Javelin Communications

Plan to Win

Marketing gurus just adore the word "viral." It's so totally now, right? Actually not. Thousands if not millions of small businesses got their start virally, through old-fashioned word-of-mouth. The infant business begins with a terrific product and a small band of enthusiastic fans. Let's call them the apostles.

Being helpful to their friends and neighbors, the apostles talk the product up. Friends and neighbors, after trying the product, recruit themselves as new apostles. Pretty soon the baby business is up and walking. But will it ever run?

That's where you need marketing, and that's the weakest part of most business plans. They spend a lot of time on product. But almost none on sales and promotion. There might be a marketing budget, but to view it will require an electron microscope.

Viral growth in many cases can sustain a business into adolescence. To reach maturity, though, necessitates a serious, disciplined commitment to a well-thought-out marketing strategy.

On that point, advocacy professionals like me fight a constant uphill battle. Business people who would never do their own accounting, or contracts, are certain they can do their own marketing. I've noticed over the years that really brilliant people are especially prone to falling into this trap.

After all, you built the product. You have the vision. Why would you hire someone? Maybe you also have had an exploratory conversation with an agency. And the sticker shock brought on near-paralysis. I know, because agencies are one of the worlds I came from.

But I also know, from experience with my own clients, that the power of professional marketing often comes as a world-changing revelation. Professional marketing isn't free, but it frees you to play to your real strengths as a business person.

Javelin is one of many small, wallet-friendlier independents out here that can do a great job on smaller budgets. Even so, that tiny little number in your business plan needs to grow if you expect the business not just to run, but to finish first in the marathon.

Build a realistic marketing budget into your plan right from the start. Don't think of it as a patch to be applied when you have time to get to it. Because it's how you go from viral to wildly successful.
-Jim Gribble