If you are looking to launch a new business in your local area, there are some must-haves from a marketing perspective you should have covered.
To help you in your early days when you might not have a huge budget for marketing help, I have put together a short checklist of some of the key items you should have covered from a marketing perspective. Depending on your industry and location, some may be more important than others.
Note - the order of these is not reflective of the order each should be done.
Logo
Having a professionally designed logo not only highlights your credibility but can help set you apart from competitors. It helps to identify you across all channels and mediums including your website, signage, social media and more.
Branding Elements
Extending from a professionally designed logo is having additional branding elements for you to lean on. Branding experts will not just give you a logo but will give you other elements such as secondary logos, brand patterns and more, that you can use throughout your business to continue the consistency.
Website
Having your own website is key for all businesses. Even if you don't think you need a website for new business. Again, from a branding perspective, it helps to build trust with prospective customers. Further to this, it is somewhere for you to point all traffic to online to help generate increased revenue from new and existing customers.
Another reason to set your website up from the start is to highlight you are a real business in your early days when referrals may be thin.
Google Business Listing
Having an accurate Google Listing can help potential customers find your business when searching for local businesses. In addition to your website which can appear in the Search Engine Results Pages, your Google Listing can also appear - increasing your visibility when people are searching for your services.
Social Media Accounts
Email Marketing Tools
Understanding how email might be used in your business and setting up an email list database from the get-go will make life easier as you move forward. You will want to consider what CRM you are using in your business and how this can automatically integrate into your email marketing tool. Alternatively, you might want to choose a CRM platform that includes email marketing capability.
Analytics
At a basic level, you should have Google Analytics implemented on your website so you can understand where your traffic is coming from and optimise from there. You can use some of the insights provided from analytics tools to make better decisions for your products, services and promotional efforts.
Competitor Analysis
Generally, this would form part of your marketing strategy. However, it is worth mentioning separately as it is crucial to know what the competitive landscape looks like - especially in the early days of your business.
Marketing Strategy
Having a marketing strategy is key in any business, not just new ones. However, for a local business starting out, you should really understand how you are going to reach your goals, who your target audience is, and where the opportunities are.
Marketing Plan
Once you have a strategy, having a plan of attack is the next step. A marketing plan will help keep you on track - outlining the projects and tactics you need to implement.
