Marketing is one of the basic ingredients without which no business can thrive. After all, how else will people know about your business!
You cannot just start a business and cross your fingers thinking that sales will happen automatically. You also have to go for constant marketing and promoting the business so that it can grab more eyeballs and trigger more intrigue among the target audience.
But, even though, it sounds quite simple, the word “marketing plan” itself can send shivers down the spine of most entrepreneurs. It is not easy to devise a marketing plan that will be effective and will yield desirable results.
What’s more, unlike the already established businesses, the start-ups also cannot shell out a huge amount of money for marketing. This makes the task even more challenging.
To help you with the same here is a guide about how you can build a great marketing plan that will be fruitful for a start-up. Just take a look.
• Define Your End Goal– Just like you won’t be able to embark upon a journey without knowing the destination, it is essential you know where you want your business to reach with your marketing plan.
You should be able to reach out and achieve more conversions and for that, you must try out every marketing platform that you can catch hold of. Think about how you can be more appealing to your followers in social media. Devise how to attract more traffic for your website builders and how you can use events and trade shows for generating more networks and leads.
Not just that, you should also ponder upon the goals that you wish to realise within a given time of say, 5 years. Only by knowing your aim you will be able to determine your journey.
• Know Your Audience– To make your business appealing to the customers you should know their interests, likings and preferences like the back of your hand. You should know their concerns as well and think about how you can solve their problems.
You can go to surveying the audience to know about them well. Once this is done you can create a summary of what your ideal client looks like. This will give you a clear understanding of what the consumers really want and will also help you devise a plan for communicating with the audience.
• Create Your Value Propositions– Understand how you want to be identified in the industry and how your business can stand out from the competitors! Your value proposition or Unique Selling Point (USP) assists to gain answers to these questions. Go for creating a direct and simple statement that describes what you are offering to the market. You must not get caught up in the business lingo. Try to keep it simple!
• Set a Budget– This is the most essential thing as far a business is concerned and it is one of the most powerful words in the business world and for your marketing strategy it is one of the major decisive factors. You should create a budget that concentrates strictly on marketing related activities. Plan how much you are going to spend on the promotion of brand this year, the source of your finance and from where the money will come. Creating a budget plan is essential especially for the start-ups. This will give you where you can tweak and adjust so that you can make the best of what you can afford!
• Cultivate Relationships with the Influencers– The influencers are just as vital as the customers. They are the people who can influence your target audience. The influencers include the hosts of YouTube channels or TV or radio personalities. You should send emails, call up and offer free services or products to the potential influencers. Your start-up can be propelled by just one mention from these influencers and it can transform from a negligible industry inclusion to a legitimate force.
• Shape and Implement Your Marketing Plan– Your marketing plan should consist of the following-
a) Go for Creating Brand Awareness– This is not just about the fancy logo or official colours. It is about articulating a strong value proposition and the vision of the business into memorable phrases and words so that it can create an impact on the minds of the potential customers.
b) Don’t Forget a Marketing Calendar– Your marketing calendar happens to organise all campaigns, events and social activities to pursue or to get offers in front of the customers.
c) Go for a Sales Kit– Create a sales kit so that everybody knows to engage the customers at events (which are vital for marketing). This kit ensures consistent messages and the best practices to be followed by your team. At the time of hosting events also ensure that you opt for chair hire in London and book your venue early so that you can save on your pocket and at the same time create the right décor and ambience for your event.
The above are the steps with the help of which you can create a solid marketing plan for boosting your start-up.
