“How to Create a Winning Marketing Plan for Startups – A Practical Guide to Growth”

Table of Contents

1. 1. Introduction
   2. Start a Marketing Plan
   3. Understand your Goals and Metrics
   4. Marketing on a Budget
   5. Outsourcing or Recruiting In-house?
   6. Key Assets for Small Business Marketing
   7. Test and Measure Your Marketing

Introduction

Launching a new business can be both exhilarating and overwhelming. You’re thrilled with your product or service, but must raise brand awareness on a limited budget – which is why we’ve created an article to help you create a marketing plan for startups.

If you are launching your own business, you are not alone. According to government data published by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), there are 3.1 million sole proprietorships (56% of the UK’s private sector). SMEs account for three-fifths of jobs (60%) and half of turnover (52%) in the UK private sector – estimated at £2.8 trillion.

While your business might be small, the good news is that in today’s digital world creativity and strategy can trump big budgets. Focus on smart, targeted campaigns that leave a lasting impression in the minds of your target audience.

When building a marketing plan for startups, the key is to be innovative and authentic while not being afraid to experiment in real-time to find what works. From customer research to free marketing tools, this article is designed to help you build a brand that stands out. Let’s get started…

Start a Marketing Plan

The purpose of devising a plan is to establish your goals, target market, unique selling point (USP) and marketing strategies. The results will allow you to learn from your mistakes, so you can refine your recipe for success.

Once you get started, you will find plenty of ideas to include in your marketing plan for startups so the key is to prioritise. Not every strategy will work, so don’t be afraid to stop and move on. However, avoid jumping from one tactic to another and stay focused on the most productive channel to maximise your return on investment.

Once you sketch out all your activities, you might notice that things start looking a little unmanageable. How will you find the time to post on social media, build a website, publish blog posts, send weekly email newsletters and monitor the results?

To learn more, read ‘Small Business Marketing Plans How 90-Minutes Can Transform Your Business’.

Understand your Goals and Metrics

The more detail you can build into your marketing plan for startups, the better the chances of success. Whether you want website traffic or product sales, be clear on what you want your marketing campaign to achieve.

Here are a few examples of popular marketing goals, choose the ones most relevant to you:

• Brand awareness
• Sales (e.g. online store, cross-sell, up-sell)
• Email subscriptions or eBook downloads
• Lead generation (e.g. phone calls, appointment bookings)
• Website traffic
• Free trials
• Customer reviews

Once you know what success looks like, you can get stuck into your marketing plan. As a starting point, try answering the following questions:

• What are your key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics?
• Who are your ideal customers?
• How does your product fit into the market?
• What is your budget?
• Who is responsible for executing the plan?
• What tactics will you employ?

When it comes to defining your target market, you need to understand your customers including their needs, challenges and how your business offers a solution. By drilling down on your audience’s demographics and behaviours you can create laser-focused activities and messaging.

To learn more, you might like to read our article on ‘Comparing Marketing Strategies’.

Marketing on a Budget

When you draw up a business plan for your startup, you need to include a marketing budget. Without investing in sales and marketing, how can you realistically expect to attract new customers?

We appreciate that most new ventures will have a modest marketing budget, so creativity will be required to make the maximum impact. For example, posting on social media is free (known as organic), while pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be expensive.

Take advantage of the free tools available (upgrades required for extra features), including:

• whatsmyserp (website ranking and keyword research)
• Trello (project management)
• Mailchimp (email campaigns)
• Canva (social media visuals and presentations)
• Google Drive (file storage)
• Slack (team messaging)
• Buffer (social media management)

For more inspiration read ‘Top 5 Low-Cost Marketing Ideas’.

Outsourcing or Recruiting In-house?

While many business owners try to tackle marketing themselves, progress can be supercharged with the support of a team. Hiring full-time employees is expensive and takes time, so look for outside help in the form of freelance professionals. They can provide everything you require, such as a website, online content, social media management, SEO and paid advertising.

Outsourcing allows business owners to concentrate on what they do best, such as meeting new clients and growing the business. You will also reduce staff overheads while gaining access to quality, flexible providers with experience in implementing a marketing plan for startups.

To learn more, read our article ‘The Complete Guide to Outsourced Marketing Services and Understanding Fractional CMO Services’.

Key Assets for Small Business Marketing

While there are many marketing tools available to small businesses, we recommend concentrating on these key assets:

• Website: build trust with a professional online presence so potential customers can learn more about you.
• Blog: share expert advice and information about your products and services, while also boosting your site’s search engine ranking.
• Social media: pick the most suitable channels and build a community around your brand with engaging posts.
• Emails: data is the fuel for any marketing strategy, so start collecting customer emails with an opted-in marketing database.

Test and Measure Your Marketing

A plan is never perfect, so there are always things to learn and improve. Remember: every failure means you are one step closer to success. With this in mind, try adopting A/B testing into your marketing materials to discover which variations perform the best. For example, simply changing the subject line in an email could improve customer response.

Regularly check the metrics during your campaign, don’t leave it until the end. If something is not performing, make changes and monitor the results. Over time, you should also revisit your marketing plan to ensure the goals align with your overall business objectives.

Conclusion: Marketing Plan for Startups

There are plenty of things to consider when creating a marketing strategy for your new business. Hopefully, this article has provided some useful insights into how to define your target audience and marketing goals.

If you require more assistance, Miles Marketing provides tailored, no-nonsense marketing strategies that deliver results. Benefit from expert guidance and practical solutions that will help your business grow. For advice from an experienced marketing professional, get in touch today.

Written by Barry Hunt, a former journalist and professional copywriter who runs Wordsmart Communications.