How to get your business noticed – self-marketing for start-ups

Your business may offer amazing products and a fantastic service. It may have a clear, determined vision of what it is doing and where it is going. But if your potential customers don’t know it exists, your wonderful business is likely to disappear without trace.

As Alan Sugar put it: “Your start-up will be a cock-up if you don’t learn marketing communications”.

But what can a small business do to get themselves noticed?

There are two options: pay lots of money to a marketing company, or do it yourself. The DIY route costs less (if anything at all) and lets you use your unique insight to create the kind of personalised, precision-targeted marketing message that an external marketing consultant could never pull off.

So let’s dip into the marketing communications pic ‘n’ mix to see what methods are at your disposal;

1. Advertorials

This hybrid of advertising and editorial is a newsworthy article written for a magazine, journal or local newspaper interlaced with relevant sales information.

Research shows that more people will read advertorials and generate more responses than a straightforward advertisement.

2. Business Cards

Most business cards are about as useful as a scrap of paper with a name and number scribbled on it. That’s fine if you are looking for a date, but not so good for showcasing your business.

Add more details—such as the services you provide, images, and a QR code—and your business card can pack a huge promotional punch.

3. Blogs

Successful business blogs give readers a regular reason to visit a website and provide the means to build a personal relationship with your customers.

Rather than professionally crafted literature, they offer insight and information – so you don’t need to be a budding JK Rowling to write a best-seller.

4. Emails

If you want to create inbox-friendly communications that people respond to (rather than the kind of automated sales emails that are as subtle and as welcome as a brick through the window) it needs to look like it is written specifically for the person receiving it (however many people it has been sent to).

5. Brochures

Corporate brochures sell your business, rather than specific products. If it will achieve more than sit on the coffee table in your reception acting as a coaster, your corporate brochure needs to be personal, not corporate. That is, it should be based around your readers’ concerns, not your business’s.

6. Facebook

Facebook is a place where relationships are built and reputations are made by being part of the community. So don’t get any ideas about barging in, setting up stall and selling your wares.

Focus on the social side of your company and you will bond with potential customers in a more enduring way.

7. Flyers

The sheer simplicity and tactile nature of a flyer make it less ignorable and more likely to be read than most other forms of marketing communication. By making a single, simple offer to a single, targeted audience, you can pack a great deal of promotional clout in something that fits inside a back pocket.

8. LinkedIn

Being strictly for business, LinkedIn may seem like as much fun as an Excel spreadsheet. But, with the right profile, posts and a few influential connections, the supercharged networking system can put you in touch with customers, suppliers, investors and new employees. See some of our LinkedIn tips for small businesses.

9. Press Releases

Designed to let us mere mortals communicate with the big shots in the media and, consequently, the heaps of people that read/watch it, a well-crafted press release is a way to make tomorrow’s headlines and grab some free publicity in the bargain.

10. Product Descriptions

Whether used in catalogues, brochures, websites, flyers, advertisements or on a label attached to the product itself, a product description should do much more than simply describe. It should give the product a voice, bring it to life, reach out to the customer, grab them by the lapels and give them a big kiss.

11. Sales Letters

An effective sales letter grabs the reader’s interest at the first line then takes them, one inviting step at a time, towards an irresistible ‘call to action’.

The simplicity of its construction, the precision of its composition and the efficiency of its narrative makes an exquisitely crafted sales letter part modernist masterpiece and part customer catnip.

12. Twitter

Can a social medium be used for marketing purposes without spoiling all the fun? Yes – depending on who your followers are and what you do with them.

Twitter may not have been intended as a marketing tool, though neither was the telephone or the postal service, and look what a boon they turned out to be.

13. Websites

Size doesn’t matter for websites. Whether you are Pizza Express or Pete’s Café, your site gets exactly the same space on the screen.

The site that succeeds is the one that uses their space best to give visitors, and search engines, exactly what they are looking for.

Summary

Despite what marketing professionals will tell you, you don’t need to be a marketing professional to write effective marketing content.

Each of the methods described here can be expertly produced by following a practical step-by-step procedure, like following a recipe to bake a cake or a DIY guide to repair a dripping tap. All you need is a good instruction manual.

This article has been written for ByteStart by Ashley Hastings, author of I’m Here! How To Write Brilliant Marketing Material That Gets Your Business Noticed (CGW Publishing). This invaluable guide takes the reader step-by-step through the creation and application of 13 different marketing methods, enabling even a complete novice to write effective marketing material like a pro.