Plexus Media was recently invited to attend a seminar organised by Business Link, called Marketing for Cash Strapped Times. Always eager to learn on behalf of our clients as well as ourselves we went along with notebooks and pens in hand, despite the early start!

The seminar really got our minds working overtime and raised some very interesting questions. As a seminar on general marketing tips it was very useful, covering everything from brand identities and websites to PR and search engine optimisation – in other words how to make yourself easier to find on Google.

However, as a seminar on Marketing for Cash Strapped times, we don’t really think it lived up to its name. Mainly because it skated over or ignored some of the best ways organisations can market themselves on a budget – or for free!

As marketing and communications professionals working in the voluntary and community sector, we’re acutely aware of the need to make the most of precious budgets. After all, budgets in the sector are nearly always hard won and over-stretched and should be used to the best of their ability.

As a result, we frequently use open source software such as Wordpress to create our clients blogs and websites. The actual software is free so our clients only pay for the time it takes us to design and customise their website, making it unique to them. Plus, there’s open source software available for sending email newsletters and conducting online surveys for example, both very useful ways that businesses can market themselves on a budget.

In addition, the seminar also failed to mention digital printing, which is a lot cheaper than traditional litho printing but just as good in terms of quality for small print runs.

Another area missing was how organisations can make the most of free social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

All in all the seminar was interesting but made us realise just how much we’ve learnt from working in a sector where making the most of clients’ budgets can literally be a matter of life and death, and at the very least the health and wellbeing of all those people supported by the sector.