How to Market Your Small Business
One of the first steps when starting your small business, is to develop an effective marketing plan. Doing so helps you reach your desired customers and get sales easier. Having solid marketing strategies and plans make it easy to reach your core audience in a cost-effective way. When you have fully developed marketing plan, your leads will convert to sales much easier.
Complete Guide on creating a marketing plan.
This guide will guide you step by step on how to develop a marketing plan for your business that is sure to increase the visibility of your products/services and increase leads. The guide will cover many topics including researching opportunities, identifying your target market, developing a unique proposition, and choosing your marketing channels.
Here are the steps to make a marketing plan:
Conduct market research
Define your target audience
Answer what problem your products or service are solving
Create your business brand
Identify your marketing channels
Write out your marketing and sales goals
Build your marketing budget
Cultivate your customers experience with your brand
How to conduct market research.
Market research is a key part of developing your marketing strategy. You do this by collecting data on what your customers want and how they buy. You want to know the sales demographics for your product/service for the area you intend to serve as well as the market trends (when are your customers more likely to purchase your products). There are few ways to do this. You can conduct surveys and focus groups to learn how your customers think. You can also use business data collected by market researching firms and other resources. The SBA provides a full list of market research resources on their website listed here. It is also smart to watch what your competitors are doing. Its okay to investigate how they are attracting business while you develop you own plan.
How to figure out who your customers are.
The more you know about your target customer, the more effective you can be when marketing. You will build your ideal customer profile through market research. You’ll want to know the following:
Where do they live
Where do they work
Age
Gender
Occupation
Income
Level of education
Family dynamic/structure
Hobbies/Interest
Values
Shopping habits
How will my product differ from other brands in the market?
This part of your marketing plan is where you brag on your product. You list plainly what you sell, what problems your offer solves, and how your offer is different from your competitors. Again, these questions are answered during the market research stage. You must figure out where your customers are currently shopping and what how you can improve their experience or quality of the product/service. Here’s a tip: check the reviews.
What is my brand and how do I develop it.
This part of the marketing plan is where you decide how you want the world to view you, your business, and your product/service. You’ll develop who you are and what you can offer. You will also decide how your brand will emotionally connect with your customers. This is when you develop your logo, mascot, colors, slogan, and much more. Your brand will be developed as you continuously integrate it with your marketing materials. Your customers will begin to know your brand and associate it with your core values and the quality of your product/service.
How do I market my product/service?
There are many different ways you can market your business. The key is again identifying how your target customer consumes advertisement and whats the most effective way to get them interested in shopping. You will identify your customers need and when they typically purchase your product/service through market research. You also know what problems your customers are facing which gives you everything you need to develop marketing materials. All that is left is identifying the easiest way to reach your ideal customer. Here’s a list of possible marketing channels below.
Develop a business website
Social media marketing
Blogging
Flyers
networking events
TV/Radio Ads
Google ads
Cold calling
What are my marketing and sales goals.
The next step to your marketing plan is setting your sales goals. When setting goals it is important to make sure its detailed, quantifiable, realistic, and timed. An example is, I want to earn $23,000 in revenue in quarter 1 by committing $1000 to google ad spend and hosting 3 pop up shops on the last Friday of the month for the next three month.
How do I develop my marketing budget?
A rule of thumb when setting your marketing budget is to know that a good marketing to sales ratio is between 5% and 25%. This means you will allocate 5-25 percent of your revenue to your marketing budget. When setting your budget, be sure to consider the following:
website development and maintenance
design of branding
printing of promotional material (business cards, brochures, signage, etc)
advertising spend
employing staff to undertake marketing activities.
How do I develop loyal customers?
The answer to this question is simple. Do what you say your going to do. Provide a quality product/service and great customer service. Ask for feedback and constantly improve the customer’s experience.
If you need a business plan developed or a personal business coach use the link below to schedule a free consultation with a MATS Business Coach.