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Go-To-Market Strategy [The Ultimate Guide]

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If you are an experienced entrepreneur, you’d probably know that having a brilliant team, building a disruptive business model, and designing an impressive business plan isn’t enough to woo investors to fund your startup. They also want detailed answers to whom you are going to target and why will they buy your product, why is this the right time to launch your product, and how you’re planning to create a demand for your product.

Well, if you were unaware of this, here’s a complete guide explaining what is go-to-market strategy and how do you bring a product to market to make it stay for long.

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What Is Go-To-Market Strategy

A go-to-market strategy is an action plan that specifies how a business will utilize its internal and external resources to penetrate into the market and take its value proposition to the end consumer to achieve a competitive advantage.

Few keywords that should be focused on in this definition are –

  • Action Plan – Go-to-market plan is a detailed plan outlining all the actions required to accomplish the desired goal. It includes all the answers to ‘what to sell?’, ‘where to sell?’, and ‘how to sell?’.
  • Market Penetration – A go-to-market plan is usually associated with the brand or product launches where either the company plans to create a demand for its product by disrupting the industry or catering to the existing demand in a different manner by highlighting its value proposition.
  • Competitive Advantage – GTM strategy is all about establishing a competitive advantage in the market to create a sustainable demand for the brand in the long run.

Why Do You Need A Go To Market Strategy?

If you’re planning to bring a new product to the market, the last thing you would want to do is go out unprepared.

Remember this – There’s always a right time and a right way of doing things. And, there’s always a strategically decided market where the product is initially launched.

A GTM strategy is a carefully thought step-by-step plan which guides the company on bringing its product in the market to reach market penetration, revenue and profitability expectations.

It reduces the risk of the product being failing in its initial stages and also opens the doors to improve the product according to the response and feedback from the initial launch.

What Does A Go-To-Market Plan Include?

A go-to-market strategy is the what, why, when, where, and how of the product launch. An optimum go-to-market plan includes but is not limited to the following –

What?

  • What is the problem your target market faces right now?
  • What’s your solution?
  • What is the actual product?
  • What’s your vision?
  • What is the value proposition?
  • What is the alternative to this product today?
  • What’s the pricing strategy?
  • What are the channels you’ll use to distribute the product?
  • What are the roles of different teams during the product launch?

Why?

  • Why is this the right time to launch the product?
  • Why will they choose you?
  • Why is this the right market for the product launch?

Where?

  • Where is the product launch scheduled to happen?
  • Where did customers find their solutions until now?

When?

  • When is the product launch scheduled to happen?
  • When are the next steps scheduled to happen? What’s the timeline?

How?

  • How are you planning to market the product initially and after the launch?
  • How do you plan to expand?
  • How do you plan to collect feedback and improve the product?
  • How the product will solve users’ problems?
  • How will the product stand out?

The Process Of Building A GTM Strategy

Without a doubt, there’s no one-size-fit-all go-to-market strategy. Each product and market are different, therefore each GTM strategy differs from others on the basis of –

  • Nature of the product,
  • Nature of the market,
  • The target market,
  • Existing competition,
  • Existing demand,
  • Company’s vision and mission, and
  • Future projections.

But at the same time, building a GTM strategy is as important as developing your product. You’ll never know if it’s the right time to launch or if the market is even ready for your product until you plan your GTM strategy.

Identify The Perfect Target Segment

Identifying and defining the right market segment for the product is very important before the actual GTM strategy is even drafted. In the case of a new product, the company has to decide whether there are existing customers that might be sales prospects or whether it has to seek an entirely new set of target customers.

Understand Who Influence Buyer’s Decisions

Once the target market is identified, the company needs to identify the buying center next. Not everyone in the target market is the buyer. The set includes –

  • Initiator – The one who starts the buying process. He shows the initial interest.
  • User – The actual consumer of the product.
  • Influencer – The one who convinces others that the product is important and is needed.
  • Decider– Who gives the final decision for the purchase.
  • Buyer – Who buys the product from the company.
  • Approver – The authoritative person who authorizes the actions of deciders and buyers.
  • Gatekeeper – The person who controls the flow of information. He’s the one the marketer has to pass through before he reaches the decision-maker.

These together are known as the buying center. Identifying them and creating their personas help the company form a detailed hypothesis on who to target, who to market, and who to sell.

Understand The Buyer’s Journey

A usual buyer goes through six stages before making an actual purchase

  • Awareness
  • Interest
  • Consideration
  • Intent
  • Evaluation
  • Purchase

His mindset and activities during each stage need to be considered by the company to find the barriers which stop him from buying the product.

However, in a marketer’s perspective, these stages can be divided into just three parts –

  • Top of the funnel (Lead Generation) – where the customer is made aware of the product.
  • Middle of the funnel (Lead Nurture) – where interest is aroused in customer to buy the product
  • Bottom of the funnel (Sale) – the result of marketer’s efforts and the customer’s journey.
Marketing funnel

Define The Value Proposition

Once the target market hypotheses are formed. The next step is to map value for every member of the buying center and for every stage of the buying process. A value proposition is the promise of tangible benefits which a customer will receive from consuming or experiencing the offering.

Defining value propositions for every member of buying center and for every stage of the buying process makes it easy to create a communication message for everyone and every stage and eventually makes it easier to sell the product.

Find The Product-Market Fit

Next, the company has to work on validating these hypotheses either by conducting first-hand surveys or by releasing an MVP to analyse audience response and take feedback.

Product-market fit involves validating that the product is desired by the market and has the capability to satisfy its need.

Finding the product-market fit is a very important strategy as it decides whether the efforts of the team were in the right direction or not. It helps in saving a lot of effort and resources which could have wasted if the product had been launched for the wrong audience or focus had been on a wrong value proposition.

Choosing The Apt Marketing, Sales, & Promotion Strategies

This stage involves looking closely at the external and internal environment of the business to find out –

  • The right time to release the product
  • The most efficient channel of distribution
  • The most profitable pricing strategy
  • Effective sales strategies
  • The scalability model
  • Effective communication messages, channels, and strategies

The next step involves looking again at the buyer’s journey and forming strategies to create demand within every stage of the marketing funnel.

And then comes the product launch.

Bottom-Line?

