A friend of mine had the misfortune of having his car totalled recently. Within days, he was deluged by mail from personal injury lawyers.

“Ambulance chasers” still bear the standard for unethical marketing, even though police report data services now enable them to contact the freshly injured without actually chasing ambulances.

With a little thinking, we can all be more opportunistic in our marketing without chasing ambulances — literally or figuratively. Today’s limited budgets require us to achieve more with less.

At its core, opportunistic marketing is targeting your product to a situation of acutely high demand. No hucksterism required.

Imagine for a moment that you’re leaving a parking deck for a long walk to a business meeting. A heavy rain begins. And you have no umbrella. But before you get wet, you notice a street vendor with a cart full of umbrellas, priced right, just outside the deck. You didn’t check the weather, but he did. He was opportunitistic, to your benefit.

Here are some good examples of opportunistic marketing I’ve encountered:

• Early this month here in Youngstown, a group of local podiatrists sponsored the Peace Race, a high-profile road race. Besides enjoying the usual spotlights of sponsorhip, the docs distributed booklets about heel pain to every runner.
• A few years ago, I was hustling to the security line in an airport when I realized I had forgotten about the new plastic bag rule. Fortunately, Glad Bags had a kiosk there that distributed free Ziplock bags (and priceless awareness).
• Also a few years back, at a Starbucks Coffee, I turned in a coupon to try a free iced coffee (for the first time). But the coupon, apparently sent by mistake, was discontinued (so I opted for my usual decaf). A few days later, I read that Caribou Coffee was honoring the Starbucks “mistake” coupons, so I tried an iced coffee there. (Very opportunistic … but I still prefer traditional decaf.)

Here are four ways you can inject opportunism into your own marketing without chasing anything.

1. Identify your umbrellas. In the scope of all the things you do or sell, there are some that add the most value to your customers.
2. Locate the heavy rains. Identify the situations that demonstrate the most acute demand.
3. Tell your customers you have umbrellas. They need to know that, and they need to understand how your offering is different than other items they might be carrying.
4. Stop carting umbrellas on sunny days. Like the weather in Youngstown, the business climate is subject to change, and marketing strategies that worked in the past may no longer be effective. Get rid of those activities, and reinvest in new ones.

These are all easy to do if you sell umbrellas, personal injury lawsuits or Christmas cards. They’re more difficult if you sell management consulting services, brain surgery, metal-processing equipment and other things that aren’t purchased on “impulse.”

Still, your opportunistic edge can indeed be sharpened with a little objectivity and creativity. In today’s competitive marketplace, those go a long way.

Here are some other good words on opportunistic marketing:

• Opportunistic Marketing by ManageCamp
• Opportunistic Marketing Podcast by Planet Central