There’s nothing that can fully describes the feeling of pride when you receive confirmation that your career idea is officially a business. Suddenly, your professional status switches from independent freelancer to autonomous entrepreneur, and that is already a big step towards your expected business success. Of course, your work is not done yet. You will need to create your brand _ and it’s going to be an exciting experience to find the right logo and the best-suited color palette for your business. You will need to decide whether you want to work on your own or as a team. And more importantly, you will need to spread the word about business. There can be no business success without marketing, and more especially without ensuring that you are visible to your potential clients. In short, no entrepreneur can become a successful business(wo)man overnight. Everything takes time and demands work. So, in the meantime, you need to figure out the best way to attract the attention of your future buyers.
Don’t launch without research
So you’ve decided to launch your first business. What happens next? Needless to say, marketing, even though it’s an essential factor to your success, is not the first task you need to undertake. Your priority is to ensure the viability of your business idea! In fact, you should lay the groundwork even before deciding to register your business, but it’s never too late to start with it even if you’ve already registered your company. The creation of a business plan, designed to elaborate the growth strategy of your company, is your number one priority. The plan needs to take into account the strengths and weaknesses of your targeted industry sector, as well as the ones of your potential competitors. It’s this research – however dull it might be – that can highlight your path to success and help you to differentiate your company.
Local index and directories
Advertising may be the first form of marketing you’re thinking of, but before exploring the paid-for marketing steps, let’s take a look at the entirely free local classifieds website options. Local listing and local business directories may not seem appealing, but they provide your new business with a reputable presence online, namely a page in a directory. Additionally, using listings enables you to target specific audience types. Say you bake custom-made cakes. You could appear under the listing for catering and food options, but also under the listing for party and event planning. In other words, you can find different approaches to become visible to a variety of audience groups in your area. What’s not to like?
Search Engine Marketing campaign
Admittedly, you can’t go far if you rely only on free business directories. You need to establish your visibility within the greatest directories that your clients are likely to use, aka search engines. More people don’t consult business listings, but instead, type their search on Google or Bing. That’s why you need to not only invest in a strong online presence but also ensure that your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) activities are productive. Is SEM the same thing than SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? SEO is a part of SEM and relates to the crawlability and indexability of your website. But there are two further elements to SEM: Reputation management and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. PPC is an important part of launching a new business as it allows you to target specific search terms, or keywords, and bid to publish your ad. Pay-for ads may not be clicked on as often as normal search results, but they can help to enhance your brand awareness and improve direct and indirect conversion rate.
Social media presence
You can’t get a digital presence if you’re not part of the largest community online, aka social media platforms. You don’t need to sign to every single one of them, but as a rule of the thumb, you should pick a couple of platforms that you feel confident managing and that your target audience is likely to use. Guy Kawasaki suggests that you start building your social media presence before launching your business so that you don’t need to start with a no-follower scenario. Additionally, it’s important to understand that not all platforms have the same purpose. Facebook, for instance, is great for people you already know, while LinkedIn is designed to show your professional side. Don’t get them mixed up! Kawasaki also recommends restraining yourself from excessive self-promotion. Social media open a two-way conversation with other users. You cannot only talk about yourself without boring your audience!
Vlogging like a pro
If your business has the potential for great visuals, such as showing a creative project or displaying your latest product, you should embrace video blogging as a way to share your information. A video blog, or a vlog, is an excellent way of giving your business a personal touch and engaging with your audience. Most people are more likely to watch a video than to read an article, so it’s the preferred communication tools for Millennials and creative professionals. Additionally, you can also reach new markets simply sharing your vlogs on YouTube. As it’s an international video platform, you shouldn’t be surprised to count viewers from all over the world. Vlogging is relatively inexpensive. All you need is a decent camera and a video editing tool to push your business online. However, you might want to give yourself a few days to experiment and get comfortable with the camera before posting or live streaming!
Maximize video advertising
There’s another thing that is great about YouTube from a business’s perspective, and it’s video advertising. You’ve probably come across videos that first play a few seconds of an unrelated spot before launching. This is precisely what YouTube Ads are about: It’s the advertising that comes before the video. As Google has promised to enhance advertising possibilities in 2017 and 2018, you can be assured that your budget won’t be wasted in hit and miss attempts. Indeed, you soon will be able to target viewers based on their previous search behaviors and history, which allows your ad to be played only to the most relevant audience. Additionally, at an average of $0.06 per click, YouTube advertising is a very cost-effective way to reach new users.
Press magazines
With the surge of digital advertising, it might sound silly to suggest to launch a print campaign. However, depending on the kind of business you’re launching, you might find that you share your demographics with local or international newspapers and magazines. Magazine advertising can give you access to a very specific customer base in a way that you may not be able to reproduce online. If you’re offering a fashion item, you’re more likely to reach your audience by promoting your products in a fashion or beauty magazine. Additionally, this can also help to improve your brand awareness, especially as readers keep their magazine for a long time.
Billboards
Why not start big with a local billboard campaign? While it’s true that people don’t look at billboards in the same way they did 30 years ago, it doesn’t mean that they don’t look at them at all. In truth, billboards offer you the perfect window of opportunities if you’re creative and brave enough to make it work. For a start, let’s assume that most people are either driving or using public transport in town. In other words, you need to keep your message short if you want to get noticed. Aim for 6 words or less for optimal results. Remember as well that a billboard is not the place for direct response. Instead, it’s there to enhance your brand awareness, which means that you need to keep the brand on it but ditch the phone number and website address.
Sponsoring for local sports clubs
If you’re thinking that sponsoring is only good for big companies such as Coca-Cola or Red Bull, then think again. You can also sponsor local sports events or community initiatives and get all the attention you need. However, when it comes to sponsoring, you need to change the way you monitor your ROI, return on investment. Brand awareness is, unfortunately, not a monetary concept. In other words, your ROI will be measured in terms of brand reputation, not sale revenues.
Participate to conferences and business events
Finally, if you’re in a B2B environment, you should make your voice heard by sharing your professional expertise. Countless small business owners choose to join conferences and business trade shows as a speaker in order to get their business name on the event agenda. As you share your experience, you also appear as a go-to person for everybody who can relate to the topic you describe. Say you’re an independent SEO consultant and present a piece on the creation of effective content. You can be sure that businesses in need of SEO advice will assist to the conference and try to get in touch with you afterwards. Think of sharing knowledge as a way of promoting your services!
From traditional print and billboard advertising to interactive video content; there are many ways of promoting your new business. The golden rules are the same for all types of advertising: Stay authentic, be where your target audience is, and finally show that you understand their pain.