In this era where 3 new startups launch every second, there is a huge need for planning things out to find a position in this over-crowded world. The go-to-market plan is just that. It helps you plan what, when, where, why, and how are you going to penetrate the market with your offering and why the market will love it.

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A marketer, a dreamer, a traveller and a philomath. I prefer stargazing to spending nights in clubs.

Sourced from FeedDough.com

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How to Write Digital Marketing Copy Which Attracts the Right Consumers

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People often ask me how I’m able to write such compelling copy – which is funny to me because I remember a time when a second-grade giraffe could’ve strung together a better sentence than I could.

Sitting down at my computer to force out a Facebook post which sounds inspirational, but not cheesy, but still value-centered, but not too sales-y, was a daily struggle for me. Writing a sales page that articulated all of the necessary elements – the testimonials, the program break-down, the fast-action bonuses, the emotionally triggering personal before-and-after story – combining all of that without it coming out a complete mess is tough at the best of times.

Sound familiar?

You too might feel like you pour your blood, sweat, and tears into every email, every lead magnet, and every social media post. But when it comes to a reaction, it’s crickets.

That’s what we’re looking to fix here.

In this post, I’m going to outline five core elements I’ve implemented which have enabled me to start producing copy that has gone on to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, attract thousands of die-hard fans and gain the attention on massive international publications.

Essentially, these are my hacks for attracting “Believers” – which, in my digital community, is what we call enthusiastic buyers – over and over and over again.

1. Before worrying about copy, make sure your target market is right for your offer

“Lena, everyone says they can’t afford me. How do I attract better people with my content?” 

I hear this a lot – but sometimes (actually, a lot of the time), the issue isn’t the people. It’s your offer that’s making the crucial mistake.

Ask yourself – are there really Believers who will buy what I’m selling?

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how brilliantly written your copy is – if your product isn’t built for Believers, they won’t buy. This comes down to the “50 to 100 Rule”, which I’ll explain further in a minute. But first, let’s start with some examples of offers which are inherently designed for people who are not going to buy, no matter how many times you flip it.

  • You’re selling vegan educational courses that teach people how to be vegan on a budget
  • You’re coaching college students on how to study better
  • You’re showing travelers how to backpack across Europe on $7 a day

These audiences are not going to become paying customers – no matter how good your copy is, it will never change the fact that…

  1. They can find a lot of resources on all three of those topics for free on YouTube, blogs, and Pinterest, and will opt for free options 9 out of 10 times
  2. These issues aren’t urgent or pressing for the potential buyer
  3. Even if they do buy, they won’t invest at a high-ticket level, since they’ve framed their entire lives around the Budget Mindset

In order for your offer to attract High-Ticket Believers, your offers need to get people from 50 to 100, not 0 to 50. Not beginners. Not budgeters. Not half-in-half-out folks.

People who are already committed to your area of expertise, people who have already put their money where their mouth is, people who feel the urgency of solving their problem and a commitment to improving their lives.

People who are already 50% of the way there – they just need to get to 100%.

Three offers that would be aligned with the 50 to 100 Rule, verses 0 to 50, are…

  • A vegan health retreat for older women who are committed to losing weight and regaining their energy through natural lifestyle choices. They also want to come together with like-minded women to eat delicious food, have a relaxing vacation and learn from various vegan experts on its benefits.
  • A coaching program for busy CEOs and executives who want to be more focused, organized, and energetic throughout their workdays. They know that if they don’t get a hold of this now, they’ll be completely burned-out by the time they’re 60, and will feel that they’ve wasted their lives away.
  • A course on how international speakers and experts can leverage credit cards and airline points to get extra vacations throughout the year.

See the difference? These are all people who are already invested in their goals, people who urgently want to solve a problem, and people who walk their talk, and are committed to reaching a solution.

So before blaming the wrong people for being attracted to your offer, examine what you’re selling and see if it’s inherently designed to attract low-commitment, low-budget people. And if that is, in fact, the case, change it up.

2. Learn which language to avoid

Certain phrases, ideas, and words will attract plenty of people, but most of them, again, will be low benefit consumer at best. Once you eliminate them from your vocabulary, it will drastically change your conversions.

Here are some classic topics you want to avoid in any format:

  • Struggling to pay for rent, car payments or bills
  • Just “scraping by”
  • Feeling limited by finances
  • Feeling broke
  • Struggling with debt
  • Operating on a budget

Any topics that will resonate with uncommitted people – who are generally looking for a quick, overnight solution – is what you want to avoid.

At the same time, you also want to avoid big, shiny, general promises that fall into phrases like:

  • “You can make X amount of dollars in X amount of time”
  • “Zero risk to you​”
  • “10X your income this year”
  • “Make sales/change your life/lose 10 pounds/fix your relationship this week”
  • “Building a business/losing weight/fixing your relationship has never been easier”

Why?

Because:

  1. Low target audiences love quick, easy overnight solutions
  2. Believers can spot “its too-good-to-be-true-ness” from a mile away and won’t opt-in
  3. The above statements are “easy access” – they aren’t dialed into a particular demographic, which means that anyone can say “Yes Please”. You don’t want to attract everyone, and by stating broad, shiny promises, like these above, there is a low barrier for entry.

Think about it – when you go to the nail salon, do you want a big sign out in front that says “We do all nails, including those that are covered in warts, for free, no risk to you”. Obviously not. Access to all is not what you want for your business. Stay exclusive. Have standards. And if that means “scaring” people a bit by showing that the transformation you’re offering isn’t easy, and it requires hard work, then do it.

In my business, we would rather be blatantly transparent and turn people off – but have the right people join our high-ticket offers – then have everyone be booking sales calls with us.

This is why it’s important when people are reading your sales pages or applying for your programs, to clearly state who this offer is not for. Why it isn’t for everyone.

Remember: Only use language that attracts 50 to 100 Believers.

3. Become obsessed with your target market and their whole experience as humans

Once you fully understand this, you can embody it, and empathize with their experiences to the point where you can articulate it better than they can. And the more specific you can be in your copy, the better.

Answer the following questions to get to this level with your target market, as it pertains to your expertise:

  • What are your target market’s deepest fears? What keeps them up at night?
  • What excuses (or “barriers” in their minds) prevent them from taking action in your area of expertise?
  • What motivates them on a daily basis? If they solved the problem that you helped solve, how would that change their lives?
  • What are their ultimate life goals? Where do they want to be five years from now?
  • Why have they not achieved that goal, or made progress, on their own?

