5 Fool-Proof Strategies to Market your Start-Up
Starting a business can be a mind-numbing. If you wanted to know just one thing to get your business up and running, then all you have to do is to go out there and get your customers. Just how do we do that?
1. Write a marketing plan, even if you hated writing: Not because you have to write, but to firmly entrench deep into the nerve centers of your brain that your business will never even start to bring in cash until you know how to get your customers. So as a first act, just sit down in a corner and come up with a write-up as to how you intend to go about acquiring clients. Include everything you need here -- budget, strengths, weakness, Unique Selling Propositions and the like.
2. When you start, start poor: If you had loads of cash that you might be lucky to start out with, it is highly recommended that you follow some guerrilla tactics to get your first set of customers -- why is that you might ask? Well, because firstly, you don't get into the habit of falling back on wads of cash and secondly, because you've got to get a taste of the dirty leg work that one needs to do, and thirdly, you better be prepared for the worst and knowing what to do when you have no money is the best thing to learn.
3. Pick up one skill, Sales: You would have heard this a million times, but it is worth repeating -- if you had to pick up just one skill from anywhere (especially while you were working), you would do well to pick up "The Art of Making a Sale". This single skill alone can indeed bail you out of any problem that you might have tomorrow and can single handedly turn the tables around when it comes to your cash-flow.
4. Go where your target market is, not where your competitors are: What is the mistake most businesses do? They simply go where their "Competitor" are going - wrong. You've got to be where your target market is. If they are students, you will find them hanging out in cafes, pubs, coffee shops. If your competitors were spending money on newspaper ads (which the students rarely read) -- well, you are in trouble, aren't you?
5. Marketing isn't for the bad days; it is for each day - forever: Here is what some people do when they start up -- they promote, market, sell until they make a few sales and once their hands are full, they stop. Stop? Excuse me? Marketing is like filling fuel in your car, only that it has to be done at regular intervals and not just when your fuel tank is empty. Marketing is an ongoing affair -- the day you don't make a sale, you are sending out distress signals and that's your EAM (Emergency Action Message).
Related Tags: small business, entrepreneurship, starting a business, startups, marketing your business
Robin Matuk is an Internet Business Coach who addresses the needs of entrepreneurs and business owners looking to maximize the power of the Internet to build, manage, and grow a thriving business. She is the founder of My Digital Coach, a blogger at Creating with Impact and a community builder at The Big Idea Community. Check out her website The Big Idea Community and her blog Creating with Impact.
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