Book Excerpt - Nonfiction Business

Introduction and Chapter 1

Introduction

Why marketing matters for your business

Small businesses with a marketing plan are 6.7 times more likely to report marketing success than those without a marketing plan. - The State of Small Business Marketing by simpletexting.com

Marketing is at the heart of growing a successful business. It helps people discover you, understand why they need what you're selling, build a trusted relationship with you, and make a purchase or two. Even the best products can struggle to find customers without a solid marketing foundation.

Let’s consider the statistic I included above. Small businesses with a formal marketing plan are almost seven times more likely to be successful than those with no marketing plan at all. Take a minute to let that sink in.

Effective marketing builds awareness

Without a focused marketing strategy, how will anyone know you exist? Marketing makes you visible. It's how you tell people about your business. It's how potential buyers come to know about you. It's the first step in creating a customer relationship that hopefully lasts over the long term.

Effective marketing builds trust and turns interest into action—prospects into customers

Once potential customers know your business exists, earning their trust is next. That takes time. Eventually, these prospective customers will become comfortable with the possibility of doing business with you.

In the meantime, you must provide value without asking for anything in return, at least right away.

While giving something of value without requiring a purchase in return may seem counterintuitive to your goal of getting paying customers as quickly as possible, it's not.

This strategy helps move people down what we call the marketing funnel from a prospect in the brand awareness phase to a lead, with a higher probability of becoming a paying customer.

Although this phase of the buying process may initially feel slow, it helps develop positive feelings about you and your business and converts people who were previously just curious about what you do into serious buyers.

If you consistently offer helpful information or share expertise that benefits your audience, potential customers will begin to see you as a valuable, reliable, and credible source. Their positive feelings about you and your business will eventually turn into sales.

Effective marketing brings in new customers and gets more sales from existing ones

A focused, long-term marketing strategy doesn't just bring in new customers. It also helps you sell more to the ones you already have. This two-pronged approach is really your ultimate goal, isn't it? If not, it should be.

Effective marketing builds a loyal fan base

Never forget that loyal customers are some of your best promoters. They can become raving fans who not only buy more themselves but also tell everyone they know to buy what you're selling.

A few years ago, I made an online comment that went viral and became a widely shared customer experience quote. I can't begin to count the companies, business strategists, trade publications, organizations, professional groups, and even college textbook authors who have republished it as a reminder to all.

“Happy customers are your biggest advocates and can become your most successful sales team.”
- Lisa M. Masiello

The key is that loyalty doesn't happen by accident. When customers feel valued, they stick around and tell others how great you are.

When they feel ignored, they move on. You rarely get a warning. They simply go elsewhere. That's why spending a bit of effort keeping them engaged can go a long way in turning them into your most successful sales team.

As a new business owner, creating a marketing strategy and building a plan to reach your goals can feel overwhelming. But this short guide will break it down. I'll provide you with practical tips, actionable advice, and real-world examples you can follow today to help you build your business, attract prospects, convert customers, and grow stronger, faster.

My goal is to help you understand the fundamentals so you can hit the ground running and achieve quick wins.

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Marketing overview

Creating a successful marketing strategy for your new business takes careful planning, wise use of resources and money, ongoing analysis, and consistent effort.

It might seem like a lot, but I'll explain each of these in more detail. Let's first examine marketing planning from the 30,000-foot level. The following key elements lay the foundation for everything else in this book.

Link marketing to your business objectives

Your marketing strategy should directly support the business objectives you outlined in your business plan. Do you have a business plan? If you don't, you should. You can download a free business plan template on my website at LisaMasiello.com. For the purposes of this book, I'll assume you already have one, even if it's an outline on the back of a napkin.

Think of your marketing plan as a way to turn your business plan's big-picture ideas into clear steps. This aligned strategy lets you stay focused on what matters most to your business, helps ensure your actions lead to the desired results, and enables you to measure success more effectively when every marketing effort clearly impacts your overarching business goals and objectives.

