Marketing for Beginners

If you have just started your business or are still in the thinking and planning part of your new business, I am sure you’ve already thought of “how am I going to get found on Google and those other search engines or where can I sell my products”. While, marketing can range from all digital platforms to the more traditional platforms consisting of billboards, flyers, brochures, and business cards; it is important to have a mixture of both digital and traditional, in sense. If your business is still in the planning stages it is my personal recommendation that you don’t run out rent the biggest billboard even if you have a brick and mortar store front. Marketing is an easy task and the important thing is to not over complicate it. The idea of marketing is exposure, as much as you get and make sure it’s all positive for the most part. I mean let’s face it not everyone is going to give you positive reviews or positive feedback; there are just those few people that exist to do harm. Although, we can utilize their negative feedback and reviews by staying on top of our marketing placement game and even on a digital platform provide excellent customer service.

Some key questions that you should ask yourself are where do I want to sell my goods and services?

Why would I need to concern myself with the “where” if I am only marketing on a digital platform?

Is my price point the same, average, or below the market value for my product?

Is there room for one more, in my market?

We have done a few things to get to this point, we have either got funding from an outside source or we are financing this business out of pocket. Whichever way you chose to go is your decision but if you went for option two, ”funding out of your own pocket” the answers here are going to be even more important. If you are depending on your life savings to start a business then you know how difficult it was to save that money and now it’s time to make sure that that money works for you and you don’t lose it in a frivolous attempt. When marketing on a digital platform the world literally becomes at your fingertips but the ability to be able to serve the world can be somewhat difficult if you have products that are only available to your local area, your country, or your product maybe outlawed in some countries. So, it is important to stick to what you know when you are first starting out and to what led you to your product discovery, product placement and now what will become your product promotion. Product discovery, placement, and promotion apply to all levels of commerce; this applies even if you have decided to open a consulting business or a local pie shop. The pie shop will obviously sell pie as their products but the consulting business will sell their services as their product, product doesn’t have to be a thing or an invention or new but it will need to be competitive and revolutionary.

How can we revolutionize an old product and make it competitive?

We can do this by how we market our idea, our idea is a new way of doing things or design of an age old tested way of doing things. However, this doesn’t mean go out and change the color of the coffee pot and call it your own, it needs to be a different design element, what sets you apart from the way the coffee pot was doing things(example only). However, the question remains as to where do I sell my goods and services? I will always promote digital marketing over traditional marketing because of the global reach that it has but there is also one other advantage to digital marketing; most people today use their tablet, smartphone, or laptop to search and research the companies they intend on doing business with. If we utilize our target audience methodology and geo-targeting we should see quick turnaround revenue on our product placement as well as promotion.  The geo-targeting of your audience is a key piece in your marketing success and you should have an idea if your business will be successful within that specific geographical market if you’ve done your market share research. The importance of market share research outweighs which marketing platform and which business models or structure you’ve chosen; simply because if the market is saturated with your business model, your chance of success decreases a great deal especially if there is no room for growth within the market for your business.

The must haves of market share give you the information needed to be able to move, adapt, and adjust your business model accordingly as it will also give you a better understanding of whom your target audience will most likely be. Although, you may be thinking to yourself I know this will sell, everyone needs one, or why wouldn’t it be successful it seems like a good idea, your idea and business model is most likely a good idea but would you bet on a sure thing or much rather just play the hope to win lottery?  I myself don’t play the lottery because I like my money and I want to deal only with absolutes and yes business is sometimes a risk but it can be a minimum risk if you do your research and save the revenue that you would spend trying to make a failing business successful.

So, let’s just assume that you’ve done your market research and move forward about marketing and I can so preaching. We are marketing on a digital platform and in order to do this we will need a few things to look professional, one because we are business professionals now, two we want our clients to have a clean and crisp experience with us online and in person or over the phone if it comes to that. One important concept you should remember about marketing, business, and clients or consumers whichever you are appealing to, the main hat you should wear always is the customer service hat, you will always want a revolving door from every consumer or client or return customer. You might think it may be easier to just hire an answering service for you while you’re flipping your pen in your swanky new office but ask yourself where do you really want that revenue in your pocket for exposure to potential clients or customers or someone that may lack the necessary customer care that you need to keep your consumer base coming back?

So, to achieve digital marketing and to start bringing in revenue within the first three months (average) you will need a website, web-hosting, and a products page that offers your goods or services.  The website and domain name registration is fairly inexpensive you can achieve this for a month to month basis for around 25.00 usd but you’re a business owner and you might want to consider a year subscription of hosting which is roughly around 200.00-250.00 depending on your host provider. This is a must have if you intend to do any type of digital marketing because you must have some type of digital foot print beyond your social media page, you’re a professional and you must look and act the part. There are some really good digital marketing firms on the web that can do all of this for you or you can do a DIY project by using Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, DexMedia, and the digital Yellow Pages these are all pretty simple and some are cost effective and some are relatively expensive but give you exposure almost everywhere. The search engines and marketing are a time consuming place to start and wait but it is a must for digital marketing, search engines like google, yahoo, and Bing take around sixty days to get listed and getting listed is only half the battle, then you have to battle for supremacy for a top first page listing.

How can you get to the top of Google quickly?

The most common question that I hear is how can I get to the first page of Google quickly? Well, you really can’t everyone has to use keywords and then you must make sure your geographical target area is on point, it does help to make sure your website is search engine optimized also known as (SEO) but if you don’t have the funds to keep up a comprehensive ad campaign you’ll quickly lose your first page spot and that only comes after the search engines verify that your company actually exists. The placements of your keywords are crucial when marketing on a digital platform but also having the ability to complete all the information for your ad campaign is a must. For example, you will need to know if you are targeting men, women, business professionals, housewives, mothers, fathers, teenagers, single parents, home owners and etc. when you take on the task of marketing you can never have too much detail but what you can have is not enough and then you could end up tossing your hard earned dollars in the trash. The list above is only your target audience and then you have to compile a list of a geo-target audience which will give you a specific region to sell your products and services. However, this can get a little tricky, if you are selling a physical service meaning a service where you have to meet your client, then there are a couple of variables that you should take into account.  I would suggest only try to target within your state borders, reason being is I currently reside on a state line and could easily advertise across state lines but since I am nit skilled about the laws in the neighboring state I stick to what I know for now. It is also a good idea that if you have to meet face to face with your clients and you’re not delivering products, (which by the way if you are definitely check state and local laws) never except cash use your smartphone or tablet and utilize a credit card processor to accept payment.

I know it seems like we’ve covered a lot but there is one step that is very important and yet again it deals almost directly with market research and that is where, will your price point stand in the marketing strategy.  Using the time allowed by our filing of the state paperwork and working on our many layers of our business plan we should have some clear idea of where the market price is on the goods and services that we are going to attempt to try and provide. However, if we have rushed and made irrational decisions then we are most likely going to be either cost us valuable revenue in either way by up or down. All of the market research, the planning,  your retail price all comes down to your marketing strategy which is your target audience, payment functionality, your geo-targeting and product promotions whether they are consumer confidence price cuts or web-store coupons, this is the world of marketing and the strategy and battle for supremacy. So, follow your business plan, your market research, analyze the market for viability, create your marketing strategy, and create your digital foot print.