Focus on marketing first

Don’t wait for some future benchmark to start marketing your business.

Starting a business is an exciting and challenging endeavor, and it's easy to get caught up in developing your product or service. However, one thing that often gets overlooked by startups is marketing. Many new entrepreneurs believe that marketing can wait until the product is ready or that word of mouth will be sufficient, but marketing should be a top priority for startups. Here are some reasons why startups should focus on marketing first:

Establishing a Brand

One of the primary goals of marketing is to create brand awareness. By focusing on marketing first, startups can establish their brand identity and differentiate themselves from their competitors. This can help them stand out in the market and make a lasting impression on potential customers. Branding is like laying the groundwork for your company to thrive in the future. It is much harder to build a brand from the ground up, especially if you are working in a competitive industry. Typically, the first brand to market will outperform higher-quality products and services that enter the space later. Why does this happen? Because customers are already familiar with the first brand and they go with what they know.

Understanding Your Audience

Marketing is all about understanding your audience and their needs. By focusing on marketing first, startups can identify their target audience and learn more about their preferences, pain points, and buying behaviors. This can help them tailor their product or service to meet the needs of their customers better. In the startup world, a brand’s first customers will typically include friends, family, and investors. The only common bond between those buyers is their common acquaintance with someone in the business. While this will prove helpful in the early days, it won’t be sustainable. Outlining target customers and ideal audiences helps decision makers build toward an established and prolonged customer base. Additionally, tracking your customer data is easier than ever before and often quite revealing. New and unexpected customer bases can arise over time. Tracking these interactions, updating your customer profiles, and targeting the buyers who bring in the most profit is a time-tested method for expanding a business.

Building Relationships

Marketing is not just about promoting your product or service, it's about building relationships with your customers. By focusing on marketing first, startups can engage with their audience and establish a two-way communication channel. This can help them build trust, loyalty, and a strong customer base. Oftentimes your best customers or even brand ambassadors are those who don’t buy from you right away. It takes time to build a repertoire in many situations. Additionally, the easy customer is often in some kind of duress. While there are plenty of exploitative business models out there, it can be stressful to constantly take on chaotic clients. Long-term relationships ensure that your clients know and trust the services you offer, and that you can trust your customer is reliable.

Generating Sales

Ultimately, the goal of marketing is to generate sales. By focusing on marketing first, startups can create buzz around their product or service and generate interest from potential customers. This can help them generate sales right from the start and build a solid foundation for their business. Any salesperson can tell you that the key to success is having a steady pipeline of potential buyers that are only a few steps away from finalizing a deal. It takes some work to create this funnel and keeping it full is an ongoing process. The benefits, however, are exponential.

Securing Funding

Securing funding is critical for startups, and marketing can help with that. By focusing on marketing first, startups can create a strong pitch that showcases their brand, their audience, and their sales potential. This can help them attract investors and secure the funding they need to grow their business. This ties into the first section about brand awareness. Investors are more likely to engage with your company when you have a quantifiable market presence.

Startups should always focus on marketing first because it helps establish a brand, understand the audience, build relationships, generate sales, and secure funding. Marketing should not be an afterthought, but rather a top priority for any startup looking to succeed in today's competitive market. So, if you're starting a business, don't neglect marketing. Make it a priority from the very beginning.