With marketing budgets facing significant reductions across the board, each dollar spent needs to do more. This is only possible when you think about your most effective marketing campaigns and scaling those activities to achieve true success. When times are difficult for marketing budgets, improving performance is a must.

Do more with your shrinking marketing budget. This is easily done when you consider the power of viral marketing. The purpose of viral marketing is to leverage others - customers, prospects, friends, and connections to help you sell your products and services. Here are a few other ideas you can use to jump start your marketing.

Leverage all you do. Whenever you make a contact with browsers, prospects, customers, or friends, consider how you can communicate information about your products and services. Is there a way to use each interaction as a stepping stone to assess needs, offer solutions, and move individuals through the purchase decision process?

Start a referral campaign. You'd be amazed at how many companies do not have a standard procedure for acquiring referrals. It's simple to begin a referral campaign. The quickest way is to simply ask your previous customers for the contact information of others who might benefit from your product or service.

The media is the message. Communication takes many forms. When sending bills or putting merchandise in a shopping bag, consider adding a flier or promotional offer that entices buyers to come back or visit you online. The key is to keep the dialogue going and provide customers incentives that keep them coming back.

Test. Test. Test. When marketing budgets go south, many businesses stop experimenting and trying new campaigns. Although you wont have the money to try anything, you may simply try new "value adds" or other things that can improve your conversion rates at the retail level or online. Consider adding a frequent shopper club.

Improving ROI doesn't have to be difficult. When considering where your successes were in the past, you can probably recall some simple campaigns that produced the greatest return and cost next to nothing. Consider all the different ways that you can recruit others to help you sell. How can you leverage your existing campaigns to bring in more money with less? The key is to focus on the tried and true, make some minor tweaks, and measure the results. Rinse and repeat.

Consider a free giveaway. A great place to leverage the power of free is with your website, store, or marketing communication. Ask yourself how you can attract more visitors or improve conversions. How can you acquire valuable information that will help you make a sale at that moment or at a later date. In today's world, consumers understand that free doesn't mean free. But consumers are often willing to provide a little information about themselves for something of value.