Marketing your new business
By Alan Hathaway, Owner, BrownBoots Interactive
You’ve decided to start a business and you need to jump in to the marketing side to make sure everyone knows who you are, what you do, and why they need it. The only problem is you don’t know how to get started? Hopefully, that’s were we can help.
Marketing is an integral part of the complex process of operating a business and one of those tasks that you may try to take on yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that because initially nobody is going to be as excited about your business as you are. You’re the perfect spokesperson. You will, however, need to follow some general steps and guidelines to make sure your time, money and effort are well spent.
Talking about one small portion of a complex process is always difficult. In order to make it a little easier, it’s important to lay out some assumptions or set the table before we really dive in. So, for the sake of this conversation here are the assumptions…
- You have a relevant product or service. No marketing can overcome inherent flaws. Try selling evaporated ice and see how well it works!
- Your price is appropriate. Once again, marketing can’t overcome flaws. Try selling gasoline for $9.00 per gallon when everyone else is selling it for $4.00. Unless your gas quadruples the gas mileage and extends the life of the car, it’s not going to sell no matter how much you try.
Once the assumptions are out of the way, we can get into the process of marketing.
As we move through this process we will use an example company (Golf Technologies), and an example product (Lighthouse Tees…extra-tall, stainless steel golf tees that look like the lighthouse in Lakeside Park in Fond du Lac) to help illustrate the points being made.
First step…determine your target audience. You need to know their gender, age, marital status, education, income, location, hobbies, etc. The more you know the further you can stretch your marketing dollars and the more clearly you can state your message. You don’t need to spend money or time marketing to teenage girls 1000 miles away when Lighthouse Tees’ audience is retired local men who have a sense of humor and plenty of time to golf.
Second step…goals and objectives before tactics. Anytime you can start a business process with a goal in mind you will become more efficient in a number of ways. You can’t just jump in and start “doing stuff” without a reason or a goal or an expected outcome. The same holds true for marketing.
You don’t get to work one morning, sit down at your desk and think, “I need to make a spreadsheet today.” You sit down at your desk and you determine, or someone gives you, an objective such as, “We need to track billable hours for each employee over time to help determine compensation increases?” Once you have that objective then you determine the tactics for getting it done. “I’ll make spreadsheet to track the information. I’ll put a note in my calendar as a reminder to send the spreadsheet to my supervisor every quarter.”
The same is true for marketing -- objectives followed by tactics. Don’t think “I need a website”. Think, “I need to get my product information in front of retired, local, men, who golf. What are the best tactics for getting this accomplished?” Then evaluate the tactics. Should I build a website or join a couple of local golf leagues, or both, or something else?
Marketing is an integral part of the complex process of operating a business and one of those tasks that you may try to take on yourself.
Third step…focus on benefits, not features. Don’t assume that a list of features such as “stainless steel,” or “extra-tall,” will automatically translate in your customers’ mind to be a benefit. Always ask yourself “Why should I care?” Eventually you will come to a benefit that you can focus on.
Extra-tall -- Why should I care? Works well with big drivers.
Works will with big drivers -- Why should I care? Extra distance.
Extra distance -- Why should I care? Because you and Joe have been golfing together for years and just once you would like to out-drive that plaid-pants wearing “you know-what” and put him in his place!
It’s too much to assume your audience can figure out that “extra-tall” equals “I can finally put him in his place!”
Fourth step…always listen and be willing to change everything. If everything goes well and Lighthouse Tees sell like gangbusters it may become time to expand your market. If you start making Lighthouse Tees featuring lighthouses from other parts of the country, your audience changes and so should your marketing. If you’ve been listening, you will know if they sell because they are extra-tall or because they feature the local lighthouse.
If “local lighthouse” is the key and you determine that your next lighthouse will be the Rock Island Lighthouse in Door County, your marketing needs to adapt. No longer is “local” part of your audience description. You won’t be able to reach them by joining a local golf league. You could however choose to focus on a demographic that simply collects lighthouse or Door County memorabilia.
One last thought…This process, while more complex than this article has time to delve into, should be an exciting process. If you don’t get a kick out of thinking about your audience, talking about your product or service, or the opportunities that arise as business changes, you may want to re-think your path. Ultimately, what is laid out here are the basic steps necessary to move your company forward, and that should always be fun.
