Marketing and money – it’s a mix that can get messy quickly if you don’t come up with a sound strategy and execute it correctly, pivoting when needed. While every entrepreneur dreams of becoming the next overnight startup success story, most will never make it a reality. But there are ways to ensure your new business endeavor doesn’t fail before it ever has a chance to succeed, and it involves solidifying a proper marketing plan prior to securing seed money from interested investors. These three steps should be a part of it.
Determine Your Budget and Define Your Success
Once you’ve chosen a market for your business, you must determine a realistic budget that you’re willing to invest into your initial marketing efforts. Think about what goals you’d like to achieve in order to feel like your marketing initiative was a success. Without securing a hefty amount of seed money, this might mean getting creative in how you invest the monies you do have and the types of marketing strategies you implement.
Before you start spending, write your goals down and how every dollar you invest will help you achieve each one. Ultimately, it’s about growth and how you measure it.
Take Advantage of What Internet Marketing Offers
Speaking of growth and measurable results, many new businesses are taking advantage of what Internet marketing offers – and at a relatively low cost. A much cheaper alternative to old marketing tactics like advertising in the Yellow Pages, the digital world provides entrepreneurs with a whole new set of tools that allows them to reach targeted consumers faster, receive deeper insights about them and optimize their campaigns so that they can maximize their return on investment. Here are the key benefits of Internet marketing.
- Cost effective. The number-one benefit of Internet marketing is that it costs less than a traditional marketing campaign with the same results – or even better!
- Measurable results. Website visits, domain authority, cost per lead, click-through rate, traffic sources, conversions – these are all ways you can actively measure your Internet marketing campaign to check if it’s performing well. These are also barometers you can use when adjusting your campaign for better results.
- Target the consumers who matter. If you offer a local service, there’s no point in advertising nationwide. Internet marketing allows you to target a local audience so that every consumer you reach has the potential to become a conversion.
Implement a Way to Receive Feedback from Your Customers
Receiving feedback about your product or service, especially during its infancy stage, is an important part of refining and improving your business model. In today’s world of social media, where customers can leave comments about their experience with your business instantaneously, whether good or bad, it’s important to engage them. Use incentives and communicate with your consumers, letting them know that you’re listening to what they have to say and using their feedback to better your offering. Study their habits and monitor their movements to determine bumps within the sales funnel. Create a customer feedback loop to initiate change and produce happier customers.
Take these steps before you start shopping around for venture capital or other investments. Your business will be on the right track to hit the ground running when you actually do get the funds you need.