Marketing organizations are enforcing budget and staff cuts to ride out the recession. Yet, pressure remains high to keep your company and its products ahead of the competition. Fortunately, there are tried and true tactics that your marketing team can implement to successfully drive leads and boost growth… all without big campaign budgets.

Here are three inexpensive and easy tactics that use existing resources and expertise to drive bottom-line ROI.

First, offer customers and prospects something useful. This can be as simple as a whitepaper, coupon, event invitation or a document offering relevant tips. Then, promote that offering through an online channel like a blog, e-newsletter or Twitter. By including a unique URL and requiring people to leave a small amount of information to obtain the free information, you are able to track responses and capture potential sales leads.

It’s important to make sure this information is integrated into your contact management system for future marketing and sales opportunities.

This is also a time to leverage in-house expertise. Every organization has experts who are well spoken, articulate, and on board with corporate and product messaging. Once identified and trained to handle media and speaking engagements, arrange for these in-house experts to take on speaking at industry events; participate in relevant media interviews and comment on company and industry blogs, as well as social media outlets such as Twitter.

Look for opportunities to repurpose these materials. Some examples include corporate Web sites, marketing and sales materials, trade show displays and handouts.

Lastly, ensure that your company stays relevant to your customers. Comment on trends, offer advice on industry issues, tie your company to the latest news and highlight successes and new customers.

Budgets and resources are scarce and your instinct may be to sit tight. However, the cost of doing nothing will add up to losing customer confidence, and that could be ruinous to any business trying to grow both now and in the future.

mconklin@teamclarus.com