Working smart with marketing establishes a solid footprint of success for new PEOs. Implementing key strategies early on will not only introduce your brand with a grand entrance, but it will also attract your target customers and secure a greater share of the market without cutting too much into your startup budget. This article will provide you with the necessary steps to creating a marketing plan and act as a cheat sheet to learn ways that will save you time and money with implementation and execution.
The first step requires research and setting up the foundation of your marketing plan. An effective marketing plan helps you identify your customers, competitors and marketplace strategy. It can be an extension of your business plan or a separate living document that plays a critical piece in the development of your website and social media content for upcoming campaigns. At this step, there are several key questions that need to be determined to move successfully through the process:
1. Why are you starting your PEO?
2. What is your business objective?
3. What PEO services will your offer?
4. What is your pricing strategy?
5. What is your Vision Statement? (Briefly outline future plans for your business and clearly state overall goals.)
6. What are your short term and long term goals?
7. Who is your target market? (Explain who you are selling to [include region & customer type] and why would they buy your service.)
8. What is your unique selling proposition? (Explain your distinctive edge and how your company will succeed in a market where others may have failed.)
9. How will you market your services?
Once you identified the Who, What, Why & How, the next piece on the agenda is the look and feel of your brand. Most importantly, what do you want your customers to experience when working with your company. During this phase, you’ll need to come up with a company name, logo, slogan, professional branding statement and website strategy.
When selecting your company name and slogan, make it easy for your target customers to understand what you do. For logo design, there are cost effective tactics to have a logo designed professionally. One option is using a freelance graphic designer on Fiverr. Projects start at a low cost and provide you with multiple design options to choose from. The company slogan should be kept short, simple and easy to remember. Stay focused on your unique selling proposition and evoke emotion to peak their interest for further exploration.
The professional branding statement should summarize your specialty, service, audience and unique characteristics which is also referred to as your “30 second elevator pitch”. It’s critical to grab the attention of your audience whether you’re at a networking event, pitching a client or using it as a tag line on marketing collateral. If you reveal your passion and stay authentic, your audience will stay engaged.
At this point in the process, you now have content and creative pieces to work with for a website. Both play critical roles in introducing your company to the marketplace. Website design can be quite expensive but there are cost effective resources such as Wix.com where you have the ability to design and update your own website. They offer multiple subscription levels and a variety of professional templates to choose from. Simply select your domain name, choose the best template that represents your company and begin adding your content.
Starting a new business is no easy feat, but hopefully this cheat sheet will save you time and money making your grand entrance to the PEO marketplace. For information on PEO startup due diligence or marketing strategies, please feel free to contact us to learn more.
Reference: https://www.staffone.com/peo-marketing-strategies-variety-markets/