​You want people to read your copy and say, “Wow, I feel like “so and so” knows me so well – how is that possible?”

The deeper that your target market feels that you truly understand them and their struggles, triumphs, and goals, the closer they will feel to you – and the closer they will become Believers.

4. Get hyper-specific with your target market and/or your strategy

If you’re speaking to everyone, you’re speaking to no one. Get clear on one of the two in order to attract the Believers you want:

The specific person you serve

OR

The specific strategy you teach

This is what will attract Believers, and turn you from being a generalist into a specialist.

For example, if you’re a mindset coach for women, you want to identify the target market or strategy within that market sector which you’ll focus on.

Potential Target Markets:

  • Women in corporate jobs struggling with time management, overwhelm and burnout
  • Women who are mothers and are having a hard time prioritizing themselves and have lost their self-worth
  • Women who are full-time entrepreneurs and are scared to become leaders. They need help gaining confidence around getting on stage and speaking, going Live on Facebook and positioning themselves as an expert

Potential Strategies:

  • Practical thought work application
  • Journaling and reflection
  • Meditation and yoga
  • Mantra development

If you’re a mindset coach who serves all women, you won’t attract the women you want. So again, get clear on your niche and work that into all of your copy. Don’t be afraid to turn people away. The more specific you get, the higher quality leads you’ll attract.

5. Read

I personally have read dozens of autobiographies written by women I love, and the ways in which they’ve articulated their stories, experiences and values have resonated with me so deeply that it’s influenced how I connect with my audience.

Basically, I didn’t re-invent the wheel with my approach – I studied what I saw others doing well, and adopted what I liked.

Aside from practicing, the best way to improve your copy is to read the copy of those you admire. If there are specific entrepreneurs you look up to, study their lead magnets, blog posts and email blasts. If there are specific authors you admire, read their books repeatedly, if there are specific journalists you admire, read all of their articles.

This is the “behind the scenes” work, which isn’t sexy – and it’s work that no one sees. But it’s what turns an average writer into someone who can create engaging, effective content.

I also recommend reading physical books, not just listening to them on AudioBooks or some other app. The reason why is because you pick up a lot of grammar tricks and see how to break down ideas in a way that isn’t overwhelming, but compelling.

As you can see, this is not an ‘easy trick’, there’s work that goes into being a better writer, and appealing to the right audience. But if you put in the time and effort, you’ll eventually see the results. Take my word for it.

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Sourced from Social Media Today

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How to Use Twitter to Promote Your Business

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By Thomas Griffin,

When trying to get the word out about your business, you might feel discouraged by all the competition out there. Thanks to the rise of social media over the last decade, Twitter and platforms like it are no longer just for user entertainment; rather, businesses can benefit from using them to promote their brands and further their reach. With more than 330 million monthly active users, there are endless opportunities to meet your objectives.

Twitter is a valuable resource you can use to reach your desired business goals, but if it isn’t used correctly, you’ll fail to see positive results and return on investment (ROI). It’s a great asset to have to promote your business because its users are constantly looking for new, fresh content to devour from brands they love, and that brand could very well be your own.

Let’s look at the different ways you can leverage your Twitter profile to promote your business and drive results.

Lay out your goals.

No matter where your business is at in terms of success, it’s essential when you create your business account that you know what you want to accomplish with it. Without a clear idea of the results you want to see, it’s difficult to form a marketing strategy that helps you reach your objectives.

What do you hope to achieve through your Twitter account? A few common goals businesses have with their profiles are:

  • Providing customer service
  • Furthering reach
  • Increasing sales
  • Building brand awareness
  • Keeping up with industry trends
  • Improving engagement rates

Once you know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, it’ll be that much easier to create content that brings you closer to reaching your goals.

Optimize your profile.

Promoting your brand doesn’t just have to do with creating a content marketing strategy and posting as frequently as possible. If you don’t have a solid foundation to go off of first and foremost, very few people in your target audience will be able to find you in the first place. That’s why you need to optimize your Twitter profile.

There are several components to pay attention to within your Twitter profile, including the:

  • Bio
  • Header image
  • Profile picture
  • Location
  • Website

It’s important to note that while filling out all the information you can is important, offering value straight off the bat is the most important thing you can do for your profile. Instead of simply stating what your business does or what niche it’s in, go a little further and tell users how it benefits them.

Turn on Twitter analytics.

How beneficial would it be if you could see exactly how your followers interact with your social media content? Thanks to Twitter analytics, you can monitor user engagement, explore your audience’s demographics and measure individual tweet activity. With this information readily available, you’re able to decipher what they’re most interested in and what they don’t care much about, which helps you create a refined content marketing strategy that boosts your following.

It’s essential to track your social analytics and monitor them regularly because, just like your brand grows, so will your audience’s interests and needs. Without staying on top of the content they’re most engaged with, you won’t be able to optimize your content marketing strategy accordingly.

Add video.

If you want to increase engagement on your posts, incorporate more video content. Twitter reports that tweets with video are six times more likely to be retweeted than tweets with photo and three times more likely to be retweeted than GIFs. Your videos should be relevant to the post you’re creating and spark interest in your audience enough to boost engagement.

Coca-Cola used video in its ads and, as a result, received a 53 percent viewing rate from its target market. Video, and visual content in general, outperforms other types of media because it’s good at catching people’s attention and keeping it there. Make sure your video content isn’t too long, preferably no longer than a minute, so users don’t lose interest and are encouraged to check out your brand further.

When done correctly, businesses can use Twitter as a valuable avenue to increase engagement, improve ROI and build brand awareness. It’s essential to optimize your profile, monitor analytics and incorporate video into your content marketing strategy if you want to have the best possible chance of reaching your target market and achieving your goals.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Thomas Griffin

Thomas Griffin is co-founder and president of OptinMonster. He is an expert software architect with a deep knowledge of building products for the mass market.

Sourced from Inc.

