Small Business Basics 101: 6 Step Beginners Guide to Marketing

Many business owners, and not just chronically ill entrepreneurs, start a business without a practical and real idea of how they are going to acquire customers. I'm no professional marketeer but I started my own business, Spoonie Essentials Box, and hit the ground running almost a year ago now and I'd like to share with you a few Business 101 Basics to Marketing. In this Guide I will walk you through marketing basics for beginners and offer useful tips about the various marketing strategy tools I have researched and implemented myself to grow my business brand recognition, customer retention, and new customer acquisition power. 

I'll admit this is going to be long, but I promise I'm saving you hundreds of hours of research by condensing a ton of useful information into one article to get you on your way to a thriving small business! 

Step 1: Write it down. 

As you begin to formulate your marketing plan I strongly urge you to actually write it down, type it out, and no not voice memo it to yourself; though that is very helpful for task reminders. Seriously though please accept that several areas of my guide will require that you do some leg work yourself. You’ll need to research your market, your competitors, and your place in it. This will take time, probably a lot of it. Cheating that part of the process will only cheat yourself. It is an investment of time well spent if you’re serious about having a successful business anyways. I won’t promise you anything but the information, what you do with it is up to you. 

Step 2. I need you to be seriously honest with yourself about three business major keys: 

1.     Budget: How much are you able to invest to get the word about your product (or store) out there? This includes anything from advertising monies spent to hiring people to fill necessary roles. Usually as a small business your budget is low to zero. I will go over FREE marketing strategies that can get you going until your budget grows. In the beginning however I suggest that you set aside at least $100 a month to run various social media and google ads, you'll thank me later. 

2.     Talent: What strengths do you currently have in your utility belt for marketing? This could mean anything from having a bunch of talented friends & family to being extremely social media savvy yourself, or a pro at navigating google to learn what you need. I'm guessing you're at least the latter as you're reading this. Lol. Don't worry I've got your back. I'll try and keep it to the point to keep the reading to a minimum since I'm packing hours of personal research into one article. 

3.     Limitations: Don’t know a lot of people? Not very sociable? Don’t have a lot of money? Time? Energy? As a chronically ill entrepreneur my energy supply is lower so I have to be smart as to how I use the energy I do have. My goal is to provide you with a few time & energy savers. 

Step 3: Set Goals. 

Set clear and definitive objectives for your marketing, is it add more customers? Raise brand awareness? Pre-launch buzz? Build your newsletter list?  By using real numbers to be practical about how exactly you plan to achieve the goal you give yourself the goal and how it can be achieved. For example, if the goal is “Grow Revenue by 25% a Quarter” your objectives might be:

·       Add 50 new customers/month

·       Increase repeat purchases by 10%

Step 4: Who Are Your Target Customers? 

Detail everything you can about your target customer or customer groups. This includes any relevant customer demographics like:

·       Age (what age group does this appeal to) 

·       Gender (more likely to purchase) 

·       Geographic location (Country, State, Region) 

·       Income (average annual) 

·       Purchasing Power (ability to buy) 

·       Family Status (household size) 

·       Or any other data particular to your business

If your customers are U.S based you may use the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor’s website to gather the information or even City-Data.com is a reputable source of quantifiable demographic information.

The target customers section should also include relevant psychographic profile information:

·       Lifestyle habits 

·       Television Shows liked 

·       Magazines read 

·       Music listened too 

All of this will influence a wide range of areas in your business, including brand positioning, types of advertising, ad placement, local markets you want to penetrate and so much more.

Being able to more clearly identify your target market will help you to “speak the language” of your prospective customers, and get a higher return on your investment for your creative assets (read content creation cost). 

Using the information above describe your target market approach. Are you going to be using a mass-market strategy as in trying to reach as many people in general or speaking to a niche market that have very particular interests. When evaluating your target market try to answer the following questions about your potential customer base:

·       What are the needs/benefits sought by the market overall?

·       Who could use the product?

·       Why do they use the product?

·       When do the use the product?

