Chapt 5 Starting a Business in Michigan Defining Your Brand: Business Identity

What Defines Your Brand?

• Successful businesses design their brands carefully and thoughtfully

• Branding involves crafting the identity, messaging, and overall ethos of a business

• Branding and marketing are related but different processes

• Branding is deciding the story a company wants to tell, visually and verbally

• Marketing involves telling that story to consumers in a compelling way

• Visual elements include logos, color schemes, and particular ads

• For local businesses, customers may associate a brand with a particular person or group

• Even deliberate and effective marketing and branding cannot completely define a brand

• A negative customer experience can become part of a brand, despite marketing efforts

• It's difficult to market a business without a strong sense of its brand

• Understanding the special aspects of a business and its products/ story is key to communication

• Questions to define a brand:

  • Why does the business exist?
  • What is the business' story and how does it relate personally?
  • What problems can the products/services solve for customers?
  • Why choose this business over competitors?
  • What other brands are admired?
  • What should people think when they hear the business’ name?

• Visual elements like logos, color schemes, and headlines play a role in how consumers perceive brands

• A business should have a logo

• Consistency in the look and voice of marketing communications is important

Setting a Marketing Budget

• A Business requires a marketing budget to succeed

• Small businesses with revenues under $5 million should allocate 7-8% of annual revenue to marketing

• Retail stores may need as much as 20%

• A marketing budget determines whether a professional marketer or agency can be hired

• A marketing partner can create and execute a thorough plan

• It's important marketing partners provide clear communication, billing, and reporting

• It's important to know what is being paid for and the results from marketing investments

• Marketing is still possible without hiring an agency or professional through effort and time

Judging the Success of Marketing Strategies

• It's important to track marketing results and ensure a clear return on investment (ROI)

• Key performance indicators (KPIs) should be established to decide if marketing efforts are succeeding

• A Marketing tactics still take time to develop strong marketing messages and determining how to reach customers

• Marketing tactics that consistently fail to deliver returns may need to be discarded, even after adjustments

• Just because a marketing tactic worked in the past doesn't guarantee future success

• It's important to continuously evaluate strategies based on KPIs and adjust/discard them as needed

Creating a Marketing Plan

• It's important to have an effective marketing and communication strategy

• The strategy should begin during the initial business planning and be continuously refined

• Creating a marketing plan includes:

  • Assessing the company's current situation
  • Identifying the target audience
  • Defining marketing goals
  • Researching and selecting tactics

Assess Your Company’s Current Situation

• The first part of marketing plan should define the business and its product/services

• The plan should explain how it separates from the competition.

• A tool used by marketers to analyze a company's current situation is a SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

• Strengths

  • How are the company's products/services different from and better than competitors?
  • Why is the business in a better position to succeed?

• Weaknesses

  • What the company's competitors do better
  • What advantages do competitors have?

• Opportunities

  • What opportunities did the business create to capitalize on?
  • Is the market expanding, or is there an unmet need?

• Threats

  • Factors that could cause the business to fail
  • Factors can be internal, such as organizational issues, or external, such as economic downturn or reduced prices from competitors

• It is important to be honest when identifying weaknesses and threats, overcome them

Tips for Identifying Competitors

• Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are important as they relate to competitors

• All businesses has competitors despite the uniqueness of their products/services

• Direct and indirect competitors should be identified for SWOT analysis

  • Example: Direct competitors for a warehouse guard service are other guard services in the area
  • Example: Indirect competitors would be electronic alarm systems as an alternative to human guards

• Objectively evaluate the company against competitors by filling out a table

• Rate the company and top two competitors on a 1-5 scale (5= strong, 1=weak) in areas like quality, price, and customer service

Tips for Identifying Your Company’s Unique Value Proposition

• A Unique value proposition is also known as a "unique selling proposition."

• Describes what the company offers, how it solves needs, and how it differs from competitors

• Identifying the unique value proposition is part of assessing the company’s strengths

• Advertising unique value proposition is the most important for communication in marketing

• When SWOT and a snapshot of the company's current situation are completed, the marketing plan will have a strong foundation

• The company’s advantages/opportunities will be known, and how they will overcome possible challenges

Identify Your Target Audience

• Next, one must identify the ideal customer or the type of person/company most likely to buy

• Be realistic when thinking about the ideal customer

• It's important to identify the “target audience.”

