Perhaps I’m posting this a year too late, I don’t know, but even though many analysts are saying that 2010 is the year that we will see many countries moving out of current ongoing economic crises and towards positive growth, there’s still many countries that will bear the brunt of it for sometime to come.
So why the post, if things are on the up this year? Well, at one point or another, we have all had to market our websites, blogs, products etc on a shoestring (indeed many people do so well, because they make this a regular habbit).

Today, I also sat in on a marketing 101 seminar for beginners aimed mainly for technical engineers to get a grasp on what effective marketing is in today’s e-commerce world. However, it failed to address, how to effectively market in a global recession, where marketing budgets are reduced, and sometimes even scrapped. The obvious answer is to focus on leverage free forms of online marketing. What that translates today, is effective SEO marketing strategies – delivering free traffic to sites, blogs….

It also means leveraging any existing position you have within your target niche, be it existing relationship with other bloggers who can perhaps review your product or building upon a previous reputation. In times of economic hardship, it means sending out e-newsletters or electronic direct marketing mail messages, informing your marketing database (your existing list of people who are happy to receive mail from you) of any upcoming product launches, membership programs etc. The tip here, is not to piss them off too much, by sending them too frequent messages, you’re the best person to judge how often you should send emails to your list whether its once a week or fortnightly. If you find you’re suddenly getting a high unsubscribe rate, then perhaps look at the frequency of sending. Make sure the content in these emails are engaging, with dynamic interesting content in them. If you’re worried about committed common gaffes made by even the big guys, it’s worth reading this as well:
http://listverse.com/2009/06/08/top-10-worst-marketing-gaffs-ever/

If you are going to market on a shoestring, it’s always a good strategy to make the best of what you’ve got, and make sure whatever you do, you do it well.