| When
starting often business owners do many things to establish their business,
ie. like buying furniture, equipment, office supplies, obtaining the necessary
licenses and permits and much more. However they forget a most important
item, defining the customer.
Defining your customer from
the onset will answer many of the questions that will come at a later time.
Your customer will determine where you will advertise as well as the type
of office you will have and equipment and office supplies to purchase.
When most business owners
are asked "who is your customer", they respond by saying that "everyone
is my customer." This is not the case. We would like to think that everyone
is our customer but for various reasons everyone is not our customer.
Defining your customer from
the beginning will most importantly help you in setting up your advertising/marketing
budget. As you go about establishing your advertising/marketing budget,
you will research various medias for consideration of your business. Knowing
your customer and the customer base of these medias will help you in deciding
whether or not to use that particular media.
Buying media based on the
cost and market size is a mistake many business owners make when deciding
where to spend their advertising dollars.
For the many types of customers
that exist, there are that many types of medias. All medias know
their targeted customer which will help your business in reaching your
customer. A media supplying you only with their total distribution
or readership, although the total could be impressive, should not be used
as a single factor in deciding in favor of that media.
Most small business owners
do not have the financing to test various medias. Therefore, we must do
our research to make sure that the media we are considering is a match
to our customer. There are many types of advertising medias the small business
owner should investigate before committing. |
