By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
An important aspect of starting a new business is knowing how to market.
Director of the Small Business Development Center Rebecca Lobina says at least eight out of ten new business owners she works with believes all they need to market is social media
Lobina says a lot of that comes down to owner operators not wanting to spend money. But Lobina says, doing marketing is a part of doing business.
“It should be in your budget, just like if you have to pay rent and utilities and insurance, and you have to buy supplies, it’s just part of the cost of doing business, right?” Lobina asks KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr. “The cost of gaining a customer, because if no one knows you exist, no one can use your service or buy your product.”
Lobina says she thinks a big misunderstanding among business owners that once they have a website, potential new customers can find them, but there’s so much more behind it.
Lobina says a lot of times, new business owners might misunderstand the reach of their website or social media page.
Lobina says it’s not a ‘build it they will come’ scenario.
“I think the misunderstanding really is about like “ok I have a website so now everybody can find me”, but the reality is there’s so much more to it,” Lobina explains. “We’ll use Google for example, for Google finding your website, crawling your website, reporting your website, and then that way it comes up in their algorithms, there’s just so much more to it.”
Lobina says there’s also what’s called search engine optimization for example, making sure your website or reach is on page one of Google rather than page seven.
Lobina says as owner operators form their marketing plan, they need to be smart about how they market their business.
And how they market smartly, Lobina says, is by knowing what kinds of customers to market to.
“And if you had to build an avatar of that ideal customer that really, really, really would want your service or your product, what do they look like, how much money do they make, what kinds of needs do they have?” Lobina says. “And most importantly, based upon those types of demographic and psychographic information, where do you find them?”
Lobina says once you’ve figured out the intricacies of what kind of consumer you are looking for, you can start to figure out where they shop to target them to bring to your business.
