Just Starting Out?
If your just starting up in business the word of marketing, advertising and website promotion can seem confusing. For starters as soon as your details become public you will be contacted by advertising companies claiming to know what’s best for your company. This could lead to an early mistake, misspend your advertising budget at this delicate stage and you could be in trouble if the expect sales fail to materialize.
Dealing with Cold Callers
If a company calls you keen to sell you a service, advertising space or a place in a special or exclusive (and it’s always special or exclusive, sometimes both) online directory it’s usually best to avoid them at all costs. Such calls are made my sales people working on commission and they are often very skilled at their job and very convincing. If you are tempted by an offer made by any such caller get them to put the offer in writing and email it to you. In most cases they won’t bother, if they do it allows you to study the offer when you are not under pressure and to compare the offer with their competitors at your leisure.
Presentation is a Key Piece of the Puzzle.
When spending your start up budget if can be tempting to allocate the funds to back end operations such as computers, stock management systems etc… in reality your money will be best spend enhancing the customers experience. The question to ask yourself about every purchase is: Will my customers care? For example if you are selling high value luxury goods by mail order then using high quality packaging materials for the outset will be essential. If however your good are more middle of the road in price then making the decision to spend more or less on packaging is less crucial but still an important consideration.
When it comes to setting up back end operations reliability should be at the forefront of your mind. For example rather than one expensive computer two more modest computers with the other set up and ready to run as back up will be a better choice. Even if the backup is an aging second hand laptop, as long as it can run all of your business software then the day will come when you are very glad of it’s existence.
Be Easy to Find
Probably the biggest mistake the new business make is just not being visible to potential customers. In 2011 it’s simply not enough to have a website and to run an advert in the local paper. If you want to build a successful business you need to be as visible as possible and that means making clever use of online and offline marketing to maximize exposures for your budget. For example rather than pay for advertising in a local paper, write a press release instead or even write a regular column for them. Also make use of local radio, do they interview local business people? If your planning on doing charity event, use local media to promote the event and benefit both the charity and your business.
When it comes to your website remember its not simply enough to build the site. Promoting it by getting it listed in the relevant directories is vital, as is search engine optimization. A shocking 41% of UK business having never attempted to optimize their position in search engines. There is simply no point in having a website if it is not going to receive traffic.
Whatever you want from your business there is no doubt that the initial funding must be well spent, whether it is on equipment, stock or marketing.
We Can Help
Advice on marketing for start-ups is one of my specialties I can work out what you need based on your individual business and provide tailor made marketing solution to allow you to get the most from your budget. I can provide search engine friendly website design, website promotion, search engine optimisation. I can also write press releases, promotional articles
Good Luck
Whatever type business of business you are starting up, good luck and all the best for the future. Remember it will always be difficult at times, but you will never want to go back to working for a boss ever again.
