Read Start Your Own Business Online

Authors: Inc The Staff of Entrepreneur Media

Start Your Own Business (78 page)

BOOK: Start Your Own Business
6.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
There’s a lot of work that goes into launching and building a world-class brand, but it pays off. Nike once ran its business out of the back of a car, but now it’s a global brand worth billions of dollars. Think of your fledgling brand as a baby you have to nurture, guide and shape every day so it grows up to be dependable, hardworking and respectable in your customers’ eyes. One day your company’s brand will make you proud. But you’ll have to invest the time, energy and thought it takes to make that happen.
chapter 30
 
MARKETING GENIUS
 
Adrtising a Marketing
Your Business
 
 
 
 
 
Y
ou may know how to build the perfect product or provide excellent service, but do you know how to market your business? If not, all your expertise won’t help keep your business afloat. Without marketing, no one will know your business exists—and if customers don’t know you’re there, you won’t make any sales.
Advertising doesn’t have to mean multimilliondollar TV commercials. There are plenty of ways to market your business that are affordable or even free. All it takes is a little marketing savvy and the dedication to stick with a year-round program that includes a solid mix of proven tactics.
“If you can dream it,
you can do it.”
-WALTER ELIAS DISNEY,
FOUNDER OF WALT DISNEY CO.
 
 
Creating a Marketing Plan
 
Everyone knows you need a business plan, yet many entrepreneurs don’t realize a marketing plan is just as vital.
Unlike a business plan, a marketing plan focuses on winning and keeping customers. A marketing plan is strategic and includes numbers, facts and objectives. Marketing supports sales, and a good marketing plan spells out all the tools and tactics you’ll use to achieve your sales goals. It’s your plan of action—what you’ll sell, who will want to buy it, and the tactics you’ll use to generate leads that result in sales. And unless you’re using your marketing plan to help you gain funding, it doesn’t have to be lengthy or beautifully written. Use bulleted sections, and get right to the point.
Here’s a closer look at creating a marketing plan that works.
POSITION POWERS
 
T
he right image packs a powerful marketing punch. To make it work for you, follow these steps:
• Create a positioning statement for your company. In one or two sentences, describe what distinguishes you from your competition.
• Test your positioning statement. Does it appeal to your target audience? Refine it until it speaks directly to their wants and needs.
• Use the positioning statement in every written communication to customers.
• Integrate your company’s positioning message into all your marketing campaigns and materials.
• Include your team in the positioning effort. Help employees understand how to communicate your positioning to customers.
 
Step One: Begin with a Snapshot of Your Company’s Current Situation, Called a “Situation Analysis”
 
This first section of the marketing plan defines your company and its products or services, then shows how the benefits you provide set you apart from your competition.
Target audiences have become extremely specialized and segmented. For example, there are hundreds of special-interest magazines—each targeted to a specific market segment. No matter your industry, from restaurants to professional services to retail clothing stores, positioning your product or service competitively requires an understanding of your niche market. Not only do you need to be able to describe what you market, but you must also have a clear understanding of what your competitors are offering and be able to show how your product or service provides a better value.
 
TIP
 
Your business plan and your marketing plan have a lot in common, but make sure to keep them separate. Your business plan should show how you’re going to support your marketing efforts. At the same time, your marketing plan should be a concrete working out of the ideas in your business plan.
Make your Situation Analysis a succinct overview of your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths and weaknesses refer to characteristics that exist within your business, while opportunities and threats refer to outside factors. To determine your company’s strengths, con sider the ways that its products are superior to others, or if your service is more comprehensive, for example. What do you offer that gives your business a competitive advantage? Weaknesses, on the other hand, can be anything from operating in a highly saturated market to lack of experienced staff members.
Next, describe any external opportunities you can capitalize on, such as an expanding market for your product. Don’t forget to include any external threats to your company’s ability to gain market share so that succeeding sections of your plan can detail the ways you’ll overcome those threats.
Positioning your product involves two steps. First, you need to analyze your product’s features and decide how they distinguish your product from its competitors. Second, decide what type of buyer is most likely to purchase your product. What are you selling—convenience? Quality? Discount pricing? You can’t offer it all. Knowing what your customers want helps you decide what to offer, and that brings us to the next section of your plan.
Step Two: Describe Your Target Audience
 
