Marketing is part of every business plan. Effective marketing brings your business and its products to the attention of new and existing customers, and convinces them that they need what you're selling. A great deal of time and money are spent marketing the typical business (there are free marketing techniques, but these tend to be even more time-intensive).
If you don't have time and money with which to market your business, you may not have a business for long. Potential customers need to know you exist, and existing customers often need to be reminded. If there's not a compelling reason for people to buy your products, they won't. And your marketing plan is the vehicle by which you compel them.

Formulating a Marketing Plan

Your marketing plan should map out how you will market your business in the coming year. You can include longer-term plans, but conditions change so rapidly for many businesses today that even three years from now, your current plan may not work at all.

The center of your marketing plan is your USP, or unique selling proposition. Businesses need to know the set of factors that makes them different from each of their competitors, anything from exceptional customer service to a superior product. Once you have defined your USP, it will form the content for your marketing efforts.

Deciding How to Market

There are an almost limitless number of marketing techniques businesses can use. The main categories are direct marketing (mailings), print marketing (print ads), broadcast marketing (television and radio commercials), email marketing, and digital marketing (website and social media marketing). Video marketing is also gaining momentum.

The best way to market a business is to choose from several categories. Consumers have more ways than ever to access your marketing messages, and often need to hear repeated messages before making a buying decision. Concentrating solely on print or online marketing will limit your potential customer base, and a multi-faceted marketing campaign also lends more credibility to your business. 

There is great potential in newer online marketing techniques such as pay-per-click marketing on websites and social media sites as well as content marketing so don't overlook these venues without doing some research into their effectiveness. They are often less costly than more traditional methods as well, and can be tried inexpensively to see if they will bring results for your business.

When Not to Spend Money on Marketing

Occasionally, it will not be warranted to spend a merchant cash advance on marketing. If you have marketing skills and have significant time to spend on marketing, using free marketing methods like word of mouth, cold calling, lead generation and social media marketing can get your business results without cash expenditure. Just remember that time is money, so if you're spending your time marketing, you won't be able to do anything else that may need doing.

It's also possible that you have more pressing needs than marketing; for instance, you have more customers than you know what to do with, but don't have space for the volume of inventory they are clamoring to buy. In this case, you may want to spend money to expand your space first before you market further. Instances where marketing isn't needed are rare, however, and marketing is usually a constant need in order to keep the business going.

Commitment is Key

Once you have decided that marketing is key to your business's success, you need to figure out how to fund an effective marketing campaign. Quikstone Capital Solutions provides merchant cash advances to give you access to a lump sum of cash to invest in your marketing campaign. By the time the advance is repaid in small daily increments, your sales and profits will be on the rise. Apply now to get your business growing.