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start: mark evans

In the last column, April Dunford provided some suggestions about how start-ups and small businesses can embrace marketing.

Now let's look at some of the tactical considerations that come into play.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is determining where to put your marketing dollars. There are plenty of options – online (websites and social media), direct marketing, newspapers, magazines, radio and television. So, how do you decide the best option?

Ms. Dunford says the key to using any marketing vehicle is continually measuring its effectiveness, and then to do more of what works and less of what doesn't. It is pretty straightforward advice but it is surprising how many companies invest in marketing without getting any kind of metrics about how well things have gone.

"What worked one year for a particular product might not work at all a year later," Ms. Dunford says. "Smart companies are continuously trying a lot of things and learning as they go. The key is to always be measuring ROI."

Another important part of the marketing process is recognizing that marketing campaigns evolve over time depending on a product or service's development and its sales.

Ms. Dunford says entrepreneurs can start marketing a product or service even before it has launched by writing articles and blog posts about the market they are targeting. They can also develop a mailing list and begin to foster relationships with prospects, influencers and media.

When an early version of the product has been launched, she says a company needs to focus on understanding its sales processes and optimizing them so that once it does get to the point where it's ready to invest in marketing, it isn't wasting its money.

"Once the company determines it has a good fit between the product and the market and the sales process has been optimized, then it can invest in sales, channels, lead generation and PR," she says.

As far as marketing pitfalls go, Ms. Dunford says many start-ups and small businesses fall down because they are so close to a product or service, they have a difficult time seeing it through the eyes of the consumers. As a result, she says they find it challenging to articulate in clear language what a product or service does, and why customers should care.

Special to the Globe and Mail

Mark Evans is a principal with ME Consulting, a content and social media strategic and tactical consultancy that creates and delivers 'stories' for companies looking to capture the attention of customers, bloggers, the media, business partners, employees and investors. Mark has worked with three start-ups – Blanketware, b5Media and PlanetEye – so he understands how they operate and what they need to do to be successful. He was a technology reporter for more than a decade with The Globe and Mail, Bloomberg News and the Financial Post. Mark is also one of the co-organizers of the mesh, meshUniversity and meshmarketing conferences .

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