Developing a simple, one-paragraph profile of your prospective customer is the second step in an effective marketing plan. You can describe prospects in terms of demographics—age, sex, family composition, earnings and geographic location—as well as lifestyle. Ask yourself the following: Are my customers conservative or innovative? Leaders or followers? Timid or aggressive? Traditional or modern? Introverted or extroverted? How often do they purchase what I offer? In what quantity?
If you’re a business-to-business marketer, you may define your target audience based on their type of business, job title, size of business, geographic location, or any other characteristics that make them possible prospects. Are you targeting the owners of businesses with 25 or fewer employees or mid-level managers in Fortune 100 companies? No matter who your target audience is, be sure to narrowly define them in this section, because it will be your guide as you plan your media and public relations campaigns. The more narrowly you define your target audience, the less money you’ll waste on ads and PR in poorly targeted media and the unqualified leads they would generate. (Chapters 6 and 7 explain in detail how to define your target customer.)
Step Three: List Your Marketing Goals
 
What do you want your marketing plan to achieve? For example, are you hoping for a 20 percent increase in sales of your product per quarter? Write down a short list of goals—and make them measurable so that you’ll know when you’ve achieved them.
Step Four: Develop the Marketing Communications Strategies and the Tactics You’ll Use
 
This section is the heart and soul of your marketing plan. In the previous sections, you outlined what your marketing must accomplish and identified your best prospects; now it’s time to detail the tactics you’ll use to reach these prospects and accomplish your goals.
 
WARNING
 
Don’t mess with success. Once you find an advertising idea that works for you, stick with it. Repetition is the key to getting your message across.
A good marketing program targets prospects at all stages of your sales cycle. Some marketing tactics, such as many forms of advertising, public relations and direct marketing, are great for reaching cold prospects. Warm prospects—those who have previously been exposed to your marketing message and perhaps even met you personally—will respond best to permission-based e-mail, loyalty programs and customer appreciation events, among others. Your hottest prospects are individuals who’ve been exposed to your sales and marketing messages and are ready to close a sale. Generally, interpersonal sales contact (whether in person, by phone or e-mail) combined with marketing adds the final heat necessary to close sales.
To complete your tactics section, outline your primary marketing strategies, then include a variety of tactics you’ll use to reach prospects at any point in your sales cycle. For example, you might combine outdoor billboards, print advertising and online local searches to reach cold prospects but use e-mail to contact your warm prospects. Finally, you can use one-on-one meetings to close the sale. Don’t overlook complimentary materials that support sales: For instance, if you plan to meet with prospects to follow up on leads you’ve generated, you’ll need brochures and presentation materials.
To identify your ideal marketing mix, find out which media your target audience turns to for information on the type of product or service you sell. Avoid broad-based media—even if it attracts your target audience—if the content is not relevant. The marketing tactics you choose must reach your prospects when they’ll be most receptive to your message.
Market Planning Checklist
 
Before you launch a marketing campaign, answer the following questions about your business and your product or service:
• Have you analyzed the total market for your product or service? Do you know which features of your product or service will appeal to different market segments?
• In forming your marketing message, have you described how your product or service will benefit your clients?
• Have you prepared a pricing schedule? What kinds of discounts do you offer, and to whom do you offer them?
• Have you prepared a sales forecast?
• Which media will you use in your marketing campaign?
• Do your marketing materials mention any optional accessories or added services that consumers might want to purchase?
• If you offer a product, have you prepared clear operating and assembly instructions if required? What kind of warranty do you provide? What type of customer service or support do you offer after the sale?
• Do you have product liability insurance?
• Is your packaging likely to appeal to your target market?
• If your product is one you can patent, have you done so?
• How will you distribute your product?
BOOK: Start Your Own Business
6.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Dawn Runner by Terri Farley
The Strange Path by D Jordan Redhawk
Valley of the Templars by Paul Christopher
Hog Heaven by Ben Rehder
Private Lies by Warren Adler
The End of Diabetes by Joel Fuhrman