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You can't launch a successful business without this one thing



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You can't launch a successful business without this one thing

It's crazy to me how many people launch their businesses without thinking of a detailed marketing plan.  Many people think they have the best product or service and never think much past that point, but they should.  They might actually have the best thing in their industry, but if they don't know how to get that product or service in front of potential buyers, they will fail miserably every single time.

I've talked to a bunch of entrepreneurs and start up business owners who can't answer simple questions like "How are you going to get sales?"

  • "Where are you going to get traffic from?"
  • "What are your competitors pricing their software at?"
  • "How much competition do you have"
  • "How many people are searching for your product?"

Sadly, they can't answer any of these and that just means they haven't thought much past their own product or service launch.  If you want to be successful online, you need to have your marketing plan ironed out as soon as you start setting up your website or developing your service or product.

It may seem odd to you that someone may not know their competition, how they were going to get traffic, or how they were actually going to capture sales with their service or product but you'd be amazed at how many startups don't think of these things.  Many of these companies out there who are just starting up usually slow down right when they go live because they don't know what to do in terms of marketing.  They ramp up to launch and then hit a wall because they aren't prepared to get traffic and make some sales.

If you aren't building your customer base, you don't really have a business and this is something that is ignored by a lot of companies out there who think they're going to be the next big thing in their industry.

A lot of the bigger excuses I hear, are:
  1. My product will sell itself, I just need to post it on social media and it will blow up!
  2. When we're ready to advertise, we'll get out there.
  3. We'll worry about marketing after we're done launching our product

These are all responses from a cocky person who thinks they're going to blow up in sales soon after launch, and sadly, this is what most people think when they are first time business owners.  In order to be successful you need to merge marketing into every aspect of your business plan so you're always selling.  Marketing is much more than posting once on your facebook page and maybe setting up 1 ad.

If you want to have an effective marketing plan, you must do the following:

  1. Figure out your customers needs, what the market size is, what challenges you need to overcome, and what type of revenue you will be getting from sales.
  2. Guide the growth and development of all product or service features and configure distribution if needed.
  3. Build a brand and carry it across your website design, app design, marketing materials, packaging, etc.



Here are 5 things you can think of and work on to make your startup ready for success:


What is your demand and how you can increase it
When you're working on something for yourself and building a business, it's exciting and you could get lost in a dream before reality hits you like a ton of bricks.  One of the biggest killers to a startup is the fact that there might not be any demand for your product.  Creating demand for a product is something only million dollar companies can do, or you can try by creating viral videos of your product and hope they catch on lol.  Do the market research and figure out if your startup will actually take off or if you're wasting your time.


Bootstrap everything you can
When you think of marketing, you probably think it is expensive, but it's not.  You can focus on SEO and your own social media marketing in order to build up your company over time.  These are free methods you can do but will take time to learn in order to do it effectively. 


Get some help if you don't know what you're doing
I understand you are building a product and you think you know everything, but in reality, you don't know nearly as much as you should.  If you run into problems, you need to learn how to ask for help.  You need to put your pride aside and ask for helpso you don't screw up anything and set yourself back a week, a month, or even an entire year You can

To find help, you'll likely need to hire a consultant to come in and show you what needs to be done in order to run an successful company.  Sometimes this is cheap but other times it's fairly expensive.  The price depends on how well known the consultant is and how many times he's helped other companies become successful.


Work with influencers
I've written up plenty of discussion going over how you can find influencers for your industry without wasting too much money all while increasing your ROI.  Yes, you will lose some money, but the likelihood of having a positive ROI if you follow all the things I say in my other discussions will boost your sales and awareness You can 

Here is a link to all of the influencer related discussions here on SEOclerks.com:  https://www.seoclerks.com/faq/q/influencer


Adapt to your market and adopt the best practices
You need to figure out what your successful competitors are doing and adopt their practices.  They are doing something right, and you shouldn't take that as a negative thing because they are basically teaching you what to do in order to make money in your industry.  If you don't follow what they are already doing to be successful it's like purposely going up the down escalator because you want to make it more challenging than it has to be.



