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Feasibility Analysis, Part Three
The research has been done and your head is aching from building an
organizational chart and bare bones financial model of your first
year in business. Now what? Now you plan how to market your start-up
to your customers, the fifth and final step of a feasibility
analysis. Those demographics you researched earlier are going to
become tremendously useful in this step. Further, the costs of
marketing should be factored into your financial planning in step
four. In this step though, the focus is on how to market.
No piece on marketing is complete without describing the
advertising/marketing mediums first. The first and perhaps most
important promoter is simple word of mouth. The easiest way to win
good press in this aspect is to please your customers. While it can
make for a hard-to-ignore testimonial, word of mouth can also be
turned against a business. A single disappointed customer will
generally talk to more people about their disappointment rather than
any good experience they had. Unfortunately, there's no way to
control word-of-mouth marketing save for impersonating (or having
someone else impersonate) an ordinary customer and painting a
positive picture of your business.
The first marketing medium you have any control over is the medium
of print. In the modern world, newspapers and magazines are the most
effective places to advertise, and local publications can also be a
bargain for small business owners on a budget, though it's
questionable how effective such advertising is in the age of
electronic media and split-second attention spans. Still, writing
the printed word off entirely is a mistake, as it's definitely worth
at least some consideration. Industry, hobby, and other special
interest publications are a great way to reach a demographic group
you've determined to be potential customers, and are often offered
at a lower price than more wide-ranging publications. However, not
all businesses will be able to effectively advertise in all
publications, so consider the nature of your business before placing
any ads.
Electronic mediums, such as radio and television, are a tricky
affair. Though they can be effective, they're also painfully
commonplace, meaning that you'll need something that grabs an
audience's attention very effectively if you want to get anything
for your advertising dollar. It will be a significant investment on
your part to get a radio advertising spot, and television even more
so. An effective commercial will be expensive, so make sure you do
it right, no matter what media you choose to use. Professional help
in making commercials will go a long way, unless you yourself are a
professional. It need not be top-notch professionals, but some basic
information will at least distinguish you from every other
poorly-made local business commercial.
Direct mail, wherein a business mails printed advertisements to
people directly, is another solid advertising medium. It can work
wonders for small businesses catering to a local area, but it's also
a scattershot approach, in that the advertising is being thrown
around all over an area, with no certainty that it will strike a
cord with even a single customer. As with electronic mediums, you'll
need to be clever about distinguishing your business' mail with the
rest of the junk mail your intended audience gets on a daily basis.
Other than sinking more money into advertising than it earns back,
the other major mistake of marketing is allowing your business to
become over-exposed, so be careful how much you advertise.
Additionally, if you're clever about it, you can even get yourself
some free advertising. Once you've finished planning your marketing
and factoring it in to your financial planning, then you should have
a pretty clear idea of whether or not your business has a chance of
succeeding. If things look rosy for your business, then you're on
the right track. If they look grim, remember that your plan can be
changed to adapt, and that the right ideas can turn any business
into a success.
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