The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Marketing Plan

Marketing, social media, advertising

zaiteku

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
7%
Dec 10, 2007
112
8
Honolulu, Hawaii
Hi guys,

my business venture is starting to take off, and its going very well as far as early stage development of the software and planning, and I now have some initial seed money which should be good for a year with my current stock of employees. But Ive noticed, my marketing plan is a huge black hole.

Basically, my company is a service/education company, catering to college level and under down to 7th grade. Does anyone have some good tips on writing a marketing plan for my company? Obviously Im writing it myself, but I just need some good tips from those who have done it before- whats important to include, what might be some good areas to concentrate on being on the internet and being an e-biz as opposed to brick and mortar? what are some good "do not do this" kind of stuff, if any?

Any input would be awesome, I dont have an MBA so Im just learning all this stuff as I go. I have some books on it too which help a lot, but I wanted to get a take from seasoned pros that are doing it as well.

thank you!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Runum

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
101%
Aug 8, 2007
6,221
6,298
DFW, Texas
You need to talk to Cactus Wren about marketing. She's got the info. I got 2 pages of notes from her presentation. I hope she posts here.
 

Jill

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
76%
Jan 26, 2008
1,026
775
Frisco, TX (Dallas)
Ooooo. Too bad you missed Cactus Wren's presentation last weekend at B&P!! :smxD:

I won't even try to write everything I learned from here here. But you need to know exactly who your customer is, and what they do (Lifestyle Market Analyst). Make sure your pricing is right, or all the advertising in the world won't work. Know the marketPLACE. (Who's your competition?)

Are you really marketing to the students? Or to their parents? Describing features and benefits may be a different strategy for the different groups, depending on their perspective / involvement.

Did you have any particular questions? There are tons of "How to Write a Marketing Plan" types of resources out there. Just google it.

Good luck.
 

zaiteku

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
7%
Dec 10, 2007
112
8
Honolulu, Hawaii
hi guys,

thanks for posting! I guess of all the areas I would have questions on, I was wondering what are the best methods for advertising, getting my name out there, and what are the pros and cons to those methods?

of course there is internet advertising, banner ads, google ads, but what about other ideas like forming some kind of partnerships with various portals or even with non-internet companies? things like that. How do I push my company out there for people to discover?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Jill

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
76%
Jan 26, 2008
1,026
775
Frisco, TX (Dallas)
That's why you have to define exactly who your customer is. THEN, you can determine where he hangs out? Online and real world? What does he read? You can waste a lot of money on traditional advertising to people who will never see it, if you don't have this well-defined.

It's kinda hard to advise you without knowing what exactly it is that you're trying to sell. Get into the mind of your customer. If I were a student (or parent of a student), what would get my attention?

But first of all, ask yourself if he even KNOWS that he needs this service? If not, then make him realize how badly he needs it. If he knows that he needs it, then make it easy to get at a competitive price. There are lots of ways of getting your name out there, like "cause" and "cross" marketing. In general, get creative. Sponsor some kind of school activities or such. Get the media there. Write your own press releases. If it's a slow news day, you'd be amazed how much free publicity you can get. Try getting the BMOC types to use it for free, in exchange for endorsements / testimonials.

There are millions of ideas / books / websites out there to stimulate ideas and check out the competition.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top