Starting a new business, especially as a first-time entrepreneur can feel overwhelming. After establishing your company and getting all the operational duties out of the way, the next big problem to tackle is how to make money, which requires getting customers.
Marketing is a word that can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m here to help. I’m going to give you 7 steps to creating your first marketing plan for your small business.
1. Define your target audience.
So you’ve started your company, congratulations. Now the real work starts. It’s time to make some revenue, but for revenue, you need customers. Do you know who your customers are? You may have an idea in your head, but do you know who your ideal customer is?
This is what we call your “target audience.” These are the people you target with your marketing and advertising efforts. Small businesses start to increase value by narrowing down the people who fit the profile of their ideal customer. The people in your target audience could be narrowed down by their particular location, education, interests, or simply by a problem they need solved.
Without defining your target audience, you could end up wasting a lot of marketing dollars.
Here’s an example of a target audience:
Women, 35–54 years old, living in major U.S. cities, with a bachelor’s degree, monthly income of $6,000–$8,000, and passionate about fashion, interior design, and art.
When defining your own target audience, ask yourself these questions: What are their biggest difficulties, problems, or desires? Where do they spend their time online and IRL (in real life)? How can you benefit them? What negatively impacts them?
Answering all of these questions is integral to targeting the right customers for your small business.
2. Find product/market fit.
Now that you’ve defined your audience, ask yourself this question: Does your product or service hold true to its value proposition by solving the needs of your target audience?
This is product/market fit. When you have product/market fit, you gain the best marketing any company can find—marketing through the advocacy of your customers, aka word of mouth. Not only is word of mouth the strongest form of marketing, but it’s also the cheapest.
To ensure you have product/market fit, you should first analyze your product or service and familiarize yourself with your competitors and their offerings. Next, you should go out to do the research by talking with your customers. Speaking with your customers and understanding them is the golden rule of marketing.
Some great questions to ask your customers:
- How would you feel if you could no longer use this product or service?
- What would you use as an alternative?
- What is the most important benefit you receive from using this product/service?
Once you assure that you’ve found product/market fit, not only is your business in a healthy space but you’ll be able to take advantage of your customers being your biggest marketing drivers.
3. Optimize your channel mix.
Part of the exercise of defining your target audience is identifying the right channels to engage your audience. This can be overwhelming for many small business owners and entrepreneurs because there are more options than ever. You have to spend your time and money on the most impactful channels, especially if you’re working with a smaller budget.
Focus is important here. You must focus on the right channels to truly maximize the growth of your business, which usually means zooming in on a few key channels.
What is a marketing channel? Well, here are a few examples:
- Company website (you should start here)
- Social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.
- Email (lifecycle marketing)
- SEO (search engine optimization)
- Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing
- Direct mail
- Radio
- Commercial / TV
- Print: magazine ads, brochures, etc.
- Events
And that’s only a few, there are dozens more. So many more that it can be overwhelming for many first-time business owners. Two things you should consider when deciding what marketing channels to pursue: Where is your target audience most likely to engage? What is your marketing budget?
4. Create a marketing budget.
First things first, you need to list out all of your current and future expected operational costs. These costs include the essential things needed to run your business and should be calculated before you spend a single dollar on marketing.
Once you’ve calculated these costs, you will have a realistic picture of what kind of marketing budget you actually have. The next step is to list your goals and what you hope to achieve with your marketing. This list should include how much revenue you need to sustain your business and how many sales you need to hit your goals. Also, think about how many leads it typically takes to convert the right number of sales.
For example, say you currently have 60 customers per month but you need 75 to break even. That means your marketing budget (if feasible), allows you to acquire 15+ more customers.
Just remember, marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. Whether you have $100 to spend on marketing or $100,000, it’s all about doing what makes the most sense for your company.
5. Establish a DRI.
So what’s a DRI? A DRI is the directly responsible individual. You may hear this acronym used among many startups and companies. For marketing at your company, it’s important to establish who the DRI is. As a small business owner, that DRI may be you.
That doesn’t mean you’re a marketing expert or that you will have to do the marketing yourself. It means that establishing a DRI to keep things running smoothly is important. A DRI is responsible for getting the job done or finding the resources to get it done..
The DRI can be you, a business partner, or someone you hire.
6. Get outside help.
As an entrepreneur, marketing in general or certain aspects of marketing may not be your expertise. If you have the budget, getting help can be a lot smarter than trying to figure it out on your own, and it can save you time and money.
The next question is: Where do you start? There are plenty of freelance sites out there that can fit your marketing needs. Whether you’re looking for copywriting, SEO expertise, social media management, or someone to run ads for you, there’s literally someone out there for all of your marketing needs.
7. Measure your success.
Now you’re all ready to start running your first marketing company, but not so fast. Have you defined what will make those marketing campaigns successful?
Maybe it’s brand awareness or creating sales in the short term, especially as a new business. It’s extremely important to define what success looks like and have marketing KPIs (key performance indicators) that ladder into those goals.
It isn’t always easy to measure the impact of marketing, but it can be done. You want to avoid what many marketers call “vanity metrics.” These metrics may look good and feel good—reporting things like X percentage increase in website visitors or X amount of social media followers gained—but looks can be deceiving. Is that new bump in web traffic or social media followers your target audience or high quality?
Measuring ROI (return on investment) is crucial to measuring marketing success. You should figure out the CAC (cost to acquire a customer) and the LTV (lifetime value) of your customer. This will help you determine how efficient your marketing spend will be.
Determining the success of your marketing should include metrics that are measurable, time-bound, and tied to a known campaign. Stay disciplined and remember to keep your company priorities and goals in sight.
