So, you’ve finally set up a new business. Kudos to you! But the real challenge here is how to market your new business so potential customers can find you.
There are several ways to create awareness for your new business.
However, not all will be effective in delivering the expected results.
Knowing the exact marketing strategies to implement will save you the hassle of trial and error.
So, stay with us to discover the exact steps to market your new business.
How To Market A New Business- An Overview
One thing to note is that marketing is important to bring your ideal customer’s attention to your business.
In other words, without marketing, your business will exist in a vacuum.
Regardless of how excellent your products/services are very little or, no people will discover what you have to offer.
However, marketing is not as easy as it sounds.
It is not only about telling people about your business or showing them what you have to offer.
It’s certainly not also just about how you package your products and services.
There are a lot of technicalities around effective marketing.
Little wonder many new and even existing businesses still struggle to meet their marketing goals.
In some cases, most business owners spend a fortune on marketing with little to no result to show for it.
However, as a new business owner, you can’t afford to spend all your business resources to market your new business.
Fortunately for you, there are free and affordable ways to market your business.
Then as the business grows, you can invest more money into promoting your business.
But before we go into that detail, it’s important to establish the difference between marketing and advertising.
Marketing Vs. Advertising; Are There Many Differences Between These Two Concepts?
Often, many business owners use these words interchangeably or perceive them to mean the same thing.
Well, there’s a huge difference between these two concepts.
Nonetheless, both terms are related in certain ways.
With that said, here are the significant differences between both concepts.
Marketing Is A Holistic Process Whereas Advertising Is Only Part Of A Process
Marketing takes a more holistic approach compared to advertising.
Precisely, marketing covers product design/development, market analysis, and other processes before and after the product launch.
Conversely, advertising is one of the activities you engage in to market your business.
Marketing Involves A Long-Term Process Whereas Advertising Involves A Short Term Process
Marketing isn’t a once and for all process.
It goes on and evolves as the business grows.
On the other hand, you create ads regularly, and most ad campaigns are created to run within a definite period.
Marketing Is Targeted To Improve Your Sales Performance Whereas Advertising Aims To Excite The Customers About The Product
Marketing is a string of activities or processes done to increase sales in the business generally.
However, advertising will excite your customers about your product and induce them to buy, which will also drive sales to your business.
Marketing Helps You Create A Market For Your Product While Advertising Helps You Create Awareness For Your Product
Marketing involves systems that are geared toward discovering problems and providing solutions.
Thereby creating a market for the product.
On the other hand, advertising gets the word out of your product into the marketplace.
In a nutshell, marketing is more of the research, planning, and strategizing, aspect of promoting a business.
Advertising, on the other hand, is more of the implementation stage/process.
Despite these apparent differences, there are some aspects where these two concepts share common ground.
Marketing And Advertising; How Are They Related?
They Both Can Help You Increase Sales In Your Business
One significant similarity between marketing and advertising is that they can increase your sales.
Precisely, the former will help you identify the best way to approach your customers to get a sale, while the latter will help you implement, attract, and induce the customer to buy.
In the end, both actions will directly lead to more sales in your business if done rightly.
Both Promote A Product/Service In The Same Way
Both actions promote a product/service to a defined target audience by highlighting the value of your product/services to your customers.
Now you’re clear on the differences between marketing and advertising.
However, it’s also important to find out the different types of marketing you can explore to market your new business.
Types Of Marketing
Generally, there are two broad categories of marketing; Offline marketing and Online marketing.
All types of marketing fall under any of these categories.
More so, there are several types of marketing.
However, our focus for this discussion will be on the most popular and effective types of marketing.
Content Marketing
This is one of the effective ways of promoting your business online.
Content marketing involves marketing your business with valuable content around carefully targeted topics/keywords relating to your business.
The content you create needs to solve real problems your audience may be struggling with to be valuable and impactful.
This is a long-term marketing approach where you use your content to push your potential customers through the different stages of the buyer’s journey.
Precisely, your content marketing goal should attract, inform, and encourage the customers to take action.
You can create high-quality content and share them on various platforms like a blog or your social media page.
Overall, content marketing requires consistency and patience.
It’s a way of marketing your business while building trust and increasing customer engagement with your business.
Social Media Marketing
So far, this is the most effective type of marketing.
It involves using different social media platforms to engage with your target customers and promote your business.
