How to get your Marketing Plan off the ground?

Starting a business is not an easy task, and startups face many challenges. If you are currently building a startup company, there is a long and difficult road ahead of you. You may have the best business idea the world has ever seen. But unless other people know about your ingenious product or service, your start-up will be over before it is even begun. So, one demand that shouldn’t be ignored is that of marketing.

You need a comprehensive startup marketing plan for your business, here are some tips on how to get your marketing plan off the ground.

Identify your target market

Before you do anything else, you need to decide to whom you are going to sell your products or services. In my consulting work, I very often see new business owners who skip over this step because they believe their brands are for everyone. If something is for everyone is actually for no one! You need to segment your target audience to find your place in the market.

Your target market should be based on audience research, not a gut feeling. You need to be willing to learn as you go, adapt on the fly, and go after the people who really want to buy from you, even if they are not the customers you originally set out to reach.

Here are three ideas to get you started:

• Identify the basic demographics of your target prospects, such as their gender, age, and location.
• Learn how to relate to your audience by analyzing their personalities and/or shopping behavior.
• Establish your brand’s message following your research.

Analyze your competition

Your startup company does not exist in a vacuum. It is more than likely that whatever you are selling is like other products and services on the market. That is OK because the right marketing strategy can help you distinguish oneself even with lots of competition. You need to differentiate yourself by leveraging your uniqueness. The core part of a marketing plan for startups is to get a strong competitive advantage by implementing features that other competitors are not providing. A simple SWOT analysis chart can be a useful tool when it comes to your competitive analysis process.

Analyzing your competition is one of the most crucial parts of your marketing strategy.

Create and maintain a consistent brand and message

Brand consistency is the pattern of expression that affects what people think about your company. The more consistent your messaging, the more consistent your branding — whether via words, design, offerings, or perspective. Your brand should build awareness and develop trust and loyalty with customers.

From the start, your brand image should be tied to your core values. Even if you already have a logo and have designed your company website, you can make small tweaks to ensure your branding sends the right messages to your audience members about what you do and what they can expect if they engage with you further.

Identify Marketing Channels

According to Forbes:

Among the hundreds of marketing channels out there (PR, influencers, events, digital, podcasts, print, newsletters, partnerships, etc.), it’s important to pick the ones that will work the hardest for you for the smallest amount of money. A good marketing plan starts with placing strategic bets on a few channels where your customer is most likely to see your message AND take action (like, share, buy, comment, sign up, review).

Should we start a Facebook fan page or more business style LinkedIn? Do I need a blog on Medium a Twitter account or a classic TV campaign? Everything goes to send the right marketing message to the right customer through the right medium at the right time, to achieve a high volume of sales. But this part of the marketing strategy deserves its own chapter on the blog.

Last, but not least, you should remember a marketing strategy is a dynamic process, and it needs to be evaluated constantly. So don’t panic if something goes wrong.