10 Steps To Market Your Business

Updated June 30, 2022

Promoting your product and building awareness of your company are effective ways to find new customers. You can do this by implementing a successful marketing strategy for your business. Once you've built a strong customer base using this marketing plan, you can start cultivating relationships to maintain that clientele. In this article, we discuss how to market your business as well as the importance of marketing your company and product.

Why it's important to market your business

Marketing your business is one of the key elements to promoting and building awareness of your product. Following necessary marketing tactics can help customers learn who your company is, the product you're selling and how it can benefit them. Once you develop a marketing strategy, you can begin spreading the message of your company to increase revenue and build a strong customer base.

For newer companies with a limited budget, you can apply an effective and cost-effective marketing strategy. A successful marketing strategy can promote your business using tactics such as word of mouth, collaboration with other businesses and informational content.

How to market your business

Follow the steps below to effectively market your business:

1. Brainstorm the goals of your business and brand

Before implementing a marketing strategy, you should determine your business goals and brand identity. You can start by creating your company's target audience. The target audience is who you would like to target your messaging toward. This is often determined based on who you think may benefit the most from your product. It can often be an age group, profession or people within a specific industry.

For example, if your product is a scheduling system for dental offices, one of your industries could be the dental industry. This means that your target audience would be dentists and dental office employees.

From there, you can continue to define your brand. Since you're targeting those in the dental industry, the goal of your business and its marketing efforts can be to enhance the efficiency of a dental office. You can continue developing your business's goals and start applying that to the brand message you aim to communicate.

Related: 4 Steps To Building a Brand

2. Create your overall marketing plan and strategy

Once you develop your goals and audience, you can now form a marketing plan with a strategy. Think about your target audience and build a persona for them. Determine what your target customer may enjoy and where they may discover your business.

For example, your target audience could be a dental assistant who uses their computer often throughout the day. They are often checking their email or using social media. With this in mind, you can make email and social media marketing a key part of your marketing strategy.

Once you've developed a few personas, you can decide which channels to target your messaging toward and how often to market your product on each channel.

3. Communicate your business and its goals through networking

With an established brand and message, you can start verbally communicating this to others. You can start attending different networking events to meet other influencers or thought leaders. Not only will it be an opportunity for you to inform them of your business, but you can gain advice and expertise from other business professionals as well.

You can find these networking opportunities online by searching for networking events in specific industries or fields. Once there, begin by telling people about your business and providing them with an elevator pitch that briefly describes your business' message and its goals. An elevator pitch is a brief speech lasting approximately 30 seconds explaining what your business is, the goals you hope to achieve and why it's important.

4. Build or redesign your website

To best communicate your brand, you'll need a functioning and optimized website. Customers will use your website to learn more about you and your business. It may also be the platform customers will use to purchase your product. You will want to ensure your website includes the following elements:

An "about" page explaining more information about your product or business
A mobile-friendly version so customers can easily shop or view your product and business on their mobile device
A clean and sleek design that is both visually appealing and simple to navigate
A contact page to easily contact you to learn more about your services

You can research different content management systems to find one with templates and other tools to help build a website that appeals to your customers. Some freelancers specialize in website building or graphic design who can assist you in building your website.

5. Collaborate and partner with other businesses

As you work to build your business and its budget, you can collaborate with other small businesses to exchange tactics and promote each other's products. You can also partner with companies who are interested in becoming a supplier or vendor for your business.

6. Prove your industry knowledge

To capture the eye of most customers, you need to showcase your industry knowledge to prove yourself as a thought leader. Potential customers may search online to find answers to questions in a certain industry. You can help provide them with an answer through a blog post, email, webinar, video or podcast. Once they find the answer to their question, they may search through your other marketing channels to learn more.

As you continue updating channels with your knowledge and informative content, more customers will discover your business and might be impressed with the amount of knowledge you contain. Proving a vast knowledge of the industry can cause customers to build more trust in your product.

7. Outsource certain tasks

As you continue building your business, more tasks may arise on your to-do list. Some may be time-consuming or difficult for you to complete. You can teach yourself how to build the skillset to complete these tasks, or you hire outside freelance help.

You can hire the following people to help you complete important marketing projects:

Virtual assistant
Graphic designer
Content writer
Marketing consultant

8. Launch social media marketing campaigns

Your customers probably spend time on social media which makes it a great outlet for marketing to them. Start building your social media channels and create social media posts. You can build graphics and content that best promote your business and communicate your brand.

An effective social media strategy can be used to host contests, announce a newly-released product and promote your blog or video content. You can either pay to boost your posts to reach larger audiences or you can continue sharing your company's posts for free.

9. Cultivate strong client and customer relationships

Customer retention is a key strategic element in keeping your business successful. You can accomplish this by building and maintaining relationships with your customers and clients. Once customers learn that your company is reliable and trustworthy, you should be able to keep them long-term.

Here are a few ways you can cultivate strong relationships with customers:

Send seasonal gifts to regular customers
Request surveys to learn what you can improve
Sponsor events or sports teams
Enroll your business in a professional association or organization
Volunteer at local events or fundraisers

10. Host contests and giveaway opportunities

To build more awareness of your business and encourage potential customers to try your product, you can host contests. This allows people to learn more about your product and possibly test it out.

Here are a few ways you can do this:

Offer free trials
Provide coupons or limited-time discounts
Set up booths at different events providing free samples
Host a contest with the prize being either your product or something related to your product