 

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Brand Management: 5 Effective Principles

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With digital marketing becoming an influential approach for most brands, the importance of brand management is often underrated. Simply put, brand management is the science of creating a positive relationship with the target market. However, it also entails the various facets of the customer’s association with the brand and even the relation to the purchasing process. There are five effective principles of brand management which are important for most brands to effectively manage their target market and garner a positive response from the consumers:

Know your USP

Each brand has a unique selling point. This USP sets your brand apart from your competitors. For instance, Idea’ “India ho Gaya hai 3G me busy” ensured that they came up as the leading telephonic brand for the 3G technology. Similarly, the affordable rates offered by JIO for 4G technology set the approach as a brand differentiation key. In order to create it, the product’s position needs to be fit properly in the market. Here, the demographics of the consumer base will play a huge role in understanding what kind of branding will intrigue them.

Relate your marketing communication to brand awareness

Very few people understand the difference between marketing messaging and effective marketing communication. All the communication that goes out through your brand should include your USP and be associated with the brand awareness that you are trying to create. Do not target just traction from your branding approach, instead, include targeted consumer traction for your brand. This will ensure that your brand does not fall prey to false growth but instead sees the qualitative approach.

Keep developing your brand internally

The main idea behind conquering the right market is that you would need to keep evolving with times. Everybody involved in brand development should learn to collaboratively ideate and keep introducing changes from the very inside. One way to do is to get buy-ins from the other departments which co-create the core of your brand. You can also get a buy-in from the external stakeholders. Learn to incorporate different views into your brand which you may have ignored initially. Also, always include the R&D department. Your research and development team can tell you what is being appreciated in the market and how changes can be incorporated to align your brand with the same.

Create a winning influential marketing strategy

Word of mouth is a strategy that never loses. With our entire world revolving around following the right influencers and following targeted propagators- approaching a strategy that includes influential marketers would be very helpful. There is such a thing called a third-person effect. Just ensure it does not look like an obvious product plugin. Have a subtle influential marketing strategy where the influencers you choose do not look sold and your brand management is done subtly.

Do not underestimate a brand management software

One important pointer to remember is that even though a brand may evolve, the core of it never changes. Simple elements like colour, messaging, the shape of the logo stay in the minds of the consumers. So, they start to resonate with them. With brand management software, you can adopt evolution while keeping the core principals the same.

Summing up

While brand management has a lot of facets, the simplest of principles can give you the much-needed head start. This simple approach would surely help you in making an effective and influential brand management strategy. While most of these are already adopted, but there are a lot of simple mistakes pertaining to these principles that we make on a regular basis.

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Sourced from iamwire

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How To Structure An Influencer Strategy

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By Leslie Licano.

Clients come to our agency looking for ways to take an omnichannel approach to public relations and marketing more frequently now than ever before. In addition to an uptick in traditional media campaigns and innovative social programs, we’ve seen an increase in the return on investment that our clients are seeing through influencer marketing campaigns.

If you’re thinking about starting an influencer campaign, you’re not alone. Influencer marketing is expected to grow from a $2 billion industry in 2017 to a $10 billion industry by 2020. It’s proven to have a strong return on investment, and it allows public relations teams to really dial into a target market. While Instagram is the leading platform for influencer marketing, influencers also can be found on YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and just about any other social media vehicle you can think of.

So how can you structure your influencer strategy to get the most from every post? Here are a few things to consider:

What are the goals of your campaign? Do you want to increase awareness? Generate leads? Drive sales? Boost brand reputation? Determine what you want to accomplish and how you’re going to measure the results. Engagement is a popular data point to measure, but make sure that’s the right fit for your brand. Also, ensure everyone on your team, including the influencer you choose, is aware of goals and measurement plans.

Decide on a budget. It’s important to know how much money you have to spend on an influencer campaign. Most influencers are pay to play, with rates as low as $200 per post up to tens of thousands of dollars per post. Is your budget large enough to get the posting frequency you may need to make an influencer campaign viable? Look at influencer marketing as you would any other marketing campaign — you may have to spend money to get the results you want.

Narrow your demographic, and determine your target market. Your target market for an influencer campaign might be slightly different from your regular target market. Make sure the influencer you select has a majority following within your target demographic. No matter how much you like an influencer or the aesthetics of their posts, if their following doesn’t match your target needs, it doesn’t make sense to engage with them.

Research influencers to find the right fit. This is such an important step, and there’s so much to consider. Before moving forward with any influencer, make sure that they fit your brand naturally. It’s vital to be authentic in these posts, so an influencer who’s excited about your product and has a following comprised of your target demographic is ideal. Another important step is to make sure that the influencer hasn’t embellished their following with bots. Third-party measurement and analytics tools are great for checking out influencers and making sure they’re on the up-and-up.

Determine content with your hired influencer. In general, let the influencer to take the lead here. If the content is going to feel authentic, it likely needs to come from them. Their followers will probably be able to pick out a brand-crafted post from a mile away. That said, provide some guidelines, concept ideas and product information to help them, or you may inadvertently set yourself up to fail. Additionally, make sure that they’re familiar with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines for your type of product. For example, many influencers today are involved in the promotion of health products, which is heavily regulated by the FTC. Influencers may need to announce that the content is sponsored or label it as advertising and ensure that they’re being careful not to make false claims regarding a product’s effectiveness to avoid misleading followers.

So are you ready to get your influencer campaign up and running? Approach influencer strategy as you would any other new campaign. Set your goals, budget and target demographic, and do your research to make sure that the partners you choose are the right fit for your brand — just as you would research any other person you might hire for the team. With a detailed strategy that covers all these bases, you’re likely to see positive results.

By Leslie Licano

Co-Founder of Beyond Fifteen Communications, a SoCal PR and communications firm known for taking clients beyond their 15 minutes of fame.

Sourced from Forbes

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How Do You Identify your Target Audience in Social Media

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Sourced from

Without knowing how to properly identify your target market, it will be difficult for you to make a perfect pitch that will convert your audience into customers. Most businesses fail on this part as they tend to reach out to anyone interested in their services.

The problem with this targeting approach is it appeals to a broad audience. Doing this will give your services a hard time to stand out from the growing competition online.

To avoid wasting your marketing efforts, you need to narrow down your niche. Your business will increase its tendency to generate leads and sales if you place it in a specific market. No business can target everyone.

To get you started, here’s a handful of tips on defining your target audience.

