Promoting Your Business without Breaking the Bank
By: Jonathan Young
Third Year Marketing Student - Conestoga College

Smaller businesses today must find unique ideas to market themselves and their products and services to successfully compete with larger competitors.  Effective use of marketing and promotions is now necessary to compete with the aggressive promotional actions that larger competitors are taking.  In many instances entrepreneurs have an excellent knowledge of the items they are selling, but lack the skills necessary to market them and bring themselves to the forefront of the public’s eye.  In these cases, business owners would find it extremely beneficial to hire someone with marketing knowledge that could help them in promoting their businesses.

To hire someone with the necessary knowledge and skill can often be very costly.  The money that is available for promoting the business then becomes smaller because of the large fees one is paying the employee or consultant.  In turn, less of the actual promoting of the business can be done because of the additional hiring costs.

One great way to get the marketing advice needed to promote your business without paying high fees is to get a student or recent graduate to assist in this area.  Students are often willing to volunteer their time or will work for a lower fee to gain experience and to put the skills they have learned in school into action.  Third year marketing students at Conestoga College, are required to work with a company and complete marketing research that can help the business gather accurate information to make better informed business decisions. 

The Kitchener Waterloo area has a wealth of untapped talent coming from the four area post-secondary schools: University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, The University of Guelph and Conestoga College.  Many students are required to take part in a co-op work placement as part of their program, during work placements students work for a lower wage compared to an experienced professional or in some cases students volunteer their time.

In today’s competitive workforce it is necessary to use marketing to better reach the customers in your business segment and to surpass competition.  It is clear that the businesses that are using marketing effectively to promote themselves come out on top, and the businesses that are not executing the marketing of their business successfully are left behind.  For many business owners that may be lacking marketing skills as one of their talents, there are many students and recent graduates just waiting for an opportunity to showcase their skills and gain more experience.

Employing a marketing student for a co-op placement is a win-win proposition for both the business owner and the student.  The business owner will receive the marketing and promotion expertise to ensure their business is a success, and the student will gain valuable experience and a sense of pride in helping to make the business succeed.

To learn more about the opportunities and benefits in using a student for your marketing projects contact Professor Rob Sloan at rsloan@conestogac.on.ca