• The target audience may differ from the end user

  • Example: a toy seller will be targeting parents because that is who is purchasing their goods

• Characteristics to define the target audience vary based on B2C versus B2B sales

• B2C characteristics: geographic location, age, gender, marital status, family size, education, income, occupation, hobbies, buying frequency, and attitudes toward our product and competitor products

• B2B Characteristics: Geographic Location, Industry (NAICS or SIC Code), Size (number Of Employees Or Annual Sales), Length Of Time In Business, Type Of Products Or Services They Provide, Whether They Import Or Export Products, Buying Process, Decision-Makers, Level Of Need For Your Product, Degree Of Loyalty To Vendors, Buying Frequency

• Data gathered during market research can assemble information about the company's target audience

• Talking with current customers or clients is a way to get additional information about the target audience

Targeting Your Marketing With Audience Segments

• Many businesses have more than one type of likely customer

• To represent different customers, you can break target audiences into segments

• Group prospective customers into categories for relevant marketing

• Marketing messages need to connect to that categories specific characteristics

• Example: targeting children as a segment in the market for toys is different, so the marketing strategies should differ

• Documenting audience segments in a one-paragraph “persona” is a good tool

• This persona can help keep people on track, relate to them, and remember them

• Customers have established patterns, so a good enough reason to convert them is a necessity to make them a customer

• The audience may include existing customers who should not be taken for granted

• loyalty programs, rewards, and discounts can help retain existing customer base for growth

Define Your Marketing Goals

• A good marketing plan defines specific, measurable goals tied to sales, and profitability

• Goals answers what what the company hope to accomplish in time or money

• SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound

• Specific

  • Non-Specific Example: Raise Money
  • Specific Example: Raise $10,000 by September 1

• Measurable

  • Non-Measurable Example: Customer Satisfaction
  • Measurable Example: Improve responses on customer service by 25%

• Attainable

  • Unattainable Example: Make $100,000 in a month
  • Attainable Example: Increase revenue by 10%

• Relevant

  • Irrelevant Example: Improve the company image
  • Relevant Example: Increase sales among one segment by 30%

• Time-Bound

  • Non-Time-Bound Example: Increase revenue to $150,000
  • Time-Bound Example: Increase quarterly revenue to $37,500 over the four quarters of next year

• Tie Goals to key performance indicators (KPIs) which are measurements communicating health

• KPIs include revenue, growth rate, number of leads, cost per lead/customer

• Goals are the destination, KPIs are the signs telling if you're headed the right way

Research and Select Your Tactics

• Need to find ways to reach the target audience

• Developing strategies incorporates your goals, builds on your strengths, and embraces unique competitive advantages

• The blend of strategies a business uses is a “marketing mix.”

• The best marketing mix depends on the business and target audience; experimentation is important

• How the customer typical buys or consumes information informs how to spend marketing funds

• Examples of common marketing tactics:

  • Billboard and poster ads
  • Television and radio advertisements
  • Print media ads (newspapers, magazines)
  • Newsletters and direct mail
  • Brochures, letterheads and business cards
  • Promotional events
  • Direct sales (telephone, door-to-door, etc.) Online advertising, including:
    • Website
    • Social media
    • Email advertisements
    • Video ads
    • Display advertisements on other websites
    • Ads in search engines like Google and Bing

• Every tactic has upsides and downsides

• A single ad to reaches many people has a high up front cost (e.g. billboards and television ads)

• Ads that target a lot of people run the risk of showing to uninterested or inelligible individuals

• Plan tactics to preform like sales, mail, website buidling

• Other tactics require a buyer or agent, like media advertising

• There is not a "right" tactics, only what makes sense for the business and target audience versus budget

Developing Your Message

• After a documented marketing plan is in place, it's time to create marketing assets

• Inexperienced marketers think getting attention is the most important factor for an advertisement

• The most important criteria is if the advertisement get more clients and helps growth

• Advertising or Marketing that gets attention but doesn’t lead customers over competitors, then it isn't doing anything for businesses

• Effective marketing messages include:

  • A clear, concise and memorable headline
  • A value proposition for customers' needs
  • An explanation of now, like a discount or improving lives
  • A clear call to action by the customer

• Images help covey the point of advertisement that are pleasing and fit the scale

Choosing Your Marketing Mix

• Important to know who the target audience is to make a good marketing mix

• The purpose of the marketing nix is to find potential customers

• The goal is to deliver marketing messages that will engage and promote energy to become customers.

