Marketing the first business of every Start Up

Looking at the information kept by organizations that keeps stats on the success of businesses, it is quite clear that most businesses fail and fail miserably. And there are many reasons given but a few rise to the top on list after list.The lack of sufficient capital, poor management, not enough business knowledge on the part of the owner, poor location, too low of a price point.One of the primary reasons though why many businesses fail that is almost never mentioned is poor marketing. There are multitudes of new business owners opening their doors everyday with great hopes and expectations having spent money on everything you could possibly consider;  wonderful locations, plenty of stock, top notch equipment, a ready staff of employees etc. etc. Yet they do not even have an advertising budget; not a real one.And they have no marketing plan.  And no vision of how they will communicate to all that they are now born into the business world, with wonderful new products and services with which they intend to bless the world.

The thing which makes this all  the more strange is that in building these shiny new businesses they are leaving behind the most important component of all; the customers.  For to leave behind the marketing is to leave behind the  customers.Robert Kiyosaki in his Rich Dad series, shows us a picture of what he describes as the pyramid structure of a sound business. Not counting the outside walls of the pyramid, which are Leadership, Team and Mission, Communication or marketing was second only to Cash Flow. And Cash Flow is a must to keep the doors open.

Communicating (marketing) is what brings in the money which pays the bills. It is that which will determine whether or not the business will expire prematurely from infant mortality. It has been said that starting a new business is like jumping out of a plane without a  parachute while proceeding to build one before you hit the ground.  New businesses start out with a certain amount of capital, the business must be up and running enough to support itself before the start up capital runs out.

 A mature business that has been up and running for years should have excellent marketing channels and should invest a set percentage of its resources into continuing to communicate with its prospects, its customers, its vendors and those who live within the community in which it operates.The resources that are available to invest are both time and moneyith mature businesses, there are different ideas about how much should be invested toward marketing. Really it depends on goals, marketing efficiency and other factors, but 10%, 15% or 20% can be considerations.

For new businesses though, much higher numbers should be allotted and  definitely greater amounts of time.  And of course care should be taken to conserve all monetary resources as much as possible, always thinking “how can I acquire that without cost” before saying” how can I buy it”.But after all expenditures have been paid  for the week or the month or whatever, massive amounts of both time and money should be cleverly put into the communications (marketing) of the business. Really after the necessary time that is needed to keep the business going has been put in, all of the other time available can be invested into marketing.

As a matter of fact, a new business is really in the marketing business more than it is in its main enterprise in a way.And for all of those owners of start ups who go home nights unsure and not certain , let them resolve to spend the upcoming weeks focusing  primarily on bring in new prospects. And let them change their titles for a while from President of Operations to President of Marketing.

And before long they will be  happy campers with money flowing richly  into their bank accounts and a  list of all the cool things which they must consider doing as they move forward to set up fully their great new ventures.

As I said when I started this post, all stats that monitor new businesses confirm the fact that most fail and fail miserable. But I would love to see a similar survey conducted on  businesses that puts  Marketing/Communication on the top of their priorities.

A Few Basic Marketing Thoughts

Today, I would like to discuss a few things about Marketing. The main thing that I would like to accomplish here is to get the spirit of marketing going. But when I say Marketing, I do not mean just any kind of marketing but I am considering really direct marketing, mixed with guerrilla marketing, mixed with bootstrapping.
I feel that this is the kind more suited to small independently owned businesses as opposed to very large corporations. I am sure that there are some who do not know what guerrilla marketing is so I would like to discuss that briefly. Guerrilla marketing is  marketing that is of a bootstrapping nature mixed with direct response marketing mixed with a certain mindset which I shall expound on later.

So now we have direct marketing, guerrilla marketing and bootstrapping. These are all very good activities for the small business owner. And these are skill areas of business that owners should definitely seek to master seeing they help to keep  cash flowing into the business.

First it is probably best to focus an eye to what direct response marketing is then add to that a word about bootstrapping and then finally add a brief comment about the guerrilla effect to all of that. These all work so wonderfully at promoting a business and of making successful marketing such a doable thing for the small enterprise.

Direct marketing is more accurately, direct response marketing. The main purpose of it is to get a response toward a sell from a prospect or a customer as opposed to say brand awareness or brand building. A large corporation might spend 3 million dollars for a commercial during the Super Bowl and during that spot not even present any special offer or seek to elicit a response to buy. It might  only present  a funny spot to get the company’s name out in front of the audience.

For example Pepsi Cola has spent millions over the years on brand building so that people will be aware that Pepsi is still alive and kicking. Large amounts of money is spent for it to continue to be a  “Brand Name product”.  Small operations should not use much of there resources focusing on building a brand at least not at first.
Only  three beautiful Terrier pups left, from great breed stock, offering them at a 25% discount, won’t last long, call me fast at 555-will-b-gone-soon”.

Now this is a great ad that seeks to elicit a response and this is how small businesses should advertise. This is one of the principles of direct marketing which will definitely put money in the bank. Now let’s look at what you see many times from small operations, which should really be avoided.

Tim’s Automotive Repair… we provide full car care services..we do brakes, oil changes, Tune-ups, diagnostics..We are located at the corners of “Anytime You Decide to and…” Take your Time To  Come On Down”

Now millions and millions of dollars of small  business money go to ads just like this one which makes no real offer and elicits no feelings of urgency to respond. Because no directive is given to respond, there is usually very little response. And lots of money is as a result left on the table…. Smaller operations can not afford to do this.

Now good direct response marketing strategies should definitely be incorporated with bootstrapping.  And bootstrapping , according to Guru Marketer Seth Godin, is really a mindset more so than a financial condition. It arises from the thought that the business should start out profiting almost immediately and that investments in the business should be basically financed  from the revenues from the business.  And that business owners should always first ask “how can I get that.. or how can I do this… without having to use money”.

So mixing bootstrapping with direct response marketing turns out to be a beautiful combination in small and even mid-size operations.

And lastly, adding the guerrilla marketing effect produces a three component powerhouse which provides a great foundation upon which to launch and run a business. I say guerrilla marketing Effect because this kind of marketing is really and foremost a certain kind of business ingenuity.

Ingenuity as in the word ingenious and in the word genius. Guerrilla marketing is to market with a real, down to earth.. common sense genius that is closely in touch with the common man. And so this wise common sense approach is able to produce decisions that  outwit big business bureaucracies and also other small operations who fail to use such an alert ingenuity. So here you have a few items that bode well for the small businesses who take advantage of them. And they all work really well in the area of customer procurement; which is Marketing.