In conclusion
When you are setting up a service or a company, you will need to work on your marketing campaign before you go live.  Marketing needs to be in every part of your company so that you can increase your sales and not wait an unpredictable time frame for the money to start rolling in.  So many companies think they don't need marketing while in the brainstorming faze, but those are the companies that have extremely slow starts and their competitors overtake them in the authority race.



Remember to follow me!
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/Razzy


Thanks!

Razzy

Comments

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vinaya
when I l aunched my business website, I never thought about traffic. I thought I am going to sell popular products, therefore, I will automatically receive traffic. This did not happen. I had to work a lot (optimize for the search engine, perform social media marketing, and search engine marketing) to bring traffic. After months of hard work, I finally managed to bring visitors to my website, however, I had a very low conversion rate. The products that I thought was highly popular, were not actually popular.
I also never performed competitor research. I never checked how much the competitors are charging and what kind of products they are selling.



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Corzhens
Truly online selling is very different from offline selling particularly if you have a website that you use for your business. An online store can get traffic from other sources and not only from the customers. In fact it is the opposite that is true because you get traffic and from that traffic you get customers. SEO is one good way of getting traffic so I am really trying to learn all the SEO methods that are discussed in this site.



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jaymish2
Great commentary. I agree, most people come up with a product but never think if there is actual demand for that product. I think a marketing strategy and plan should be up there with your business proposal. The first step before starting your business is to do the market research and find out who your customer is. You can then come up with a marketing road map. Our parents had no such dilemma. They just opened a business and people came. Things have changed now. There is so much competition out there, marketing should be your bible.



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Martinsx1
This is why it's very important to go for a market survey on any product one is intending on starting up a business because it's the only way to be sure that such product would be a hit or miss once it's kicked off.



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cmoneyspinner
I started out saying that if others can do this I can do it too! Of course, not really knowing what “others” had done to be successful! I read something written by a guy who said he was making thousands of dollars. He explained a simple process and I thought: 'Sounds like I can do that!' So I built a website several years ago. Created a blog and a Facebook page for, a blog, etc. I won't delete the site even though I have never sold a product because of it. It's a reminder to ME that earning income in the digital world AIN'T EASY! But it's not a fool's errand either. I have learned a lot along the way and it's for sure, one should definitely have a marketing strategy. You can



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Martinsx1
@Razzy I have missed your articles for a while there, with that article above shows how good and detailed all your works are and why it's very useful to a lot of people needing such information.

Marketing is very important when it comes to any business because it's what actually gets majority of what any business establishment is offering sold. Without good marketing plans and strategic campaigns, products and services are turned into a dump.



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kgord
Yes, most people need to tackle these fundamental questions before they start a business. I think many times business plans are required to be in place before people can take out large loans and formally register their business with the county. I think a well thought out marketing plan needs to be in place.



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treecko142
It's very important to be humble and just get the help you need when needed rather than do it all by yourself. It will only cost you more time and money to try and do something in the business where you don't have any experience in, rather than spending money to hire the right people for the job or simply asking questions from your colleagues or other younger people how to set up stuff like your online website.
"While it is always best to believe in oneself, a little help from others can be a great blessing."
-Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender.



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overcast
I think peoples problem and the traffic. One should know that while setting up a business. Because if you don't know why people would click on your ads and the products. You won't be making money. So having the business means you understand the need of the people. And that's what you should be more focused on as well. I have found out that some of the time business can't be properly set up unless we have customers on recurring basis.



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Corzhens
The question of getting traffic is one obstacle that hinders my plan of pursuing blogging. What if I don’t get a substantial amount of traffic, it would be a waste of time to earn a few coins in a month. But I guess that proper planning can be of help to resolve that issue. Especially now that the social media is a potent venue for marketing your interest, maybe with the appropriate marketing campaign, the traffic that you desire will be coming naturally from those social media friends.



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jeffreyjose48
Definitely yes! You really need to have a plan first before you venture into business. We get our plans from God when we pray to Him. He gives us wisdom on what we are supposed to do.



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Donald7Charbonn
Good day. In addition to the marketing plan, when creating a company, one should not forget about software at all, because it is it that facilitates many business processes. The guys will be able to create software for you personally . They do the work with the highest quality, using the latest approaches.



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