“How to advertise your Business during the first few months after starting?” is a question that many new business owners and entrepreneurs are seeking an answer for.

Of course they ask the question with good reason. In fact, without advertising your business, your prospective customers won’t know anything about your business. And, no business can start or grow without customers.

It’s usually a messy process, starting your own business…

Once you’ve made the decision that you want to be your own boss, well then you’re the boss – with all the responsibilities, anxiety, and multi-tasking that goes with being in charge. Suddenly there are hundreds of things to remember, to organize and to do. Additionally, there are the dreaded deadlines…

How on earth will you get everything done in time? Let’s see how your checklist looks like a week before opening:

 My lease contract for the shop – done;
 My shop fittings and decor – done;
 Accounts opened with my suppliers – done;
 My manager and staff are appointed – done;
 Bank account, business license, and municipal account – done;
 Accountant appointed – done;
• My customers? – They’ll just walk in and start buying – really?

The thing is, you’re so busy to get everything in place to open your shop that you’ve neglected the most important thing about our business – your customers (and sadly you income). So, you need to get feet into your store. Therefore you need to know how to advertise your business during the first few months after starting.

How to Advertise Your Business during the first few months after starting

The first success of a firm is its birth ¹. Indeed, (I suppose) as what should be the case with all humans, “all businesses are born equal”. As with humans, however, it’s what’s happening after birth that has the biggest impact on the future of your business…

Successful businesses advertise themselves – their products, services and also understand what value they offer to their customers. Surely, they are more likely to have a good start and enjoy tasting future success. Indeed, you should make use of all the options currently available to get as many people as possible to learn about your business.

Six tips on how to advertise your business during the first few months after starting

Kalin Kassabov in Forbes recently suggested six tips to advertise your business during the early days:

1. Get locally listed – nowadays, almost all of your prospective customers will search for what your business offer online. So, if you want to be found, you need to be listed with Google and/or other local business directories. You can list your business with The Business Directory here in South Africa. Also, and most importantly, is Google My Business, which is connected to Google Maps so customers can easily find directions to your location.

2. Build a website that is mobile-friendly – don’t even think about starting a business without it having an online presence. Almost all your customers will want to find your business online. That’s not all; they’ll do it on a mobile smart phone. So, use a website template that is mobile friendly – and you’ll be almost there…

3. Encourage customers to leave reviews – if you’re a new business, it will take time before prospective customers will start supporting you (instead of your competitors). What certainly helps to get more patronage is to ask customers to leave reviews on review sites. Read more about South African review sites (SME South Africa).

4. Use traditional Public Relations (PR) tactics – traditional PR tactics such as press releases and interviews with local media may get the local people interested. Therefore, all you need to do is to manually contact local newspapers, radio and TV stations. Then tell them your story, the story that they want to hear…

5. Mobile marketing – send SMS messages to tell people about your business. Just be careful here – you’ll need the individual’s consent to do SMS marketing. After all, anyone hoping to quickly tap into a large audience should seriously consider the potential of SMS marketing, says Marshall Lemon in Post Funnel.

6. Create valuable content – your prospective customer is finding the products and services she seeks online. Undoubtedly, she’ll be most likely to support the business that will give her the best information and something that she can use. It’s here that the quality and quantity of your website’s content may give your business a competitive advantage. The quality of your blog posts, social media content, videos and voice (audio) may not only result in loyal customers, but may also improve your website’s ranking with search engine sites.

Concluding

Here we go again – there can’t be any business without customers! The quicker the people know about your business, the quicker they’ll buy from you and the quicker you’ll do better than break-even…

But even more, if you’re deserve it, the people will start taking about your business, good word-of-mouth – and your business will grow substantially.
But it is best to do the planning of “how to advertise your business during the first two months before starting” long before starting your business.

Read also: Get your Business Going with Startup Marketing

A Marketing Plan helps you to communicate the right content to the right audience.

Note

¹ Van Gelderen, M., Thurik, R. and Bosma, N. 2005. Success and risk factors in the pre-startup phase, Small Business Economics, 24(4):365-380.

Image

Feature image: Pexels

Image in the text: Pexels

The post How to Advertise your Business during the First Few Months after Starting appeared first on eBizplan.net.