A solid marketing plan is crucial to support growth as you’re scaling a company. But how do you know when you should flip the marketing switch and go live?
The answer is pretty intuitive: not until you’re ready. The secret is knowing what that means for your business model, internal processes and external branding. Read on.
Make sure your product is ready.
You have nothing to sell until your product is complete. It sounds basic, but too many entrepreneurs rush to launch while they’re still working out a few fundamental issues with their actual offerings. Don’t invest marketing time and resources until you have a product you’re proud to announce to the public — a product you’re confident won’t break. Make certain you’ve taken it through a quality-control process. You get only one chance to make a favorable first impression. A minimum viable product (MVP) is quite fine. You don’t need all the bells and whistles to start. Just remember the key word: viable. Your product must be good enough to satisfy a customer’s need and solve (at the core) a major pain point in your market.
Fine-tune your customer-service processes.
Once you’re actively selling to customers, you’re likely to get questions or requests for help. Make sure you’ve created processes to handle inbound phone calls and quickly resolve any bugs that users report. If something manages to slip through your quality-assurance procedures, communicate clearly with customers. Apologize. Let them know you’re on top of the issue and report back when you have a solution. Addressing after-the-sale issues is every bit as important as the experiences you create during your customers’ sales journeys.
Build in follow-ups for customer retention…
