How did you start marketing your business?

[tranguyen]

It’s May at last 🌞! 

With a new month starting, we’ve been seeing a lot of new faces in the Community and more questions around starting a business, such as a question from @Starwayy around how to get their first customer. 

In the spirit of new beginnings, this week, we’d love to find out:

How did you start marketing your business?

Did you start advertising locally in-person or did you start with social media right away? What is the one thing you wish you knew when you first started marketing your business?

Looking forward to reading all your insights!

[MHowar]

I started os store on line right away

[tranguyen]

How are you finding it @MHowar? Is there one particular online channel you'd recommend for businesses similar to yours? 

[tranguyen]

Thanks everyone for sharing all your brilliant insights and expertise 💕!

If you are interested in reading more about avertising your business, definitely check out the latest Seller Communigyt blog post on choosing the right platform for you 🌟

[ButterflyDess8]

Interesting topic! I started my business back in 2020 on Facebook, Mercari, and going to pop up shops. Later on that year I made a website through square and it expanded my brand out beautifully! With this Revamp I changed everything! I'm talking about all the way down to new products and a whole new name! The way I marketed this year was making a music video with my products, making commercials, and leaving business cards every where! Be creative and step outside the box, doing this has made me more sales in the two weeks compared to what I made last year! Trust yourself and keep going no matter what! I believe in you! www.butterflyblossomcosmeticsllc.com

[maxpete]

LOVE hearing how since starting your website it really unlocked doors for you. You did such an awesome job with this revamp and thanks for being encouraging to other Sellers too! 🙂 

[ButterflyDess8]

Thank you so much 💕

[NessieMarieArt]

I originally started with Instagram for my art in 2016, just posting my art here n there. I was already attending events for my handmade jewelry that I was doing at the time and started to incorporate my art little by little and eventually just switched completely. I started appearing at local markets n fairs more often handing out freebies and my cards to get people talking about Sammy the Sushi Cat (my most popular creation to date). I'd also dress up with cat ears and an apron with my cards n freebies anytime I was going out to do things like groceries and such, just in case anyone asked me about it I could hand them a card n sticker 🙂 from, there I moved onto doing anime, comic and cat conventions all over the US and while social media is a big help being in person for me has always been the best marketing I could ever do because I get to exude my personality first hand to my potential customers. One thing I wish I knew or at least did back when I started is not tying so much of my time and energy to the idea of "growing" my number in social media, mostly for my own mental heath. I've since gotten better at balancing things and still managing to keep up with updates.

[maxpete]

Glad to hear that you're finding a better balance for yourself and your business! Definitely a common area a lot of folks struggle with, especially with having to do everything yourself. 

I also wanted to share with you a previous blog that we did in the Community around 5 Tips for best using Social Media in case it is helpful!

Excited to keep following along with your business journey too!

[LePucciBijou]

I started by going to my local neighbor hood page on Facebook and created a post announcing that the neighborhood now had it's own dog groomer, that  my daughter and I had 24 years of experience in the industry and we were opening our own shop out of the garage at my home. This was in the middle of the Pandemic in 2020. To my surprise, we were flooded with comments requesting information and appointments from the post as well as phone calls and text messages. I oined other neighborhood pages that bordered our neighborhood and posted there as well. Less than one year later, we opened our salon in a business park. I placed a few ads on Facebook, I created accounts for my business on social .media and created videos on TikTopk and reels on Facebook of the dogs we groomed. We have grown steadily into a thriving business that sustains a good income for both my daughter and I. I will say to beware of advertisers that call you saying you've been picked by your local mall to be featured on their advertising kiosk and offering you a great deal, but don't give you time to think about it I got scammed for over $3800 dollars right after we opened our commercial space. It really put me in a bind, but thankfully that is behind us now. I am a firm believer in word of mouth being the best advertisement.

[maxpete]

Thanks for sharing your journey into starting your business! Sorry to hear about the advertising scams, but glad that it's all behind you and that you're doing well!

[Dsk114u]

I started my business with a promotion of free business cards from vista print and I made hundreds of copies of hand written flyers. I got a job from those flyers and I bought business cards and for free vista print and webs offered a free website if you designed it and if you let them design it there was a nominal fee.  I designed the website as a how too so I would show pictures from the day and talk about some of the products I used and the steps taken to reach the end, and where I bought them and the manufacturer. Every night when I would add to my website I would then go on all of my social media and ask my friends and followers to go see my website like it share and give me feedback.

[maxpete]

This is a great approach! What sort of business do you run?

[Henry_1234]

Hello,

How are started marking on Facebook, flyers around the neighborhood, and Fox 32 news found me on google.

Thank you,

Colorful Berries

[WanderingWizard]

We are a small wargaming and board games shop, when customers buy small items we include a flyer and a reminder of our opening times in the bag.

One of the most important things to get right is your SEO.

Google has a habit of putting our products in the wrong categories, so I manually upload all my products to Google Merchant Centre, I don't rely the AI to do it.

My other tip is to start small, concentrate on a  small radius, and then expand over time, it's a lot easier than trying to conquer the world in one go.

[Lootz]

I have a toy and collectible store. I have been fighting Google for over a year because most of my products don't appear online due to errors regardless of how many times I have uploaded my local inventory. With over 6,500 individual SKUs, it is painful to add them in manually and unfortunately, Square inventory exports do not align with Google very well. So, I feel your pain on that aspect.

[WanderingWizard]

This is  why I do it manually in Google Merchant.

You can download a sample file, then manually add all the info that Google wants, you can also get the products codes you need, these are the most important to get right, search for "Google Merchant Product Codes"

Most of the infor can be copy/paste from your Square product file, that speeds things up a lot

It's quite labour intensive, but I found it to be the only way to stop the Google errors.

My bissest problem is that I sell products for wargames so Googles AI thinks i'm selling arms and military hardware 🙂

[maxpete]

These are great tips! Thank you 🙂

[Bronze_Palms]

I first started marketing my business with very limited resources/capital/$$. I created a list of emails with local esthetician emails I sourced from Instagram and Google, created a promotional email about my services (spray tans), and sent it out to those 200 emails. Out of those, I received a couple of replies but ended up getting my first paying client from them! I would do that again!

[maxpete]

Love this bootstrap approach! 

[zebraprnyc]

In marketing, you have to activate all channels at all times.  It is so critical to have a marketing map for the rest of the year for social, traditional, WOM and Mobile.  I just got back into events locally with some promoters and its working to get leads and prospecgt clients that will convert.

[maxpete]

Good tip on activating all channels to better leverage your reach and growth.