Top tips for any entrepreneur launching a new business - Part 1

What a rollercoaster two years we’ve had with the dreaded C word! The coronavirus pandemic has made many changes to the way we work. From hybrid working to the proliferation of video calls, one thing is for sure life will not be the same again for many of us post covid. Perhaps this pandemic has given you chance to reflect on your career aspirations and you’ve decided to launch a new business. If so, this blog is just for you Icon’s top tips for launching a new business.

1.      Who is your target market?

If you’re launching a new business understanding who you want to market to is key. You need to understand your target audience; what is their motivation to purchase? What will push them over the line? Gaining an understanding of this will help you secure your all important sale. If you already have customers what is their persona? Young/old, time poor, cash rich creating a persona of your ideal customer should be your first step in your marketing activity.

2.      What is your USP?

Most likely you are entering a competitive market. What is unique about your proposition which sets you apart from your competition? Give your purchaser a reason to choose you over another business. Finding this is key to distinguishing you to your purchaser.

3.      Don’t become overwhelmed

In this digital era the options to market your business are endless. Finding the marketing activity which will give you the best ROI the key to your success. So, whether that’s a strong presence on social media or first rate website. Pick your tools wisely to maximise your profits.

4.      Look for the quick win

Icon works with many new businesses and we understand that marketing spend can be tricky in your first few months of trading. So, utilising longer burn techniques such as SEO could easily swallow up your all important marketing budget without seeing an immediate return. Find the quick win and utilise this then invest in longer term strategies once the till starts ringing.

5.      Analyse your data

If you have a website, make sure you are accessing Google Analytics to understand what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t there are other areas where you can gain meaningful insights into your business. Use this data to better inform yourself of your next steps in marketing.

6.      Don’t overlook your existing customers

Once you have gained a new customer make sure you are communicating with them whether that’s a monthly newsletter or social media posts. Reaching out to existing customers is far more cost effective than trying to find new ones.

Part two of Icon’s top tip for launching a new business will be coming up soon. If what you’ve read has whet your appetite get in touch for an informal chat kiesha@iconmarketingcomunications.co.uk 07979940526.

Why you should hire a Marketing Consultant

This month we have a guest blog by the super talented Lindsey Milner. Lindsey has several years experience working for some of the largest media houses in the industry. Take a read of her blog ‘Why you should hire a Marketing Consultant below…

Time is money. Two heads are better than one. Jack of all trades, master of none. 

If you own your own business, these phrases probably pop into your mind most days?

Often a business is set up to pursue a passion. Unfortunately, the reality is less hours are spent on the ‘passion’ and more on marketing tasks like:  

Why isn’t my website getting more visitors?

What’s the quickest route to increased sales? 

Who really is my target audience?

If you can relate, then here are our top 3 reasons why hiring a Marketing Consultant will be the best decision you make this year:

Fact 1: Marketing Consultant’s will understand and care for your business as much as you do.

Let’s say you’ve set up a vegan food delivery service.

Your background is in nutrition and you have decades of skill and experience at creating exemplary vegan cuisine.

Even if your Marketing Consultant hasn’t worked on an identical proposition before, their background, skill and experience is in making exemplary, water-tight and profitable strategic business plans.

Within a couple of months of working together, they will establish:

·        Who and where are your target customers?

·        How and when do they want to be targeted?

·        How often you should send marketing messages to them, when and in what format?

·        Which platforms should you spend time and investment on?

·        How to generate a return on investment (ROI) on any of your marketing activities.

The same way vegan food is your calling, improving the profitability and efficiency of your business via marketing is theirs.

Fact 2: Hiring a Consultant won’t be ‘expensive’. It will generate a return.

There’s nothing like the thought of losing money to strike fear into the most rational of folks. However, let’s flip this fear on its head.

If you need to grow your business ASAP, you’ll soon learn you have to pay to some extent, to do that.

Whether it’s spending on advertising or improving your digital platforms via SEO, CRO or content creation, there will always be a cost even if it’s just your time.

If you don’t have experience in these fields, I can guarantee that trying to fudge it yourself, no matter how many hours you spend on You Tube tutorials, you won’t get the outcome you desire.

You could advertise at the wrong time of year, to the wrong customer.

You could be optimizing clicks to your website rather than conversions.

It could all amount to a poor performing quarter in both financial and development terms.

A Marketing Consultant can guarantee as little waste of your pennies as possible AND increase your business growth within the shortest time possible.

They’re the experts and do this day in, day out, with qualifications to boot.

“Then I bet their rates are expensive” I hear you cry?

As with anything in life, you get what you pay for.

However, the brilliant thing about a Freelance Marketing Consultant is that they’ll work with you to find out your primary objectives, then calculate back exactly how many hours a month they need to hit those objectives for you.

It maybe you only need five to ten hours a month? Or two days a month. Or a month’s work to get you off the ground so to speak.

Whatever you need, they can give you: with no other overheads and a promise they’ll put everything in place to get the returns you seek, with as little waste as possible.

Fact 3: They have a deeper understanding of digital marketing than you do.

In today’s digital world, the job of a marketeer is as broad and diverse as you can get.

Outside of the traditional marketing techniques like branding, advertising, PR, events, and generating new business, today we also specialise in:

1.      Website creation and maintenance

2.      Search Engine Optimisation

3.      Conversion Rate Optimisation

4.      Social media

5.      Content creation

6.      Copy Writing

Digital and its users move fast.

Staying on top of trends and techniques to get all of these marketing tactics spot on, is a full-time job in itself.

With the best will in the world, you can google “How do I improve my website search ranking” and take a few punitive steps towards it. But you won’t get the results you desire any time soon.

A Freelance Consultant can put all of this in place for you and teach you a few tricks of their trade.

 All of the phrases we began with are true.

As a business owner, it’s imperative you put your business in the hands of experts.

This time next year, we can’t promise you’ll be a millionaire.

But we can promise you’ll have built a brand and awareness of said brand, increased sales and have a solid understanding of the next steps to work towards your ever-evolving business via sensible targets and objectives.

And if you want to work with Marketing Consultants that really, really care, get in touch with Icon today. We are here whenever and however you need us.