From the course: Small Business Marketing

Developing a marketing approach

From the course: Small Business Marketing

Developing a marketing approach

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- Many small businesses approach marketing and wind up with decision paralysis. There's just so much you can do, it's hard to know what you should do, let alone where you should start. What you need is to understand how to approach marketing. Let's look at a very high level at the three foundations that you want in place before you step out into attracting customers. We first need to look at the business. What is your value proposition? Your value proposition is a short, distinct statement about how your business is different from every other company that says they do the same thing. What makes your business attractive? What makes you unique? It should be something that can live as a headline with a supporting sentence or a few bullet points. It should be front and center in your messaging, and be the foundation by which you build all of your marketing around. It must be simple, clear, and easy to understand in five seconds. When Uber launched, it stuck to this value proposition. The smartest way to get around. One tap and a car comes directly to you. Your driver knows exactly where to go. And payment is completely cashless. Next, we look at who we're selling to. And this is known as your target market. You want to understand who they are, what motivates them, and how your product or service solves their problem. Your target market is not everyone. It is a specific group of people that you believe will resonate best with your marketing message. Uber doesn't have a target market of everyone, despite how large they are. They segment their target market into specific customer groups. For example, one segment might be men and women ages 18 plus, who use a smartphone and who travel frequently for business via the airlines. It is much easier to tailor your messaging and your marketing when you know who you're talking to. And finally, you need to know what your competition is up to. It's difficult to decide how and where to market if you don't know where your competition shows up and how. Are they chasing the same market segment? If they're reaching a different group than you've considered, what messaging are they using, and how have they framed their value proposition? By understanding the landscape that you are marketing in, you'll be faster on your feet with ideas on how to stand out from the crowd. Now, it's by no means going to be easy, or quick, or are the results going to be instantaneous, but if you apply yourself and work through these concepts, it'll start to click. Things'll fall into place, and you'll be moving your marketing efforts forward piece by piece until you pick up momentum.

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