Marketing & Sales

A successful business needs to attract customers and give them reasons to keep coming back. This requires an effective marketing strategy, which can be developed as a part of your business planning process. If you need a professional marketing plan you will most likely need to pay for the services of a professional marketing firm or consultant. Fortunately, you don’t need a professional marketing plan to get started!

The Small Business Administration (SBA) recommends initial market research and a competitive analysis to determine who your customers are and what makes your business unique.

SBA Business Guide - Market Research & Competitive Analysis can help you get started. SBA also provides access to a variety of free datasets that can help you develop a marketing plan for your business. The SBA Learning Center - Marketing 101 training(PDF, 1MB) helps small business owners understand what marketing is and why it is vital to growth. Once you understand more about your customers and what makes your business unique you can develop a basic marketing plan.

Typical Marketing Plan

SBA - Marketing and Sales identifies the following elements of a typical marketing plan:

  • Target market - Description of potential customers for your business, including size, demographics, unique traits, and trends that relate to their demands (Example: A downtown restaurant may identify their target market as 35-55-year-old white collar professionals)
  • Competitive advantage - Description of what gives your product or service an advantage over the competition, such as better functionality, lower price, environmental sustainability, or excellent customer service
  • Sales plan - Description of how you will sell your product or service to your customers, such as retail, wholesale, or online store, and the functionality involved in each type of sale, such as how you will accept payments (e.g. credit cards, checks, cash, online)
  • Marketing and sales goals - Description of your marketing and sales goals for the next year (Examples: increase email subscribers, grow market share, or increase sales by a certain total number or percentage)
  • Budget - Breakdown of the costs of your marketing plan

Checklist

  • Learn about the importance of marketing
  • Improve your sales and marketing knowledge
  • Identify helpful marketing and sales resources
  • Create a marketing plan that includes specific strategies

View All Steps

Additional Resources

Marketing & Sales

  • Small Business Development Center (SBDC) (State Government) - Offers a range of no-cost resources and services to small businesses, including support for marketing.
  • Better Business Bureau of Central Ohio (BBB) (Nonprofit) - Offers paid services for businesses, including accreditation
  • Bplans (For-Profit) - Free resources and templates, including information on market research and sales forecasting
  • Central Community House - Academy for Community Entrepreneurs (ACE) (Nonprofit) - Initiative to help new or existing entrepreneurs within the 43205 ZIP code overcome challenges to small business success, offers trainings on business planning, marketing, capital access, and more
  • Columbus Metropolitan Library - Adult Education (Public Library) - Offers free business support classes focusing on marketing, consumer demographic research, and broader education for entrepreneurs, as well as several demographic databases available for free use online
  • Farm Answers (Public University) - A vast library of resources for farms, including hundreds of articles on marketing and sales
  • Farm Commons (Nonprofit) - Offers a range of free sales and contract resources for farmers, including wholesale sales agreements, CSA member agreements, and resources establishing sustainable business relationships
  • Google for Small Businesses (For-Profit) - Marketing tools and support for small businesses from Google
  • Kauffman Entrepreneurs (Nonprofit) - Diverse collection of educational resources for entrepreneurs developed by the Kauffman Foundation
  • Kauffman FastTrac (Nonprofit) - Self-paced training opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs developed by the Kauffman Foundation
  • Ohio Proud (State Government) - A marketing brand that identifies products made and grown in Ohio, businesses selling products that are at least 50% raised, grown, or processed in Ohio may be eligible for membership
  • OSU Extension - Franklin County (Public University) - Offers a wide range of marketing resources and expertise for farmers and food producers, including for direct marketing.
  • SBA - Marketing and Sales (Federal Government) - Resources for developing a marketing plan and accepting payments
    • Market Research and Competitive Analysis - Using market research to find customers and a competitive analysis to find a market advantage
    • Competitive Advantage - Training for how to build a brand, study your competition, identify customers, create pricing strategies, and more
    • Market Research - Training on identifying and marketing you services to your customers
    • Introduction to Pricing - Training on how to determine your pricing strategy and resources for pricing your products and services
    • Pricing Models for Successful Businesses - Training on pricing models your business might adopt, including how to set prices, calculate costs, and assess competitors
    • Sales for Small Businesses - Training on developing a sales plan and other tools to get your product or service to your customers
    • Social Media Marketing - Training on utilizing social media marketing
    • Understanding Your Customer - Training on tools and resources to help understand your customers and increase sales
  • Social Ventures (Nonprofit) - Offers a marketplace for social enterprises to market and sell their products
  • Yelp (For-Profit) - Create a free business listing on Yelp with additional marketing and advertising tools available as a paid upgrade
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