Is Marketing Expensive?

I thought I would make my first blog post more about my beliefs on the clever use of marketing to effectively create results on a shoe string budget, in fact in some cases on NO BUDGET!
A lot of the businesses that approach us for help with marketing are emerging entities and I am so used to the resounding cries of, “Ohhh, I can’t afford marketing! It is sooo expensive!”
My response is always, “Marketing is NEVER expensive if done smart!”

The culprit really is that most businesses tend to mistakenly equate advertising to marketing and because advertising in many cases can be the most expensive element in the marketing mix they consider “marketing” as advertising.

My answer is... marketing is actually the sum total of EVERYTHING you can strategically do in a business to build a closer connection with the customer…It is everything and because of that it NEVER has to be expensive.