that reaches a more receptive audience.

Also, ask if costs can be reduced by having someone from your organization record the commercial instead of a DJ or having a local production company produce the commercial. If you are a non-profit organization, most stations will run public service announcements as an in-kind service, however, frequency and times of day are dependent on what is available.

It is important to remember that just because the cash investment may be out of your reach, there are still options such as trade or partnering with another business to reduce costs and still be able to take advantage of marketing opportunities. Marketing is to be a method to support your business and add to your clientele base; it should not add pressure to your budget.

You do not have to necessarily spend a lavish amount of money to get the word out about your organization. Just be creative and remember to always provide great customer service.