Almost everyone is on different social media platforms such as Facebook, Linkedin, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, Quora, Reddit, etc.
So, it will be a great place to tell people about your business.
However, you’ll need to identify which social media platforms will be most effective for your kind of business.
You’ll also need to create relevant content that promotes your products and services on your chosen social media platform.
Overall, social media can help you create a strong brand image, build an online presence and engage with your target audience in real-time.
SEO
This is another type of marketing that takes advantage of the large customer base on the internet.
SEO is a type of marketing that involves a range of online activities to make your business more visible online.
It cuts across different marketing channels.
To put it simply, it’s a technical marketing strategy that involves tweaking your business based on specific SEO principles so it can be easily visible to search engines (e.g.Google).
Overall, this type of marketing increases the chances of your business popping up when potential customers search for businesses relating to yours using specific keywords.
Email Marketing
This is the second most effective type of marketing that many business owners have neglected in the past.
It involves engaging with your customers via email management software.
Specifically, you send out email broadcasts to your email list informing them about your products, services, and latest offerings.
Not only that, but you can also use this type of marketing to educate and engage your email list consistently.
It could help you increase brand awareness, nurture new customers, and turn them into paying customers.
Overall, email marketing allows you to engage with your client base on a more personal level.
Event Marketing
This is another way to market your new business.
Event marketing involves organizing promotional events where you get to talk to an interested audience about your business.
It could be a live or virtual event, depending on the nature of your business.
Specifically, virtual events would be most effective for service-based businesses.
Above all, event marketing allows you to educate your audience about your business and answer their questions in real-time.
Affiliate Marketing
This is a marketing strategy where you pay other people a fixed rate/commission to promote your business to their audience.
It’s a form of business partnership that benefits both parties involved.
The business owner gets more sales, and the affiliate earns a commission on each sale that comes in through his/her unique affiliate link.
However, this may not be the best type of marketing for you as a new business owner, especially if you’re working on a strict budget.
Now you know the different types of marketing you can use to promote your business.
Before you get started, there are a few important things you shouldn’t neglect.
Important First Steps To Marketing Your New Business
Research The Market
This is the very first step because it forms the foundation of your business and product/services.
In-depth market research will give you all the information you need to create a solid marketing strategy to promote your new business.
Specifically, it will help you know your target market’s buying habits, thinking patterns, demography, interests, pains, desires, and awareness level.
Hence, before you even think of crafting a marketing message, ensure to do your homework and find out all, there is to know about your potential customers.
After this, you can take things up a notch by creating a customer avatar or profile that reflects the information you’ve discovered in your research.
This customer avatar will help you find and attract the right customer for your business.
Identify Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Your unique selling proposition is your advantage over your competitors.
This is what will convince your potential customers to buy from you instead of your competitors.
Knowing what your USP is will be very valuable to help you craft a compelling marketing message when promoting your new business.
To identify your USP, you need to;
- Think about what unique mechanisms or strategies you’ve included in your products/services to deliver value to your customers.
- Consider the special features/benefits of your products/services that can be found in other businesses.
- Also, think about the unique skills, experiences, and knowledge base that inspired your products/services.
Set Clear Marketing Goals
Clearly, your marketing goal is to promote your new business, attract your ideal customers, and make sales.
Aside from that, you may also have other goals tied to your marketing activities.
Some of these may include; increasing brand awareness/engagement, building authority/credibility, generating high-quality leads, etc.
Whatever your marketing goals may be, identify and conceptualize them.
Also, make sure they are super specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
In all, setting these goals will give you a clear sense of direction.
Set Your Marketing Budget
This is also an important step to help you manage your financial resources effectively.
It should identify how much you can afford to spend on your marketing and other related activities.
So, create a marketing budget and stick to it.
Decide On What Marketing Platforms You’ll Use
There are various options to pick from when deciding on the marketing platform to use.
The trick is to pick one that fits your business needs and marketing budget.
Develop A Marketing Implementation Plan/Strategy
Finally, it’s time to create an action plan to help you actualize the marketing goals you outlined earlier.
The plan/strategy should reflect the exact steps you need to take to achieve the results you seek.
As a new business owner, formulating a marketing implementation plan may be quite overwhelming for you.
Fortunately, there are several marketing plan templates and resources online that can guide you.
Just make sure to find one that fits your business.
