Starting up is tough. Starting up is also very exciting and a real personal achievement. I say this because you’ll need as much excitement as you can muster for your first and most important round of marketing.

By Iain Scott, founding director of London based design agency, Base Creative

You need to identify the strongest marketing tool in your new business. If you’re a sole trader, it will most definitely be you. If you’re a partnership, decide which one of you it will be.

When you’re a big company, you’ll be paying someone to do all your fantastic marketing. Now, your time is going to be your most valuable asset, so you need to use it well. (We’ll assume that you’re going to be the marketing guru for this exercise.)

The first thing you’ll need to realise is that you will be the face of your new business.
Your clothes, your hairstyle, the way you talk, the way you walk. Your attitude will be the business’ attitude so make it a good one.

This is how you can turn time into cash

Get out there, talk to people, meet like-minded business owners, get in front of cash-rich decision makers and make sure they know who you are and what you do. Here are a few ideas on how you can do this:

a. Join your local chamber of commerce. Ok – this isn’t free, but it will be the best thing you can do now.

b. Turn up at all the networking events you can, including your chamber’s events. You’ll begin to recognise familiar faces after a while and before you know it, made friends and done more than swap business cards.

c. Get invited to a few breakfast meetings within local, smaller networking events. While they may be looking for you to join, this is never compulsory.

Attend four or five breakfasts with one networking organisation. Do the same with another. There are plenty of these organisations to try out. BRX or BNI are two examples.

d. Get networking online. These are becoming more and more popular and allow you to express your views, chat to people and get noticed without the fear of walking into a room full of people you don’t know. So, turn your time into a useful marketing campaign and get out there.

Business cards

There’s no excuse. I’ve seen business people get away with the words ‘Printed free at VistaPrint’ on the reverse. As I run a design agency, I would never recommend doing that, but the point is, even that is better than nothing.

At these networking events you are now attending, you will be asked for your business card within the first or last 30 seconds of a conversation. Make sure they are always to hand, look impressive and allow the receiver to remember you. We use thin plastic business cards. While it isn’t fantastically original, it does get noticed often enough.

A few tips for your business card

a. Try something different – a different size, paper stock, colour, wording. I tend to think oversize works well – but not so big it doesn’t fit into people’s wallets.

b. I’ve seen people put a picture of themselves on the card. It allows the receiver to remember them – put a face to the name. I’ve also heard that it is harder for people to tear up a card that has a face on it.

c. Make sure it has all your details on it. Paper cards also allow the receiver to make additional notes about you, so if you can, maybe leave some space for this.

d. Keep them clean. There’s nothing worse than receiving a card with bent corners or the remnants of the bottom of your pocket attached to it. Remember – a business card is almost always the first piece of printed marketing material the outside world will receive. Make sure they receive it well.

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By Iain Scott  on   Jul 11,2008

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Keywords

launch marketing    advertising    starting up    branding    personal marketing   

Comments

Brian Willis
Yes starting up is hard - however innovation and knowing your market is important - I am involved with a site called www.rubii.co.uk - it has done great marketing things PPC, Email, Promotion etc in an innovative fashion Report Abuse