Build your strategy around the four P’s of marketing

Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. These elements are the foundation of effective marketing strategy. They guide how you present your business to customers and ensure your messaging is on target.

• Product. What are you selling? Ensure that your product or service meets a need or solves a problem.

• Price. How much will you charge? Set a price that’s agreeable to customers but still lets you make a profit.

• Place. Where will people buy your product? Whether online, in stores, or through a group of reseller partners, make sure your sales distribution channels are convenient and easily accessible for your customers.

• Promotion. How will you get the word out? Tailor your promotional strategies to your audience's preferences and leverage multiple channels to maximize reach.

Price your product correctly

If your price is too low, you might not make enough money for your business to stay afloat. If it's too high, customers will buy from someone else.

First, consider the cost of producing your product. Include things like packaging, printing costs, store expenses for a physical location, and website fees. Your price should at least cover your costs, with some money left over.

Then, check out what competitors are charging for similar products. That gives you a sense of what customers are willing to pay.

Think about what makes your product stand out. Is it a high-quality product like a handmade cashmere scarf? Is it unique in some way? Does it offer greater value? If it does, you can charge more.

Know what your customers are willing to spend. Are they looking for something affordable or willing to pay more for something no one else has? That enables you to set a price that is profitable for you and acceptable to your customers.

Identify your target customer

Who is your target customer? What do they like? Where do they spend their time?

It’s critical to understand their demographics, preferences, behaviors, market size, emerging trends, and factors influencing demand for your offering. Knowing them will make your marketing more effective and successful.

We'll dive deeper into this in a bit. For now, keep these questions in mind.

Establish a distinct advantage

You will most likely have competition, that's a given. So, what makes your product or service different than everything else out there? What will make a person buy your product over something else? Is it better quality, a lower price, do you provide excellent customer service, or something else?

Ensure you clearly communicate why customers should choose you over your competitors. That is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and Unique Value Proposition (UVP), which I will address shortly with examples.

Align marketing and sales objectives

Whether your business includes one staff member to support marketing efforts and one person to support sales efforts or you have teams of people, marketing and sales must always work together for the business to be most effective. Think of them as two halves of the same whole—the yin and yang of customer acquisition.

You might think it’s strange that I’m pointing out that marketing and sales need to work together but, more often than not, they don’t work well together. Usually, there's tension between these groups. Marketing accuses sales of not reaching out to potential buyers and wasting potential leads. Sales accuse marketing of not generating enough leads, and the leads they generate are not of sufficient value to turn into customers.

Both groups want to take credit for their successes and neither group wants to take responsibility for their failures. Any antagonism or animosity in their relationship will reveal itself in how well the teams work together toward the same goals.

Regular communication, shared objectives, and collaborative planning sessions help bridge the gap between them and create a unified approach to marketing messaging, lead generation, customer acquisition, and retention.

Maximize efficiency with automation and artificial intelligence

Using marketing automation and AI tools isn’t just for large corporations with big budgets. Cost-effective automation tools built specifically for small businesses can enable you to streamline workflows, optimize engagement, and help you work smarter, not harder.

Consider automating repetitive tasks like scheduling social media posts and using an email marketing platform like Mailchimp or Kit, formerly ConvertKit, to nurture leads automatically.

Platforms like HubSpot, Google Analytics, and ChatGPT can provide valuable insight into your customers’ behavior.

Otter.ai or Descript can also transcribe and repurpose video or audio content into blogs and social media posts.

By integrating automation with specific marketing tactics, you’ll be able to maximize efficiencies and have more time to focus on growing your business.

Implement measurable tactics, analyze effectiveness, and adapt

Your goal is to implement successful marketing tactics and campaigns that build brand awareness, increase sales, and achieve any other goals you may have. Ensuring your tactics are measurable is the only way to determine success accurately.

