It’s not easy to start a business and many factors play an important role in creating a successful one. External factors, such as competitors, political environment and the economy in general are all things that come into play.
But here are 4 tips that can help you start with a solid base:
1. Determine Your Business Type.
Try and answer this question – what are you selling? It’s not as easy to answer as you think. Take Nike for example, you may think you’re buying a t-shirt, a pair of sports shoes, but actually what you are buying is their image. What’s the difference between Nike and some of their other competitors? Their image.
There’s more to a product that the product itself. Sounds like a strange statement, but there’s the brand identity that can set your product apart from the others in your field.
2) Choose The Right Market
Question 2, who are you selling to? It’s important to understand your market segment. Who are they? Are they old, young, male, female etc. Knowing the answers to these questions can help when coming up with an effective marketing strategy.
Some companies pay millions for market research through companies such as AC Nielsen, but you don’t have to start there. A simple questionnaire to your mailing list, or even ask your customers when they walk in to your store what they like would do just as well.
3) Your Marketing Strategy
What’s the best way to connect to the people from part 2) with your brand in part 1)? Your consumer can answer a lot of your questions for what to do best in your marketing strategy.
Depending on who they are, where is best for your to advertise? What’s your brand positioning? High end? Low end? What’s a reasonable price for your product, keeping in mind what brand you are positioning as?
4) Learn From Those Who Have Done It
There are plenty of books out there about real life case studies of marketing success. And what’s more, it’s from people who have already done it, Richard Branson comes to mind. There are even books detailing how other peoples companies did it, such as ‘The Toyota Way’ among others.
Learn from what they did correct and avoid the things they did wrong.
Remember that your business is not just the money you make in it. Without a brand identity, people will all too easily forget you and jump to a competitor who has more of a ‘connection’ with them. That’s right, your brand is to connect to your consumer, not just to determine how high you can price your product for.
These 4 steps above will help you build a business with a chance of lasting the long term. Good luck!
-William Lee
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