You should also use this section to discuss how customers perceive your product in relation to competitor’s products or the other solutions they use to solve the same problem you are trying to solve. What are their attitudes toward the general product category you serve? (i.e “I wish more sites offered X,Y, Z feature). Identifying this information about your potential customer base will help you better decide which types of marketing strategies to employ and where. For instance if you find your target market shops online (which everyone's does, Amazon is putting people out of business as you read this), you need to figure out where your target audience shops, how frequently, and why. 

Step 5: Your Business Analysis. 

This section of your marketing plan is to provide yourself of where everything stands at the time the plan is presented. This is the part that will take a while, don't half a** this part because it will only hinder your progress in the long run.  If you're an established business this is where you would take inventory of everything you've tried, what's worked and what hasn't and why. Previously established along with new businesses need to do research. Yes, good old fashioned research. You need to google your life away. You need to know: 

1. Competitors 

• what are their prices? 

• what do their advertisements look like? 

• what do their websites, social media, and visibility look like? 

• what do they offer versus what you do or will offer? 

2. Your Products 

• features and benefits 

• price 

• promotions (current of future ex bogo) 

3. Distribution channels 

• where can your product be sold? 

- pop up shop

-3 party marketplace (Etsy, bigcartel, cratejoy, Shopify) 

-trade show (where, when, how?) 

-festivals/events (vendor opportunity where, when, how?) 

-brick & mortar (target, Walmart, local boutique) 

4. Your Business Financial Analysis. 

Industry Sales: You want to know everything about the sales of the potential market your going to serve. You want to know the financial breakdown of the:

·       Total market sales 

·       Total for your company’s products

·       Total for competitions

You also want to determine how much 

1. By distribution channel

2. By geographic region 

3. By product category (if applicable) 

Resources to help with this: To find out the total sales of an industry click here or an indepth 2016 retail industry break down here.

Profitability Potential: In addition to the sales analysis, you’ll want to look at how your expenses may impact  sales, and identify the areas where you should invest most and invest least. Take into account marketing expenses that are Direct - those that can be tied back to the product. (i.e ad spend, spend on creative assets, etc) or Indirect - expenses that are tied to talent and technology fees.The point of this is for you to evaluate if certain channels, markets, geographic regions, etc are worth it moving forward.

Step 6: Types of Marketing Tools: 

1. Promotions: The key to sales Promotions is to never discount below your cost, so you'll have to figure out what sale or promotional offer you can entice customers with without breaking the bank in the process. It is not a promotion if it cost you more to host it then to not. Don't only think of your promotion as a way to generate sales but to both entice a sale and to introduce yourself to new customers and reward the loyal ones. This can be anything from a free gift with purchase to 10% off for signing up for your newsletter. Learn how to create a preformingpromotion here.

2.Influencer/Blogger Reviews: Create a database of bloggers and Influencers that exemplify your business philosophy, target customer affiliation or popularity, lifestyle and niche writers/youtubers that whose follower base will be interested in your product. Most research suggest creating some sort of criteria for selecting these individuals like follower count or views watched. I suggest always continually building this list but to start spend time finding at least 100 different individuals as they may actually say no. You offer your product free for a review, however some Influencers do charge for reviews. Depending your market and budget you can look at referral candy and influenster. Learn more about Influenster marketing here. 

3.Friends & Family: this is not a very reliable source but is certainly a great place to start. Start by asking friends and family to share your content or promotional sales and to like your social media pages. You can also do a referral program with your family offering them some sort of incentive for the most shares or acquired customers. 

4. Content: is KING!! If This is everything from blog posts to high quality photos. If you've got a smart phone you've got no excuse to have low quality photos. There are also hundred of free stock photo databases like Pexels  or Shopify's Burst for examples.  It does not matter how much you spend on a Facebook or Instagram ad if your graphics are crap. Invest in graphic design help using Fiverr or other affordable virtual assistant-esque places when your skill set is lacking. Another good inadvertent content marketing strategy is to blog, build a culture around your brand by becoming a credible resource in your market, or authority. If you're selling shoe orthotics you should have an entire blog about the benefits, how different ones are made, affects of different materials, latest scientific research etc. Blogging is a great way to up your search engine optimization slowly and steadily and demonstrate to your customers why you're the best choice. Lastly infographics, if you sell a course or service use infographics to explain the process or in general use infographics to break down complex processes for your audience. Infographics are highly shared content therefor use wisely and judiciously. In 2017, you don't want to simply showcase your products. You want to give a face, story, and identity to your brand. 

