How to market a new business? Beginners guide

You have a business idea, you have knowledge and experience in the field of business, and you even opened files in the state authorities – excellent … but what do we do now? How do you bring customers to your new business and how do you actually market and advertise yourself?

We will answer these and other questions through this article. It is important to read this article especially if you are a new business and should also follow our recommendations. Of course, these recommendations are intended for those who have already defined a target audience, marketing goal, thinking like the customer, competitive advantage.

Before you start to market a new business

Here are some points to note:

• Marketing goal – Many business owners who contact us do not understand what their marketing goal is when they are asked. Some respond “to bring more customers,” some want to simply advertise on Google or Facebook without a goal. A marketing goal should be clear, time-limited, achievable and of course relevant. Here’s a marketing goal – “I’m interested in bringing 50 customer inquiries within 30 days through advertising on Facebook.”
• Target audience – all the people in the world cannot be your customers and if you think so, you’re wrong. You need to define a target audience for your business – people who can be your business’s customers and want to purchase from you. Define them by geographic region, age, gender, interests, desires, marital status, socioeconomic status, where they go and more. You may have several target audiences and that’s fine.
• Competitors Research – If you think you have no competitors, you’re wrong. And it does not matter if you are a small, new business, start-up or other association. You need to know who your competitors are, what their advantages are, what their drawbacks are, where they work, how they market, and other relevant information. It is very worthwhile to follow them on social networks and across the Internet.
• Market Product – Check that your product meets the requirements of the market. If no one needs your product on the market, your product is probably not right and it’s worth reexamining it. In this case, especially as you are a small business, you will not be able to have a significant impact on the market and should be aligned with it.
• Marketing Funnel / Sales – What happens if you try to sell your product to someone who does not want to? Or did he not hear about you? Or do not know the problem at all? Apparently, he will not close a deal with you. So, create a marketing funnel that can help you understand what stage your target audience is so you can tailor the right marketing message.

Here are some tips to help you market your new business:

1. Create a presence on social networks

Social networks are great tools that connect not only people but also businesses to their target audience. Social networks including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Telegram and others are an important tool for almost every business.

Of course, you do not have to create a social network page “just to have it,” but for a purpose that serves your interests and your marketing goal. For example, a business page in these networks not only helps create a presence on the web but also helps the target audience to get to know you more closely and mainly increases their awareness of the brand and the fact that you exist.

It’s also a good idea to share relevant content to the same target audience that’s connected to your page – so they’ll get to know you more closely.

2. Create a presence in search engines

Even search engines on the Internet can help you. Search engines allow businesses to create a dedicated business page such as Google’s Google My Business, which helps businesses be displayed if and when the target audience searches for the business or services like the business in the search engine or map services.

3. Build a blog or website

A blog / website is a basic tool and it is important to have a business. Today everyone is connected to the Internet in one form or another, whether it is mobile phones, computers, tablets or other products.

If ever, a business that did not display a large sign or did not advertise in a local bulletin board, there was one that did not exist for customers. Today, a business that does not have a presence on the Internet is a “nonexistent business” and the outlooks are critical to your business – at best the customers will try to contact you in other ways, at worst they will close a deal with your competitor.

Today the cost of managing a blog or website amounts to several tens or hundreds of dollars a month.

4. Share quality content

People like to read, see and hear quality content all the time. There are more and more searches on the web, more and more video views and of course more engagement with additional content. Perhaps this is the most significant factor in social networks and search engines and therefore should not be underestimated.

If you have a gardening business, you can share content like “How to save water while watering plants”, “How to choose garden lawn”, “Types of plants you can hold at home” and much more.

Content does not have to be text like a particular article or guide. Content can be an image file, an audio file, or a video file.

Sharing quality content helps you grow your presence across the web and helps your audience – which increases their awareness and loyalty to the brand. They will recognize you as a reliable and high-quality entity.

5. Participate in groups and forums

There are groups on Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp, as well as various online forums on almost all topics, from specific fields to cross-sections. Join these groups and forums and answer the questions of surfers.

Answer them in an understandable, appropriate and professional language – avoid selling or marketing the business – but rather help them. If in the group a participant asks “What plant should I buy as a gift?” You can explain to them how to choose a plant that will be beautiful, has a longer life span and is easy to maintain.

Participating in the discourse helps the target audience understand that you are professional in the industry and you are a reliable business.

6. Manage mailing list

A page in a social network or a search engine is not really yours – the service can be closed or changed in one way or another that can hurt you. At this time, a mailing list (email, SMS, WhatsApp or any other way) is your own, you determine what to send, how to send and whom to send according to your purpose and need. You can also forward the mailing list between different services – The main is under your control.

A mailing list is not only important, as it is usually cheaper to manage than a business page, but it is also very flexible. You can create a mailing list for your blog users, a mailing list for your customers, a mailing list for customer clubs and more – which means that you can tailor your marketing message to any target audience in a way that suits you.

7. Use sponsored advertising

New businesses need to use all possible tools to bring their first customers – through friends, through websites, mailing lists, social networking pages, and more. In most cases, it can be done at a relatively low cost, and if done alone, even almost free.

Sponsored advertising is a post that you can see next to it written “Ad”, “Advertisement”, “Sponsored”, or any other word that implies that this is not about regular content, but marketing-familiar content. On this content, the business owner pays by ad clicks or views (one of those usually).

So why pay, if possible using other methods for free (or almost free)? Very simple … Methods that are listed above, usually methods that are for a longer term, or methods that do not produce immediate results. Sponsored advertising brings results immediately, we determine what goal you want to reach and usually pay for results.

Sponsored advertising allows you to present your content to a relevant audience at any time and in the way you decide. So you do pay, right, but pay for customers who are interested in the services of the business in the immediate term or are looking for them on Google, Bing and other search engines, or we imply that they need it on Facebook, Twitter or other social networks.