"Content is king, but marketing is queen, and runs the household."
Gary Vaynerchuk
Author, and Entrepreneur
The small business marketing guide
Marketing is about relationships.
Connect. Engage. Build.
Marketing is the lifeline of many businesses. It’s how you get your name out into the world, be it through events or simply just social media. Either way you have to make sure you’re aware of what your customers and potential customers want from your business.
As a small company, you probably don’t have the luxury of thousands and thousands to throw at marketing. Therefore, it’s important to do some budgeting to make sure you get the most bang for your buck. Hopefully we can help with this guide and with the help of an accountant, you should be able to establish a strong marketing strategy.
Here To Help
Setting up you own business is seldom as straight-forward as people think. There’s much to consider and many financial responsibilities you will have to ensure you’ve covered before you can get started.
Funding your business with enough capital is frequently overlooked. Most companies that are underfunding will struggle with cashflow, and potentially cause the early demise of fledgling business.
Across all the pages in this section, we provide a series of guides to help you find what you should be looking for, particularly when it comes to marketing your business to the right levels, so when that time comes, we can help you…
CHOOSE THE ADVISER WHO UNDERSTANDS YOUR NEEDS.
Marketing: what’s it all about?
Marketing is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction. It differs from selling because selling focuses on the transaction.
Unlike marketing, selling does not review the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse and satisfy customer needs. In other words, marketing has less to do with getting customers to pay for your product than it does developing a demand for that product and fulfilling the customer’s needs.
Marketing allows you to find that market, connect with it and then match your products to it. It’s a great way of raising awareness of your business, filtering through to your target audience and establishing yourself amongst the competition.
Make sure you know your market
To identify your target market you need to establish who the product or business is designed to help. Who would be the ideal fit for the USPs of your product; is it for someone in a certain age range, a parent, a business professional?
80% of the sales are likely to be directed at a core market, and you’ll have a 20% peripheral market who can also benefit from the product.
To achieve knowledge around these markets, it’s good to consider undertaking some market research.
Market Research
Don’t cross your fingers and hope! Market research can help to:
- explore potential markets
- test theories about the target market
- understand your customers
- identify areas for marketing plan improvements
- fine-tune your brand
- highlight new marketing opportunities
- find the most effective marketing strategy
- improve your product and business
There are many online tools that allow you to build your own surveys to find out a little about the market. However it may not give you all the information you need. If you employ a professional service, it will provide much more in-depth research but you will be looking at a higher bill. Make sure you identify what you need to learn, that way you can work out whether you need to set aside a budget for either of these options. Sometimes market research can identify things you weren’t expecting, or what you wished to hear. However, this can be just as useful as positive feedback, so keep an open mind and learn what changes you can make to develop a highly successful business.
Marketing types
There are so many forms of marketing, however often individual elements are part of one of four categories:
- Above-the-line marketing
This is the most visible kind of marketing. Things like TV, cinema and radio are examples of platforms for ATL, that often have broad messaging to appeal to a mass market. These platforms often require quite a large proportion of your marketing budget, with small businesses often limited to press or the internet. - Below-the-line marketing
With this form of marketing, a smaller audience is identified and targeted through online and offline communications. This covers everything from online adverts to PR campaigns, events to word-of-mouth. It’s often easier to measure how successful these marketing campaigns have been compared to ATL, so is a good place to start when you’re a small business. - Direct marketing
Direct marketing falls under BTL. The name speaks for itself, making direct contact with potential customers rather than leading them to you. Often this is through leaflets, phone calls or emails. As many of us know, a company that constantly badgers will only become a nuisance, so it’s important to keep this at a suitable level. It could be very easy to ruin your brand and business by becoming a pain. - Digital marketing
Perhaps obviously, this marketing is online. This can be either BTL or ATL and includes a lot of options such as web ads, smartphone ads, or social media. You often need to pay out for professional assistance with this (unless you have specific expertise in this area), but the marketing itself is often fairly low cost.
What’s your marketing strategy?
The best way to set out your marketing strategy is to follow a simple structure:
- What are you selling?
- Who you are selling to?
- Why do they want it?
- Where will you sell it?
- How you will sell it?
- How much will you sell it for?
Several of these questions should be easy to answer, and for those that are a little more complex, market research can help you identify the answers. Once you’ve identified all these elements, you are ready to make a marketing plan.
A marketing plan is a constantly moving, practical document that should document what your actions, budgets and strategy for your business are. If you keep your plan and strategy updated and aligned, you should maintain a structured and consistent business.
Have a low budget? No problem.
There are lots of low-budget marketing options available if you can’t afford to stretch to big campaigns. These include:
- Customer referral programmes
- Instructional videos
- Social networking
- Low-cost merchandise
- Eye-catching business cards
- Set up stalls at local events with free giveaways
- Enter business awards
Abacus Associates manages the personal wealth of many people across the UK and over £1 billion of investments, providing clients with financial advice and access to investment products and services.
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