1. Who are your ideal customers?

The initial step in developing your social media marketing strategies is to know the interests and characteristics of your audience. This information is vital in understanding your buyer personas. Know the reasons why they like your services or products and what drives them to trust your business.

Surveys are a helpful tool to ask your customers about their preference and how they want their problems to be solved. This will give you an insight into how you will communicate and interact with them.

2. Check out the competition

If you are new to the business and just starting out, it is obviously hard to squeeze in the tight competition. But it does not mean that you don’t stand a chance. Do not compete with the giants. They have been there for a reason. They have worked hard for years to establish their online reputation.

Study the audience they are targeting including their current customers. Look out for the potential market that they might overlook and take advantage of it. Instead of competing in the same market, focus on the niche market and build your solid foundation there.

3. Conduct a Product/Service Analysis

No matter how good your marketing strategies are, your business will not grow if you have the wrong product or service. This is the reason why your company exists. Remember that it is not about only the products and services you are offering but the benefits that they provide.

Do not too much of the product. Instead, highlight their important features and how they can solve people’s problems and needs. For example, you are offering web design services. The benefit is you will be giving businesses professional brand identity. This unique identity will make them stand out, increase exposure, and attract more customers.

After you listed all the benefits, identify the people that will be needing them. For example, you may target start-up businesses interested in creating an impressive company image. From there, you will narrow it down. What niche? House cleaning? Interior design start-ups? You have a choice.

4. Target Specific Demographics

The closer you are to the target, the higher the chances that you will hit them. You do not want to launch your marketing campaign and hope someone would buy your product and avail to your service.

Consider these essential factors:

Age – Are you targeting teens, adults, stay-at-home moms, etc.? Make sure that your approach is suitable to the age of your target audience so that they can easily relate.

Location – Are you going local or national? Where are your customers located? What is the community looks like?

Gender – If your business is selling make-up and beauty products, you’re probably targeting women.

Income level – Look at the price of your product or service. Is it affordable? It’s hard to market an expensive product especially if your customers belong to a low or middle-income class. Put yourself on their shoes.

5. Identify the behavior of your target audience

In addition to demographics, you should also determine the psychographics. Does it fit their interests? For example, you don’t want to sell solar panels in the area that has a typically cold climate. Your products should appeal to your customer’s personality, values, and lifestyle.

Once they find out that your products and services provide significance to their daily lives, they would likely go after it.

6. Determine the platforms Your Audience are commonly using

Not all social media platforms work the same. They have different strengths and weaknesses. By understanding the online behavior of your audience, you will know what channel you will utilize. Most demographics are using Facebook while is Instagram is a great platform which makes use of photos to promote businesses. Twitter is a good channel to get to know of the latest news and trends and LinkedIn is the best platform to reach out to industry leaders and professionals.

7. Tailor your Content

Observe what your competitors are doing and have an idea why they are successful. What are the methods they are using to drive engagement? What other areas do they lack? Will you be able to exploit their shortcomings?

If you’re on the budget, you can use SMM services from digital marketing agencies like Search Media. When promoting content in social media, do not focus on self-promotion. Share relevant content from trusted sources and industry experts to develop trust and credibility.

Spend time on social media to understand audience behavior such as when is the time there are most active users. This information will help you learn when is the best time to post and share your content.

Not only that, social media is not all about posting! Reach more people by encouraging interaction and communication. Build an active community where people can constantly see and hear from you.

8. Be a problem-solver

Make people feel that you are not just a business but a human too who can understand their feelings and interests. Research their pain points and base your marketing on solving those problems. By giving your brand a voice, you can create more influence, attract more followers, and build more opportunity to connect with your customers.

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Right Mix Marketing focuses on digital marketing, technology, eCommerce, entrepreneurship and business related content. Want to become a contributor at RMM? Email us on rightmixmarketing [at] gmail [dot] com !

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How to Write a Great Retail Business Plan for Your Store

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By Tiffany Walden.

Every successful business has a strong retail business plan. It’s one of the first things many investors and donors ask for when inquiring about your business. Why, you ask? That’s because a business plan details your business’ short- and long-term goals, and lists the steps and financial requirements necessary to achieve those goals.

To help you get started, we’ve outlined what you should include in your retail business plan. If you follow these tips, you’ll be well on your way to creating a strong foundation for a viable retail business.

Provide a company description

Your company description is one of the most important aspects of your retail business plan. This section should reflect how you want people to envision your business. It should include the logo, concept, ownership and business structure, design, and layout. Think of a retail shop that you enjoy. What is it about that business’s logo, concept, and design that stands out to you?

Include information from target market and industry analysis

A retail market analysis is a deep look at your industry, competition, and geography. All of these things need to be defined in your retail business plan in order for investors to have a full picture of what your particular brand is and how it fits into the overall retail puzzle.

  • Target market and customer analysis: You’ve probably heard business owners say they want to target anyone interested in their brand. However, defining your target market makes it much easier for you to see who your audience is and how to best market your company to that audience. When researching and analyzing your target market and customer base, it’s important to figure out the characteristics of your ideal customer. From there, dig deeper to determine your ideal customer’s age, location, gender, income and education levels, marital status, and more.
  • Industry analysis and industry segment: An industry analysis is a qualitative and quantitative assessment of your retail market. It looks at upcoming trends in retail, what’s selling and what’s not, and more. Once you know the state of the overall industry, break it down a bit further. What trends are you seeing for specific products and categories?
  • Competitor analysis: You need to take a deep look at how your competitors fit into the puzzle. When analyzing your retail market and location, research which of your competitors has the biggest market share, how close competitor retailers are to your location, and what advantages your brand has over the competition.
  • SWOT analysis: The last thing to check out is your SWOT analysis, which looks at strengths, weaknesses, opportunities your brand can capitalize on, and threats from tough competition. When you add SWOT to your retail business plan, you can identify and focus on your strengths so you can minimize weakness and stand out from your competition.

Explain your products

This is where the fun begins. Everyone, especially investors, wants to know exactly what they can buy at your store. In your retail business plan, you want to be as detailed as possible about the items you’ll be selling.

If it’s clothes, include whether there will be tops, pants, and/or shoes. Will customers be able to purchase accessories there? What sizes will you carry? What about plus sizes? Here is where you want to show your vision for your retail shop and feed the imagination with vivid descriptions of what your products will look and feel like.