The next step is to objectively analyze the data you collect to determine effectiveness. Some programs you implement will be successful, and others will not. Don't be ashamed to say, "I got it wrong." Marketers get it wrong sometimes. Especially when starting a business or launching a new product.

Your job is to act on your objective analysis and adjust your tactics, budget, and marketing channels to align with the data. Your goal is to learn, continuously improve, and be more successful in the future.

Chapter 1: Set Marketing Goals

Marketing goals are crucial because they give purpose to your marketing efforts, help you track your progress, ensure you're spending time and money wisely, and, most importantly, help you gauge success. They must be specific, measurable, and designed to achieve business objectives.

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Types of marketing goals to consider

You will have different marketing goals at various times throughout your business's life.

At the beginning, your goal may be to make more people aware of your products. Then, it may be to close more sales and improve customer loyalty.

Sometimes, you may be working to achieve three different goals at once. Here are a few common marketing goals to think about as you start your business.

• Build brand awareness. Building brand awareness is about getting as many people as possible to know about your business. You can do this by growing your social media following, driving more website traffic, and increasing overall visibility.

• Generate qualified leads. An example of a qualified lead is a potential customer who has shown interest in your product or service and has the qualities you look for in an ideal customer. That could be someone who answers specific questions in your exhibitor booth at an event or downloads a series of e-guides from your website. Your goal should be to keep marketing to these leads until they become customers or until you know they're no longer interested.

• Increase sales. Almost every business has increase sales as a marketing goal. Marketing and sales teams are like peanut butter and jelly. They work best when working together. If your goal is to increase sales, making the marketing team aware of the sales target for a specific product helps keep marketing as focused on driving new revenue as it does for the sales team.

• Develop customer loyalty. Loyal customers are valuable because they're more likely to make multiple purchases and will refer others to your business. You can increase customer loyalty by offering a rewards program or incentives where the referrer and referee get rewarded when the referee becomes a customer.

Try this today. Apply what you've learned.

A business can have several goals but start by listing your top two. Set a timeline for achieving each goal and keep in mind how you’ll measure success.

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Your marketing goals must be SMART

Use the S.M.A.R.T. framework to set effective marketing goals. That ensures your goals are clear, actionable, and achievable.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Specific. Your goal should be clear and precise. Don't be vague. Instead of saying, "I want to grow my business," say, "I want to increase my website traffic by 20 percent in the next three months."

Measurable. You must track progress to know when you've achieved your goal. For example, the 20 percent increase in website traffic I just mentioned is measurable, so you can easily monitor whether you're on track or not.

Achievable. Your goal should be realistic. While a big dream is always good to have, a goal is of little value if it's too far out of reach. For example, saying, "I want to get 1,500 new customers in the next month," might be unrealistic and unachievable if you're just starting out.

Relevant. As I've already discussed, ensure your marketing goals are relevant and align with your overall business objectives. For example, if your goal is to increase revenue, then increasing website conversions from visitor to customer is relevant. If your goal is to build awareness, your objective might be to boost your social media followers instead.

Time-bound. Setting a firm deadline to achieve your goal is critical. A deadline keeps you accountable and helps you set milestones to review progress and adjust tactics if needed.

Let's recap. A good marketing goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, "I want to increase my email subscribers by 10 percent over the next three months by offering a free downloadable guide."

SMART goals give you a roadmap. Instead of feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to start, SMART goals let you know exactly what to work on, how to measure progress, when you've hit your target, and how to increase your chances of success.

Try this today. Apply what you've learned.

Use the S.M.A.R.T. framework to evaluate the marketing goals you’ve established. Are they specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound?

Excerpt from Startup Over Lunch: Marketing Strategy in 60 Minutes to Fire Up Your Business by Lisa M. Masiello.
Copyright 2025 by Lisa M. Masiello. Excerpted with permission of Gate City Media Group.
ISBN: 978-1737487821
Print length: 100 pages