3 Foundational Marketing Strategies for New Businesses

3 Foundational Marketing Strategies for New Businesses

A new business takes a lot of work, from business conception, planning, and development of structure to filing the necessary paperwork. But due diligence isn’t enough in today’s marketplace. Entrepreneurs must be savvy when developing a marketing strategy for new businesses. Red Crow Marketing has the tools to help new businesses market themselves to ensure their marketing reaches the right people at the right time and starts generating revenue at the earliest stage.

Hailbooks, an account management company for hail damage service companies, went through the branding and company launch process with Red Crow Marketing and is an example of the foundation for a properly implemented marketing strategy.

The following three marketing strategies for new business were used by our example, Hailbooks, and lay the foundation for marketing your new business: branding, an online presence, and communication.

1. Branding Your New Business

Begin your Marketing Strategy – Start with a Name

The right name can make your business the talk of the town. A wrong one can alienate business and doom it to failure. Your business name is the foundation for the brand you’re developing. It communicates to customers about what you offer and makes a first impression. Choose four or five names that are memorable and expressive or enlist the services of a marketing firm to help you strategically choose a meaningful, unique name for your business.

When Jeff Jones began concepting for his business, Hailbooks, he considered what he wanted to communicate – the solution his product offered. “Halibooks” included both elements – his business service and the solution it offers.

Due Diligence – Again

Most words have already been used as a business name, and if your chosen name is trademarked, it could carry a high cost for your business. Check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s database to see if a similar name is already trademarked. If you already have a name in mind for your business, do a domain name search to see if the domain name is available. From there, you can either start fresh or adjust your naming strategy to fit.

Collateral

Your business collateral – from logo to brochures and business cards – should reflect your brand in a quality, memorable way. Your brand collateral is the voice that reflects your brand and should be consistent across all written communication materials – online and off. One way to ensure consistency is to develop a stylesheet and templates for your business.

In order to tie the imagery of Hailbooks together with the brand, Red Crow Marketing worked with Jeff to develop a logo to reflect the service and product and brand colors that uses the psychology of color in his marketing strategy and branding. The result: Red and gray to reflect immediacy and stability and a cloud with hail along with the brand name to showcase the service and product.

2. Getting Found by Potential Customers

Your Website is the Hub

The website for new businesses should attract and convert customers, give value to those who visit, and be easily accessible. With a limited start-up budget and multitudes of do-it-yourself options from WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) subscription interfaces to free web domains (WordPress, Wix, Weebly, etc.), it can be tempting to throw a site together without a thought out marketing strategy. However, a website should be the hub of all your communications and work as a marketing tool for you. It should be strategically developed – the domain name, calls-to-actions that drive results, accessibility from any device, easily adjustable, regular content, branding – all of these things and more must be taken into consideration when developing a site that works for you.

Hailbooks was developed as a one-page design and content management system (CMS) that can be easily updated and added to as the brand grows. Large buttons direct the customer to take action – login, download the app, etc.

3. Communicate with Your Customers

Email Marketing & Blog

Past, present, and potential customers need to receive regular communications from you via newsletters, news updates, and blogs. Email marketing is easily one of the top communication channels and allows you to drive targeted traffic to your website while marketing your services and establishing your expertise. With a CMS website, you can easily make changes and additions, update content for optimized searchability, and share links via social media and emails.

Develop Your Marketing Strategy with Red Crow Marketing

These three key marketing strategies are imperative to properly launch and brand your new business, but marketing never sleeps. The next step in your business plan is to develop a comprehensive marketing plan that includes information about your competition, campaign development, and budgets. We can help with all aspects of new business marketing. Fill out our form for a free consultation or more information about our marketing services.