Additionally, you should include information about your supplier and any contracts you need to have with suppliers to keep your shelves full. Will your items be made overseas or in the U.S.? How will you manage inventory? What will happen to the items you don’t sell? You should also detail your pricing strategy: how much will items cost? Will there be regular sales? How much will your sales be?

Address operational needs

Thinking about how to run your business is an important aspect when first starting out. Therefore, it’s important to assess various retail operations and determine a custom strategy for your business.

  • Supply chain: This is part of inventory management. Making sure that your supply chain runs smoothly is the best way to ensure profits. Include how you’ll control and oversee ordering inventory, store that inventory, and control the amount of product for sale. This helps to ensure you never run out of product or overpay for it.
  • Merchandising: You need a merchandising plan to show how you’ll plan, buy, and sell your products to maximize your return on investment while meeting market demands.
  • Technology: How will you complete transactions? One way to streamline everything from sales and inventory to orders and customer directory is through Square for Retail. Square for Retail allows you to keep track of every aspect of your business in a way that helps optimize business profitability.

Create an organizational structure

If you’re going to run a successful business, investors will want to know its legal structure. Will you operate as a sole proprietor, general partnership, limited partnership, LLC, or corporation? Choosing a business entity determines how you file state and federal taxes each year, which affects your earnings and profits.

Additionally, you need to include how many team members your retail shop employs. Who will serve on the management team? Who will work under the managers? How will this play into the overall structure of your company?

When you’re thinking about your team, technology such as Square for Retail can help make life much easier. You can integrate your POS system to centralize payments and sync calendars. You’ll have a centralized place with customer information, in case you want to market promotions or sales directly to them via email.

Assess marketing

Here is where we start getting into the nitty gritty of your retail marketing strategy. You want to include a positioning statement, which explains how you want the outside world to perceive your brand. For your positioning statement, write a description of how your retail shop differs from others, how customers will enjoy your brand differently than that of competitors, the category in which your brand competes, and any compelling reasons why your target audience should have confidence in your claims.

Additionally, you want to include which channels you’ll use to open your business and which channels you’ll continue to use to promote your business. This can include digital channels such as a website, social media platforms, and rewards and loyalty programs.

Provide a financial plan

Your financial plan helps investors understand how your business will make money to achieve its strategic goals and objectives. For your retail shop, you need to conduct a financial analysis and analyze your startup costs, funding options, break-even point, and projected profit and loss. Using these plus a cash flow analysis benefits your financial plan, as well.

When analyzing your startup costs, you should look at everything it takes to run your business. That includes everything from the products you sell in your store to the technology you use to build and maintain your store’s website and point of sale. Investors need to know how much money your retail store will cost up front, and how long it will take for them to see a return on their investment.

Another important area to look at is your break-even analysis. Investors will want to see this breakdown. Essentially, the break-even analysis is a look at how much revenue you need to justify how much you’re spending.

Running a business is no easy feat, but Square is here to help. We have all the tools you need to start, run, and grow your business, whether you’re selling in person, online, or both. And we’ve made all our tools to work together as one system, saving you time and money — and making decisions easier. So you can get back to doing the work you love and focusing on whatever’s next. See how Square works.

By Tiffany Walden

Tiffany Walden is a contributor at Square where she covers everything from the importance of mentorship for minority entrepreneurs to how business owners can use technology to combat challenges within their respective industries.

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Tired of Waiting for Customer Responses? Start Text Messaging to Get Ahold of Anyone, Anywhere in Real Time.

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The world is full of spam. Don’t let your business’s message be part of it.

We live in a world full of spam.  Everywhere we go, brands are tracking and following us. Hence, we as consumers have become adept at ignoring ads, content and emails.

And, whether the outreach we receive comes in through emails, cold calls or other unsolicited communication channels from a business, our experience is one of a pervasive itch; and we find that the more we ignore that itch, the more the annoyance eases.

While customers and prospects are growing ever more irritated — and more adept at avoiding unwanted contact — the entrepreneurs on the other side of the communication channel are struggling to rise above the noise and be heard.

Are you one of those entrepreneurs struggling to reach your customers? Here’s what to do.

There is a better way. Start text messaging.

By using text-messaging software, your business and your team can more easily engage in real-time human-to-human conversations and reduce the spammy, sales-pitchy jargon that customers are all too familiar with.

With 98 percent read rates and 40 percent response rates, according to MarketingProfs data, text messaging is increasingly how consumers prefer to communicate.

Today, 89 percent of people always have their smartphone within reach, and more than 5 billion people around the world are connected to a mobile device. It’s no wonder, then, that text messaging is becoming the way businesses new and old are getting real engagement with customers.

Here are some best practices businesses should follow when text messaging customers to avoid being ignored or blocked:

Be careful about your initial text message engagement.

Considering that “outreach overload” is already prevalent, businesses certainly do not want customers’ text message inboxes filling up, either.

Texts are typically personal — they’re where communication with friends, family and co-workers intimately take place. To avoid spamming people, make sure first that a connection with a customer or prospect is established. Perhaps this person stopped by a booth at an industry conference, connected with you on social media or met you at a networking event. Whatever it was, make sure that the initial connection is there before you blast messages to a list procured from a database.

Build an authentic connection.

Business is all about relationships, and especially for emerging businesses, relationships are key to building strong relationships quickly and early.

In the same way that personal relationships need to be nurtured, customers need individualized time and attention to connect with a business. Teams reaching out to customers should take the time to get to know the individual — his or her preferences, desires, goals and interests — before asking for anything (“Buy this,” “Download that,” etc.).

This way, calls to action can be personalized — instead of sounding like they’re coming from a robot or automated system. Text messaging is a great way to build up this authenticity, as it reaches customers where they are (on their smartphones) and allows them to respond on their own terms.

Respond in real time.

We now live in an  on-demand economy. Customers expect everything instantly, and via smartphone. Hailing a ride, ordering food or depositing checks are just a few of the countless ways consumers are getting used to their needs being met right away.

However, considering that just about anyone with a smartphone is using it not only to communicate but as an instant gratification device, it makes sense that text messaging is becoming a key way to reach just about any target market.

Just as businesses need to make their products and services available in real time, they also need to respond to requests, questions and feedback in the same way. Text messaging is a great way to achieve this since most consumers have their smartphones at their fingertips at any given moment.

