Marketing Secrets for the Startup Business

If you are starting a new business or thinking of purchasing a business from the market, you must be thinking about how to make your first sale. This is of paramount importance as business success is proportional to sales success. Let's be honest, you must create enough sales to cover your cost or you will not be in business very long. To ramp up sales, you must consider what mix of marketing will work best for your business.

Determining the right marketing mix for your business will significantly improve your chances of success. First, determine who your target customers are or who will purchase your product or services. Where does this customer look for a solution or service that they need? Do they search online, review business listings, ask for referrals from peers and friends or simply respond to advertisements?

Once you determine the target consumer and how they are likely to find a solution or service, you can create a marketing mix that will place your company in sight of the customer. To make it simple, how will your customers find you? Or will you find them?

To create an effective marketing mix, the secret is to focus on what works for your business. To know what works, you must track the results for each marketing activity. For example, ask your customers how they heard about your product or business. If you are advertising online, you can you tracking numbers to determine how the consumer found your website.

The marketing mix can take many different forms with no two businesses the same. What works for one business may no work for another business. The following is a list of marketing applications you may want to consider based on your target customer.

· In-person promotions work well for a service business. This involves networking by continuous looking at making new contacts related to your customers. This may include customers, suppliers or collaborators. Success at networking is getting out among the people you want to contact. This can be attending social gatherings, business functions, seminars and other opportunities. Today, this can be done online through social network sites such as Facebook, Linked In, Myspace and many more.

· Advertising signs are beneficial if your business is local. This can include renting portable signs with digital displays to the simple lawn sign. To be effective, you will want to place your signs in high traffic areas as the more people who see the sign the better.

· Asking for referrals can grow your business through word of mouth efforts. In this case, you can ask existing customers to recommend your service to others or ask business partners to mention your business to their customers provided you are not competitors. Additionally, you can offer incentives to those who refer customers to you or reciprocate by referring customers to your partners.

· You can use print advertising as a primary marketing venue. People don't just read a paper, magazine or website, they also see the advertisements on the page. To be effective, print ads must be good advertisements with a proper placement on the page. Before your buy print ads, find out who actually uses the service or who the target audience is. Also, determine what are the circulation or visit volume and the demographics of the users.

· Depending on your business model, direct mail can be an affordable option. Most of us dislike junk mail but mail advertising has been effective for a long time. If you decide this is right for your business, try using post cards as they are more cost effective than envelopes. Also, you can get creative by offering special promotions and discounts in your direct mail ads.

· Using radio and television is becoming easier today as more marketing companies provide this service to the business community. This will allow your business to reach a large amount of viewers and listeners with a single advertisement. Once again, know who is the listener and viewers by reviewing the demographics before selecting the proper channel of distribution.

· You should always consider creating a website for your business. This is a low cost method for generating customer leads and to begin developing customer relationships. As the web continues to evolve, you can even target by geography and demographics using various advertising programs on the internet.

If you are just starting, you will want to move forward by trial and error to determine which marketing media is most effective for your business. Always look for methods to track customer responses for each marketing activity. If the results do not meet your expectations, then discontinue that marketing activity or revamp your advertising message. Over time, you will develop a specialized knowledge of what marketing secrets makes your business most profitable.