When you’re just starting on your small business journey, getting the word out about your venture is a high priority. You can achieve this with a winning marketing strategy. A solid strategy involves planning ways to reach out to your audience, gain and keep their attention and hopefully spark conversations.

All of this works together to help you to grow your business, which is exactly what you want, especially when just starting. Success is achieved during the time you take to get your business out there and in front of people. By utilizing the eight steps below, you can level up your marketing game and grow your new small business.

Get Yer Market Research Cap On

If you have the budget to work with an SEO agency, the first thing they’ll do is perform extensive market research to discover who to promote your products or services to. But if you’re starting no dramas, you can be your own marketing agency! 

Before launching your business, you may have already done market research, so you’ll have an idea of what to do. But for those who haven’t done this before your mission is to collect information that offers insight into your audience, their buying habits and their thinking. It’s an important piece of the puzzle that mustn’t be missed.

Send out surveys to your ideal customer base via SurveyMonkey or Typeform, or conduct polls via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. You can even try and interview some people in person or through video chat to gain deeper insights.

Go Ahead and Profile That Market

Once you have a product or service, you need to look at profiling the market. Grouping your customers will help you to aim your product at them in a positive way. Location, age group, and gender are important.

However, developing a clear picture of the general role your ideal customer holds, their reasons for approaching your products/services (e.g. establishing potential barriers), and how you can help them achieve their goals is even more important.

All of the above matters when it comes to piecing together your marketing strategy and will help you to identify a target audience who needs what you are selling, and is willing to pay for it.

Where’s Your USP At?

Every business has a unique selling point. This is the reason that people buy from you, and you need to work out what you can convey to your customers. So, know what it is about you that’s unique, and push it.

Your market research and profiling activity will help you to establish your USP and share it in a way that resonates with your ideal audience. Describe how your product or service solves problems and helps people to achieve goals in a way that is easy to digest.

Development That Brand

Every single business has to develop its brand; no matter what size they are! A brand is so much more than a colour or a logo. It’s something that you want people to see, know, respect and feel good about when they think of your business. Your brand is who you are and what you stand for, so it’s worth putting the time into brand development to get it right.

Understand Your Avenues

Where do you plan to market your business? You need to know your marketing avenues, from the networking events and cold calling to the business website and social media you have on offer. Your market research and profiling comes in handy once again here. Use the data gathered to inform which social media platform you’re time is best spent building as a priority.

If you’re short on time put effort into the platform, your ideal consumer will most likely engage with — younger audiences gravitate towards Instagram and Snapchat, for example. Whereas those with more disposable income frequent LinkedIn.

Set A Budget

Your marketing strategy will better benefit from a set budget. You should consider including an SEO agency in your budget (if you can afford it) to take the pressure off you. Another option is to hire a marketing a Virtual Assistant so you can focus on other areas of your business.

Nurture Customer Loyalty

Include a loyalty programme within your marketing budget. If you can nurture your existing customer relationships, you’re going to encourage further business from them and get them to talk all about you.

Word of mouth is one of the most effective and powerful ways to grow your business. Consider referral bonuses, after-sale follow-ups, social media offers and even free delivery. If all else fails, providing an excellent service or high-quality product always goes a long way with customers.

Enter the Check, Review Cycle 

Once your marketing strategy in place, keep reviewing it and decide if you can make changes later on. Remember your marketing approach will naturally evolve as your business does, so don’t forget to check in on what is and isn’t working.

Even if you don’t follow the steps laid out above, your marketing strategy matters. So get started with yours in a way that suits your small business — even better, make sure that you have it all worked out before you launch 🙂

FIN

Thank you for spending some of your precious time in my online abode today

P.s. If you find my content useful and enjoy what I share, why not buy me a coffee by clicking the button below?

P.p.s. If you enjoyed this post, why not check out my previous post by clicking the image below.