Provide value.

Every interaction with a customer should be focused on delivering value. A business serves to help customers in all that they do, whether that be connecting them to a viable job opportunity, getting in touch with remote healthcare providers quickly or making sure lenders and lessees can communicate on contracts efficiently.

Bottom line: The more value that’s provided throughout the communication lifecycle, the more likely a prospect is to stay on the hook, build trust and become not just a customer, but an advocate. Again, text messaging is a great way to send touch points, but will only be effective if value is delivered. Too many “asks” run the risk of deterring a customer for good.

Text messaging is transforming the way business is done. From ignored, spammy messages to personalized, authentic conversations with a real human, text messaging is making it easier than ever for businesses to enable their teams to engage with their target market.

In a world where customers expect value, connection and on-demand everything, text messaging is the way to satisfy these expectations. It may be the best channel for you, too.

Feature Image Credit: FG Trade | Getty Images 

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These 7 steps will launch your business for good

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By Marjan De Jong, 

Do you recognise these moments, that your mind is drifting away, and you think about all the things that you could do to make this world a better place?

  • If only you had the perfect idea…..
  • If only you had more time…..
  • If only you knew how to move it forward…..

Stop beating around the bush. If you want to change the world, start a business! 

Does this sound terrifying? Is this way out of your comfort zone? Are you not the stereotype entrepreneur?

Good! Because this world does not need more stereotype entrepreneurs! This world needs fresh insights from people outside the business, with innovative, groundbreaking ideas. People with the heart in the right place who really want to make an impact and are willing to go the extra mile.

This article will show you which 7 steps you have to take to launch your business for good.

Step 1: self reflection

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” –  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Before you start chasing wild ideas, start with 10 minutes of self reflection:

  • Think of three moments in your life that you were most happy. When was it and why?
  • What are you really good at?
  • Ask your friends, spouse, family, colleagues what you are good at.
  • What do you enjoy doing the most?
  • If you look at your life now, what would you like to eliminate right away?
  • What would happen if you would fill this space with something that would give you a purpose and would make you really happy.

Write down a list of things this could be. Make it a long list with at least 10 things but preferably 25 things you are reasonably good at and that would make you happy. From teaching, to coaching, to cooking, to surfing, to helping neighbours.

Do not limit yourself to ideas that need to bring in money or that someone needs. Start with yourself as the center piece. The rest will follow.

Step 2: what the world needs

“If you want to change the world, start a business” – Willemijn Verloop

Which problems in the world do you care about?

Write down a list of causes, worries, problems or interests that you connect with. It can be anything: the local community center, rare bird species, illiteracy and the well being of children. Make it a long list with at least 10 things but preferably 25 things you care about.

Now bring both lists together. Where do they match?

Helping neighbours links to the community center.

Can you link teaching to rare bird species?

Or link multiple things together: Cooking for neighbours at the community center, teaching children to read, write, cook, and surf. Or teaching people to stop running and connect again with themselves and their environment. To look around, watch the birds, go surfing and cook together. At this stage anything is possible.

Step 3: define what you can be paid for

“Be clear about the purpose of money. Money is like health.  It is necessary for survival but it is not what you live for.”  – Ernie J Zelinski

Take the connected ideas from step one and two and think how you can be paid for these services. And who will be paying for it.

Are people willing to pay for a day or a program that helps them to stop running and connect again with themselves and their environment?

Who is paying the teachers that teach kids how to read, write, surf and cook? Can you do this is a regular school? Do you want to set up your own school? Or can you offer this in the form of training modules?

For the cooking for neighbours idea, who will pay for it? Can you get subsidy from the government? Can you ask the people who can afford it, to pay for the people with less income?

There are many possibilities. Some with the potential of a successful business, some with the potential to create massive impact. It is up to you what you value most:

  • Are you looking for a purpose and for fulfilment in your life?
  • Do you want to find this in your work?
  • Do you want make a good living out of it?

You don’t have to answer these questions with a yes. You can be perfectly happy being a volunteer at the local community center and cook for the neighbours. But you can also decide to take it to the next level and partner up with an NGO that is doing this throughout the country and can help you scale your efforts. If your goal is to make a good living out of it, then you have to look for ideas with more commercial possibilities. It is your choice.

Step 4: chose you business model for good

“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.” ― Steve Jobs

There are lots of business models for good, but most are not widely known. I cover two examples that fit the ideas mentioned above.

Social franchising

If you decide to cook for the community each week, find funding and grow your community service, then also look into the possibility of social franchising. If you have developed a great formula yourself and you want to grow your service to other communities you can scale your idea by means of social franchising. Social franchising looks a lot like regular franchising but the goal is not to increase revenue, but to scale your impact.

On the other hand, if you have just started cooking at the community center, you can also decide to become a franchisee and partner up with an origination that already has a proven track record of raising funds, has deals with supermarkets to pick up left over food and has a professional training program for volunteers. This would really help you to set up a professional and smooth organization with impact in no time.

One for one

One for one is widely used. TOMS was one of the first to start with this concept. If you buy a pair of TOMS shoes, TOMS gives one pair to a child in need of shoes. Over the years they have developed this further, involving local shoe manufactures and adding eye care. If you buy one pair of glasses, TOMS helps restore sight to a person in need. They are now developing their business model further to one purchase one purpose. For every purchase you do, you support a local charity of your choice.

Another example of one for one is Pampers, who partnered with UNICEF in 2006 to eliminate tetanus. Anyone can get tetanus, but the disease is particularly common and serious in newborn babies and pregnant women. For every Pampers diaper or wipe product with a “One-Pack = One Vaccine” sticker Pampers provided UNICEF with funding for one life-saving tetanus vaccine to protect a mother and her newborn in the developing world.

The one for one model can also be applied to the example in this article. If you would for example sell surf trainings to kids, you could think of sponsoring the education of one child in a developing country for one month.

Step 5: check out your target market

“If you want to create messages that resonate with your audience, you need to know what they care about.” – Nate Elliott

The first four steps have given you multiple business ideas. For each of these ideas we will now look into the target market. Who will buy your product or service? Who is willing to pay for it? What are the characteristics of these people?