• Where the process happens and who is doing it will depend on how the target audience responds

• Advertising messages that the target audience responds to?

• Media that they engage with?

• Where can product information be found by target audience?

• How do they make purchase decisions?

• How long until they are persuaded to make a purchase?

• Studying what the competitors are doing can help the marketing strategies

• What are the doing well/poorly?

• What strategies could be improved on?

• To find a successful strategy eliminate what is not working

• Find what the current marketing strategy and make it better

• Its not wise to use entire budget on one marketing tactics

• Research the planning process before executing

• There is no "right" way, so observe, try, and adjust over time

The Four P's of Marketing

• System used by marketers to evaluate strategies and decide on marketing

• Evaluate strategies for the relationships between the business and the customer

• The Four P's: Product, Place, Price, Promotion

• When they are all understood, determine which one results in more success

• Ask questions about each to become informed and lead to more customers

• Product

  • What the product needs to be
  • Product features

• Place

  • Customers look for products?
  • Where do they make decisions?
  • They spend their free time?

• Promotion

  • How to get the marketing message out?
  • Most likely to respond to messages?

• How many interactions is necessary to make a purchase?

• When is the best time to promote?

• Price products

Create a Marketing Calendar

• Once the marketing tactics that will make the marketing mix are decided, create a marketing calendar

• The calendar should establish timeliness, implementation schedules, budgets, and responsibilities for marketing campaigns

• Ideally this all would be in the marketing calendar for the whole year

• There are online tools that make a calendar clean and easy, but a spreadsheet can also work

• Whatever program/tool is used must be kept up-to-date with notes, milestones, and results

• Marketing is key and is with the patience and time

• Without marketing consistency it will be a waste if time

Publicity and Public Relations

• Public Relations (PR) is different but related to marketing, they have overlap

• Public Relations is creating cultivated relations with the public

• Public relations activities utilize media channels and face-to-face communication

• "Public Relations" makes some think of huge corporations solving problems

• small business are engaged w every day interacting with the media on social media

• The actions need to be shared and can be related to marketing or related at all- but it is associated

• Possible marketing material:

  • Success stories from client
  • New product release
  • Charities involved
  • Knowledge of the company

• Marketing includes online seminars and more in Public Regulations

• Most business have Professional help even when there id small help

• Contacts with reports helps marketing

• Sending personal messages will help more then mass messages

The Power of Online Marketing

• Every small business must have some form of online presence to succeed

• Online marketing is the best avenue to explore ways that get with engaging with potential customrs and establishing brands

• Todays consumer are more likely to research online

• online marketing helps with other media forms

• Online marking has benifits of tradition, but without High up costs

Creating a Website

• Most important step is creating the website

• Services can register for a simple fee online

• One can also create a website using costomizable templates that creat something functional and professional

• Importent websites qualitys

  • its visually appealing
  • Feel and content line up with the look, personality and voice you've established for your brand
  • it's intuitive and easy to navigate for potential customers
  • it contains valuable offers and strong calls-to-action that encourage website visitors to become leads and leads to become customers or clients

• To create a website must partner with outside to buld

• Make sure they look professional

• Make sure to compare options for best price

• Compare work before choosing a partner

• Review drafts through the process

• Must maintain domain once created

• SBDC is is partnership with" grow eith Google"

• Courses can help entrepreneurs

Using Your Website to Grow Your Business

• Website is the base of an entre online
• After website goal are
  • Use contacts to lead
  • Follow up with stronger relationship
  • Creating a value of contet
  • improveing and getting data

Attract New Visitors Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• A way to attract visitors to the website is the Search Engine Optimization

• Improve the website to become an organic ranker to get higher on google with things someone is serching

• Creating contest for search

• providing high qaultiy is the most important factor

• Homepage

• Explain products

• an about page

• blog

• answers to questions

• imaages and video

• Key world are used when creating data for search

• Lawning care survice and laun monition

• Head term of traffic but they are mixed

• long terns ger lead to make more specific

• The goal is to get ranked highest for the terms and most customer would look up

• Google are smarter with the content

• website should have a base for all web paged