One of the most successful books of the last three decades is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. What makes it so great is that its principles work for anything you want to succeed in. Let’s see how they apply to marketing on a tight budget.

1. Be proactive. Proactive marketers assume responsibility for their actions; less effective marketers simply react to environments and events. This makes it practically impossible to control costs.

2. Begin with the end in mind. You can’t plan a trip unless you know your destination. Highly frugal marketers clarify their goals before they even begin to develop a budget.

3. Put first things first. This means establishing priorities and sticking to them. If your marketing goal is to acquire new customers, then a mailing to existing customers should get a low priority.

4. Think win-win. In all negotiations and collaborations, seek a solution that’s beneficial to both parties. Building positive relationships can save you more in the long run than squeezing one particular deal dry.

5. Seek first to understand, then be understood. Really knowing who your customers are and what they want is the essential first step in a marketing campaign. Without it, money could be thrown away targeting the wrong people, with the wrong approach.

6. Synergize. This means creating a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Strategic partnerships that “fill in the blanks” of your own expertise can open many new doors to growth and profitability.

7. Sharpen the saw. The saw is the frugal marketer’s desire to constantly seek out money-saving opportunities. For this one, you can start right here at Click2Mail:

• Postage discounts on qualifying addresses

• Minimized costs of undelivered mail with automatic CASS (coding accuracy) and NCOA (change of address) of your mailing list

• Volume discounts on large orders

That’s how we put Steven Covey’s principles to work for us. If there’s any way we can help you become a highly frugal marketer, please visit us at https://click2mail.com/contact-us-support or call 1-866-665-2787 9:00 AM – 8:00 PM EST Monday through Friday.