B2C Marketing Checklist - Small Business Start-ups
Following on from our last post, which offered a complete Marketing Checklist for B2B businesses, we wanted to help out you Business-to-Consumer companies too! As such here’s our B2C Marketing Checklist for Small Business Start-Ups.
Download the complete Marketing Checklist for free here>. Or continue reading to discover the key steps to launching your B2C business.
1. Asset creation
Product assets
You’ll need high quality imagery (and perhaps videos) of your products. These will be used for your website product pages, as well as throughout your online and offline marketing. Depending on your product, you may be able to manage the photoshoot yourself, using a home lightbox kit, or you may need to employ a professional photographer and model (if it’s apparel). Creating a range of images is ideal, some deep-etched (no background) for your product pages and marketplaces, and some in-situ, lifestyle images for website banners, catalogue covers, social media and ads.
Brand assets
At this time (or prior) you will also need to ensure you have your brand assets created. These will include your logo, brand guidelines (colour palette, brand ethos, tone of voice), templates for marketing (email) and wholesale communications (quote, invoice etc).
Product catalogue
I would recommend creating a digital catalogue or LookBook, that can be used to send to wholesale and media opportunities. For wholesale, you will likely need a Line Sheet as well, for ordering.
2. Website
Your website is your most important marketing tool, especially when selling directly to consumers. Nowadays there are many Content Management Tools (CMSs), that allow you to create beautiful websites, without any coding skills at all. For eCommerce the best option is probably Shopify, this is a very extensive eCommerce platform, that has a wide range of plugins that can achieve almost every requirement.
For companies with a smaller offering, or less specific requirements, I would recommend Squarespace. The eCommerce functionality is less extensive (still good though), but they allow you to build your online shop into a complete and beautifully designed website.
3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Please be mindful to build your website with best practice SEO in mind. Make sure your URLs and web pages are named using the top keywords for your business. Include copy on your site, covering all relevant keywords for that product and your overall offering. Include variations of keywords. Do some keyword research using free tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner for ideas.
4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
It will take time for your website to start ranking on Google (which is the SEO component), realistically 1 year or more. But all is not lost, in the meantime, you can (and should) set up a GoogleAds campaign, so your website is displayed as a 'sponsored listing', for relevant searches. You may also want to include a Google Shopping campaign in your SEM strategy. See the below image for a breakdown of these different options, when we search for the keywords ‘Silver trainers’.
Google Shopping (part of SEM) is at the top, you can also click on the ‘Shopping’ tab for additional products. These are paid results, you set this up by creating a Google Merchant account and running a Google Shopping campaign. Underneath there are sponsored listings (also SEM) these are paid search results. You run these from a search campaign in GoogleAds. Lastly, you'll see a range of SEO search results listings, these are completely free. Google shows the most relevant web pages for the search term, based on various factors.
5. Marketplaces
Marketplaces offer a great opportunity to access a huge audience of potential customers. They can be an excellent sales channel, bringing in additional revenue, especially at the start of your business. They also give you brand exposure, by showing your products to many customers that may not have come across them otherwise. They can be fiddly to set up though, especially Amazon. Etsy is a very cost-effective option, for handmade or custom-made goods. There is also Zalando, Fruggo, and many others depending on your exact industry – apparel, furniture or decor, tech, beauty etc).
6. Social Media
Social media is so important in this day and age! Set up accounts on your most relevant channels as a priority. For B2C Instagram is a must (which will include Facebook), other options include, TikTok and Youtube if you have video content, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
7. Advertising
Social media and Display ads
Setting up your socials will also allow you to use these channels for advertising. Instagram ads can be very effective if you’re able to get your audience targeting right. Great for building awareness and online sales.
You may also want to look at Display Advertising (for example banner ads, video ads). These can be great for retargeting, which helps convert previous website traffic (that didn’t purchase), into customers.
Branded content
You may look to work with some influencers in your industry and/or develop some branded content with industry media. You used to be able to gift influencers for free promotion, but that boat has long sailed (for most industries, perhaps for niche products this is still an option). Now you must request their rates and buy sponsored content.
8. Local search
If you are also a business with a fixed location, such as a shop, office, restaurant/bar/cafe; you should definitely set up a Google Business Profile. It’s free and will help your SEO, bringing traffic to your site and place of business.
9. PR launch
Last but not least, it’s worth running a PR campaign, to promote the launch of your business, to relevant industry media. You may well get some free coverage, which is great for awareness and SEO (if it links back to your site).
So that’s a top-level run-through, of what you need to do in order to launch your new business to the market! For a complete list of all the marketing elements download our B2C Marketing Checklist here>.
Good luck! If you would like help with any or all of these activities please do consider working with us. We specialise in Small Business Marketing, working with fast-paced teams, on tight budgets. We have very affordable plans, with no lock-in contracts. Activities can be paused, cancelled, or of course, increased at any time.
Schedule a free Marketing Consultation now >