Identify your customer

Once you have done this, you also need to have some idea of your marketing budget. Now you are ready to dive into marketing!

• What is your marketing budget?
• Who is your ideal customer?
• What is your marketing objective?
• What is your marketing strategy?

Too many businesses rush in and start spending money on marketing without thinking about how much they can afford to spend. DANGER! Marketing spend is no different to any other expenditure or investment in your business. You wouldn’t commit to a lease if you didn’t work out whether you could afford it? You need to have a disciplined approach to marketing expenditure or you can unwittingly spend too much or not enough.

Do you really know who is your ideal customer? Most businesses have an idea, but knowing who your ideal customer is essential. Is your customer male or female or both? How old are they, what do they do for work, what do they do on weekends and how much money do they have to spend on your product or service? Once you know this, you can start to plan out your strategy on how you can reach your ideal customer.

Why are you marketing? Sounds like a dumb question but think about it? Do you want to build a database of people, sell more products or services, launch a new product or service, or clear out some products at a reduced price? All of the above will require a different strategy – not one size fits all!

Now you have your marketing budget, you know who your ideal customer is and you know your marketing objective. You can now implement the strategy of how you will achieve objectives? Your options are many these days including Facebook, Instagram, other social media platforms, PR, local radio, TV, email marketing etc, but at least you can identify which medium best suits your objectives.