5. Social Media: 

When it comes to social content If you're not sure how to utilize social media effectively try the simple yet effective Rule of Thirds from Sprout Social. 

·       1/3: One-third of your social content promotes your business, converts readers, and generates profit

·       1/3: One-third of your social content should share ideas and stories from thought leaders in your industry or like-minded businesses

·       1/3: One-third of your social content should be personal interactions with your audience

Facebook: Facebook ads are tricky but they have an amazing tutorials section detailing their own researched user data here it explains what types of ads preform better and they're usually ones with minimal wording. You'll really have to trial & error this one out to see what works for you as far as types but start small with $5/day. Boost two ads at the same time to begin and see which performs better. You'll want to utilize your "idea customer" research to target your specific demographic in the ads section preferences. Use the interests, age, gender, and buying power from your research to generate targeted ads rather than catch alls. Specifying your region is important as this is where the customers will come from. 

Instagram: Determine what aspects of your brand to showcase in your Instagram content. Products, services, team members and culture all offer rich potential for subject matter over time. Once you have a list of specific content themes, brainstorm possible subjects for your images and videos. Remember to use the  square settings on your camera to keep your pictures Instagram friendly. My go to guide for Instagram is the 18 Instagram stats every marketer should know. Get an app that helps you optimize when to post in your App Store. You can also use this Free Instagram Scheduler. Planning is the best way to ensure you equally balance your types of post. Create a Free EditorialScheduling Calendar here .  Figure out what content works for what words on buzzsumo. But remember Instagram was built on the culture of in the moment and "live" updates, so be sure to also utilize the live feature and or story feature to share more of your "behind-the-scenes" type material that engage with your customer base and followers. 

Pinterest: if you aren't already start pinning buyable post. This works best with Shopify stores but there are apps available to integrate other online store hosts as well. You can learn to do that here. I've noticed more lifestyle photos get more click through, but check out the Ultimate Guide to Buyable Pins here. 

Referral/Affiliate Program: there's a couple different ways to do this but I've found first seeing examples of good referral programs helps, look here for the best of 2016. With Referral programs your essentially rewarding "word of mouth" referrals. You have the ability to decide if your referrers will receive monetary reward as in payment aka affiliate like or discounts on future purchases aka referral like. This also determines if there is a special link necessary for the referring party or not. Affiliate marketing can be pricey, the key here is to determine how much you're willing to pay for a referral. Typically a flat fee or % commission is appropriate. Depending on your price point will determine which is best, I suggest building this cost into your profit margin especially in the beginning before you actually start selling. Alignable is a local free referral program, and here's a solid go to Do's and Don'ts reference guide.

SEO: is a long term strategy not quick fix. In 2017 you should have both your webpages and website optimized though SEO rankings are more sophisticated without them you severely diminish your chances of page 1 or page 2 visibility. Search engine optimization determines how your rank on search engine returns for particular words. Two free ways to find out what keywords are the easiest to rank on Google here using wordtracker or You can also use Google Ad planner here o see how often words are searched and their search volume (read potential cost for ad campaign). Moz has a paid service but offers a free 30 day trial with monthly search volume and rank potential here. Type in phrases and words that go with your product, brand, or business. Choose the words that can be ranked, this usually means there is a number next to it in returned researches. You'll now want to incorporate these words into the content on your webpage and in your webpages SEO section. These words don't have to look exactly how they returned but they do need to be on the same page to be recognized. You can also run a google ads word campaign starting with basically any budget here which will help boost your words.

I know that was a lot. But I promise if you follow these 6 steps you'll have the necessary infrastructure setup to be long on your way to building name recognition for your brand and profitable business in no time. 

Until next time folks!

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