A marketing checklist for business start-ups

Illustration of to-do list

Making the leap into establishing your own business can be a daunting prospect, but one that many business owners will tell you is worth it in the long run.

The key to success for any start-up is ensuring that your business’ vital functions are implemented effectively at the outset, this includes any back-office support (i.e. telephone answering, credit control, payroll, etc.), as well as a strong marketing strategy to get your start-up seen.

So how can you ensure that your marketing is on the right track? Take a look through our marketing checklist for start-ups, which supports businesses in getting noticed within their industry by their target audience:

Branding

Of course, at the outset of any start-up you will need to decide on a business name and logo – this is the start of your business’ branding journey. Your logo should be easy to read, relevant and eye-catching. From this, you can then begin to form your business’ branding to be used throughout your marketing efforts. Branding considerations should include font, colour palette and image style.

Website

Your website will often be a prospective customer’s first impression of your business and therefore it needs to be fit for purpose, easy to navigate, in line with your branding and clear on your product or service. In addition to this, it’s vital that you make it as easy as possible for prospective customers to get in touch with you – virtual chats, contact forms and clear phone numbers will increase the number of leads you receive through your site.

SEO

With more and more people searching for suppliers and service providers via search engines, carrying out SEO work, both on and off your website, will dramatically increase where you rank in these searches and ultimately make your company more visible to those seeking your services.

Content

Great content plays a key role in your website’s optimisation, but also in engaging your target audience. Quality not quantity is the ideal way to structure your content strategy, ensuring that whether it’s a video, article or infographic that you share, it adds real value your audience. Take a look at our recent article on how to start a business blog.

Social media

With an established target audience and a strong content strategy in place, promoting your business and sharing relevant content on social media platforms is a cost-effective way to reach a wider audience. To give your social media efforts that initial boost, it may also be a great idea to invest in advertising.

Reporting

Effective marketing requires a fairly substantial time investment, so knowing what works and what doesn’t will ensure that you use this time wisely for the biggest return on investment. Both Google and social platforms provide a comprehensive set of analytics tools for you to analyse your progress and, even better, they’re free to use. We highly recommend you take advantage of the information they can provide.

With a world of opportunity out there for start-ups, we hope our marketing checklist can help you to get the business off to the best possible start. For further tips and guides, take a look through our blog page.