Depending on your money goal, this step will most likely eliminate some of your business ideas. Go out and ask around what people think of your idea and how much they are willing to pay for it. Even better. Start testing it. The surf idea can be easily tested. Are the surfing lessons you offer just as good or better than the competition? If this is the case, your one for one model might work. If your surf lessons are not as good as the competition, then it will not work out. Quality comes first, doing good comes after.

If you have found the perfect business idea that fits your personal work, life and money goals, then you dive deeper in this one idea.

Step 6: create your story

“Nobody likes to be sold to, but everyone loves a good story.” – Dave Kerpen

The first thing you do, is write your story.

Why did you start this business? Who are you doing this for? Why are you so attached to this cause?

The good thing about a business for good is that you do not have to make up a story. You write down your personal story in such a way that people will be attracted to it. People have to recognise themselves in your story. Connect on an emotional level. Explain how it made you feel. Explain the surroundings. Drag your audience into your story. If they care about the same cause, they will instantly feel a connection.

Next you share your story.

Go back to everything you know about your target market. Where do they hang out? Where can you share your story with them?

Social media gives many opportunities nowadays, but this can also give you the impressions you have to be everywhere. Select a few channels where you can reach your target market. Quality first, quantity second. It is for example better to be really visible on one channel every day, then on lots of channels only a once a month.

Look beyond social media channels. Social media channels are not your own. If Facebook decides to change their algorithm, you might reach way less people. This happened already and will most likely only get worse. So also build our own channels. Build for example an e-mail list and send your audience a weekly newsletter. Again quality first. If a weekly newsletter is not doable, start with a monthly newsletter. The more often you do it, the easier it will become.

Step 7: fail fast

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.” – Richard Branson

The last step is to get going! Just start. Try out the things that you think might work, based on the insights you gained from your target market. Check the statistics. You may have a lot of likes, but if no one buys your product, you are not there yet. Find our where the problem lies and try again. Keep trying. Do not give up.You can change anything. If it does not work, go back to your initial idea and see what needs to be fixed. Use the feedback and use all the new insights to take the next step. Building a business is not easy, but imagine how you will feel when you nail it and you are making massive impact and a great living.

Are you ready to start?

I have created a free checklist for you to start a successful business with impact. If you tick off all the boxes, you have laid the perfect foundation for your business for good.

 

By Marjan De Jong, 

Sourced from Thrive Global

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Five tips on how to identify a marketing ‘insight’

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Sourced from mu media update

In marketing and business, good insights are like Fabergé eggs — rare, fascinating and, in many ways, mythical, says Claire Denham-Dyson, head anthropologist at Demographica.

The strongest strategy does not evolve without a powerful insight to lead it, and robust research backing it up. Anthropologists in B2B marketing spend hours with decision-makers in the B2B world, speaking to them about their worlds. They also observe their workplaces, how they engage with products and the social dynamics between the client (sales) and their client (the ‘buyer’).

While today there is material that explains what an insight is, very little of it explains how you get to one, or just how daunting the task can be.

As anthropology is a descriptive human science that uses detail and subjectivity to understand people, culture or dynamics, anthropologists are in a great position to illuminate the world of the target market. However, even the greatest researcher can be useless if they cannot distill their work and leverage all this information.

Here are five tips on how to identify an ‘insight’:

1. Be aware

There are many types of insights. There are psychological insights that reference what people are feeling on an unspoken but emotional or psychological level. There are also cultural insights that dictate why certain rituals, practices or social norms have come to have power. And finally, there are behavioral insights that provide a compelling understanding of why and how people do the things they do.

This list is not exhaustive, nor are the types/kinds of insights closed — as most of the human world, they are messy and can overlap or reference more than one aspect of human existence. Remember that what you came to find will greatly influence how you perceive what you find.

2. Immerse yourself

You need to spend time in field. You need to speak to people, ask difficult questions and shadow them. You need to be a stalker, an empath and incredibly curious and detail-oriented.

The discipline of anthropology teaches you to deeply immerse yourself in the world of the target market — this means using all your senses (all 21 of them) to become present. Document everything.

3. Make sense of the data

After the many hours immersed in your target’s world, collecting ‘thick/rich’ data and compiling archives of transcriptions, photos and maps, you can begin to ‘sensemake’ the data.

Sensemaking is a fancy term for trying to understand the way the world works for the consumer. This means a second immersion — but this time, you deep dive into your data.

In this second immersion, you should identify fragments of knowledge, critical moments, meaningful observations and times when you felt confused or emotional. Your subjectivity is part of the sensemaking process, and digging deeper into why both your target market (and you) felt or acted the way you did.

4. Start your insight beating

The word ‘beating’ is used because identifying an insight is a process of pain, growth and discomfort. This part requires an ability to locate contradictory or compelling tensions.

It involves long working sessions of picking up and dropping ideas until you feel yourself seeing the bigger picture. Often, you know you have an insight when you literally feel it.

Insight is just a new perspective, and there is a feeling that accompanies this new realisation. You should feel the ‘a-ha’ — that tiny surge of positivity or optimism in your body that clicks the argument into place.

5. Land it

Once you finally have the insight, you can backtrack and build the stories that got you to it. This involves using evidence (quotes, images, stories or observations) to lay out the landscape and set up the tension through contradictory or deepening information that describes and isolates the problem.

This should set you up to reveal the insight. The insight should solve the tension. It should explain what people are feeling or being motivated by on a very deep level. It also should provide a fresh, informed and vigorous angle on the problem.

At this point, you have shared knowledge. You have taken a lot of information, unpacked and challenged it, and then you have synthesised it in such a way that has a purpose.

Whatever industry you work in, being insightful is as valuable as having experience. If you can be comfortable in the diversity of experiences people have, you will be well-poised to shape and locate insights. Within our vast continent, there are a wealth of insights waiting to be uncovered and leveraged in meaningful ways.

With a strong insight, a campaign can go from being a communication effort to a truly reciprocal experience for both the buyer and the brand. Brands evolve when they truly understand their market.

Equipped with a good insight, you can help your client solve a real problem that often has nothing to do with the product, but everything to do with the buyer’s world. Unsurprisingly, highly connected buyers are the most valuable ones.

For more information, visit www.demographica.co.za. You can also follow Demographica on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.

Feature Image Credit: Vecteezy

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