More importantly, as you implement your marketing plan, measure your progress and restrategize when necessary.
After you’ve ticked all the boxes above, you can now start marketing your business in the following ways.
6 Specific Ways To Market Your New Business Effectively
These are some effective ways you can promote your business with little to no money at all.
1. Start Within Your Network
This is one of the oldest and simplest ways to spread the word about your new business to others.
And guess what?
You don’t need to spend a dime on this type of marketing.
It’s as simple as telling a few friends and close associates about your business either through word-of-mouth or electronically.
You could send emails, text messages, or put a call through to tell them about your new business.
These would be the first ambassadors of your new business as they’ll tell other people about your business.
2. Take Your Business Online
Perhaps, yours is a brick-and-mortar-based business- a physical store.
This is one way to market your new business and attract new customers.
Taking your business online would require you to register your business online through any of the following ways;
- Creating a local online directory for your business.
You can do this by simply creating a business account on any of the following platforms such as GooglemyBusiness, Facebook, Hubspot, etc.
These directories will require you to fill in business details like your business name, opening hours, business industry, website, directions to your physical store if you have one, etc.
This helps to make your business more visible to online searchers in your business niche.
- Creating a business website.
A business website is a good way to build an online presence, create awareness, and promote your business.
With a business website, you can inform your customers about your products/services and make your products easily accessible to them through an online store.
- Create a social media page to share content and interact with your target customers.
Overall, taking your business online will expose your business to a large audience.
3. Practice Search Engine Optimization
SEO is an effective way to increase your online visibility and promote your business organically.
Likewise, it involves several technical activities that can be applied on various marketing platforms especially, social media and websites.
Some of the best SEO practices for promoting a business include;
- Targeting the right keywords online searchers use to search for your products/services.
- Using these keywords to create and share valuable/high-quality content.
- Creating a user-friendly website
- Make your site, social media page, and content visually appealing.
- Also, you need to practice technical SEO, such as improving your website loading speed, building backlinks, etc.
Overall, this may seem a little bit complex for you as a beginner.
However, you can always outsource this aspect to qualified professionals.
Alternatively, you can take up SEO training courses, learn, and implement along the way.
4. Explore Search Engine Marketing/Paid Advertising
SEM works more like SEO.
However, you pay money to come up on search engine result pages (SERPS) with SEM.
In clear terms, you pay for advertising space to display your business on different web pages.
This way, when online users search for products/services using specific keywords relating to your business, your business is displayed in prominent locations.
5. Take Advantage of Email Marketing
Lately, email marketing has been one of the most effective marketing strategies that require little investment and bring in huge ROI.
It can help you build and grow an engaged list of loyal customers to promote your products and services.
Email marketing can be a goldmine in your online marketing arsenal when used rightly.
To start using email marketing to promote your business;
- You’ll need to register your business with an email service provider (ESP).
The ESP will help you manage your email list and enable you to deliver bulk emails to your email list.
- You’ll also need to create a lead magnet (a valuable free product/offering) that you’ll offer to your potential customers in exchange for their email addresses.
This will help you build up your email list.
- Now that you have an email list, you need to engage your list with valuable content.
Start by creating an email series that welcomes your new sign-ups to your space and introduces the brand as well as your product/services.
Subsequently, you can send out emails that enlighten and engage your email list with the aim of turning them into paying customers.
6. Consider Traditional Media Publications
So far, we’ve focused mainly on online marketing channels.
Does this mean that traditional media platforms are out of the picture?
No.
However, internet marketing has taken the front row when it comes to promoting a business.
Notwithstanding, traditional media still has its place in the world of marketing.
So, you can definitely explore radio, TV, billboards, newspaper, magazines, and other print media to promote your business.
However, note that traditional advertising is more expensive compared to internet marketing.
Hence, if you’re on a budget, internet marketing is the most affordable and effective way to promote your business.
Wrapping Up; How To Market A New Business
That wraps up the different ways you can market a new business.
You’ve probably tried out a few marketing strategies but didn’t see any tangible results.
Either your approach was wrong, or the marketing technique just isn’t right for your business.
Ideally, marketing done the right way will help you increase brand awareness, attract new customers, and make more sales.
Luckily for you, the steps outlined above are some of the strategies many successful businesses have engaged in growing their start-up.
Good luck implementing these steps and crushing your marketing goals.
