Your company may not have a huge marketing budget or a staff trained in writing advertising copy. You may not be able to hire graphic artists to design fancy logos and direct mail pieces.

	TIP: Everyone in your organisation can help market your business by automatically adding a personalised signature to the end of their e-mail messages. Once you've added the basic contact information to your e-mail signature, consider adding a company logo or clip art, creating a company-wide signature style for everyone to use or adding a tagline that could be a generic marketing message.

But that doesn't mean your company can't market itself. With the software tools already available in most workplaces today, anyone with a few creative instincts can put together professional looking marketing materials. And even without creative talent, there are subtle things everyone on your team can do to send out positive messages about your company's products or services.

Consider these easy, low-cost marketing tactics you can deploy using Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003, the popular productivity software used in businesses around the world:

1. Create simple direct mail pieces. Letting customers know about a sale or new product can be as simple and inexpensive as mailing out a postcard. With the easy-to-use templates in Publisher 2003, which is included in Office Small Business Edition 2003, you can choose from a variety of postcard designs and then customise them to fit your needs. With Publisher it is easy to insert your message or logo into the pre-built templates. Changing colours and font styles is also simple. You can also configure the program to automatically insert your contact information every time you create a new postcard.

Of course, you don't have to limit your marketing to postcards. Publisher offers a wide variety of templates that you can easily customise to meet your marketing requirements. You can use them to create a suite of marketing materials. Among them:

• Brochures
• Flyers
• Newsletters
• Catalogues
• Advertisements
• Greeting cards

Remember that even your letterhead, billing statements and envelopes convey a message about your business. Use the design features in Publisher or Word to present a consistent, professional image on those materials as well.

2. Send customers an e-mail newsletter. E-mail is one of the most cost-effective ways to connect with customers. Consider creating a regular e-mail newsletter. Include useful tips and information - for instance, if you're a veterinarian you might include seasonal pet care tips; if you own a restaurant, you might send out a seasonal recipe. Also include any new products or services you are offering, any specials or promotions you want to highlight. You might include information on new staff members, too. The idea is to engage your customers — but not overwhelm them with a hard sell approach. And before you send it out, make sure you have explicit permission from your customers to send it to them.

If you don't feel you have the resources to write an entire newsletter, you can still use e-mail as a marketing tool — again as long as you have permission from your recipients. The Mail Merge function in Outlook 2003 helps you target messages to specific customers. Meanwhile, you can use any of the six e-mail publication layout options and 45 master design sets in Publisher to create and send your e-mail publications. E-mail layout options include newsletters, letters, event notices and product lists.

3. Take your marketing message with you. If you're in a specialised line of work, you may occasionally be asked to speak to organisations or school groups about what you do. These occasions represent another subtle marketing opportunity. For instance, one way to both engage your audience and have more impact from a marketing standpoint is with a visual presentation. If you use Office Small Business Edition 2003, you already have PowerPoint 2003, an easy-to-learn tool you can use to create slide shows. The advantage of PowerPoint is that while you talk you can show a combination of text, pictures and graphics — even movies, animations and sounds — that can enhance your presentation. And, of course, you will want to insert your company name and logo on every slide.

4. Build a simple website. If you haven't yet established a website, it may be because you think it will take too much time and too much money. But with Publisher 2003, it's possible to get a polished, professional site up and running quickly — and inexpensively. With the Easy Website Builder feature, you specify your goals for your site and Publisher will build a site customized with the page types that meet your requirements. Or, you can choose to use the website wizards to create a basic three-page website, or sites focused on professional services or product sales.

Once you get started with some of these subtle marketing techniques, you will probably come up with even more ways to creatively spread the word about your products and services. For ideas and assistance, visit Office Online (U.S.).