The radio alarm wakes you up with the crackle and pop of a breakfast show, which is soon interrupted by a string of commercials. You rustle up some breakfast and there’s an advert on the side of the cereal box. The sound of the television is mute but you still register a couple of commercials.

You haven’t even woken up completely but you have already been the target of Don Draper’s modern counterparts.

Various studies show that the average American is exposed to around 5,000 advertising messages in one day. And according to a study conducted by The Guardian, during one 45-minute journey, a London commuter views more than 130 adverts featuring around 80 different products.

That’s a lot of marketing material. For start-ups, that can be daunting because on one hand, you want to fight for attention and make yourself heard, but on the other, you only have a shoestring marketing budget. However, with some careful planning and a good marketing plan, you can still have a fighting chance.

A cunning plan

When sitting down to write your marketing plan, you should keep two very important things in mind. First, you should identify your target audience and adapt your tactics accordingly. And secondly, your plan should emphasise the uniqueness of your service or product offering: what is the thing that you think you do better than anyone else?

Identify yourtarget audience and adapt your tactics accordingly

In a nutshell, a marketing plan outlines the strategies that you are going to use to communicate to your target audience. These strategies should be tailor-made according to the market segment you are operating in, your competition and your customers. Based on this information, as well as on your available budget and resources, you need to choose which communication channels to use to communicate with your customers.

At this stage, you should keep your marketing plan simple: once you have built a good customer base, update it accordingly. However, even at this initial stage, your marketing plan should include milestones, assumptions and tasks. These should keep you and your team focused on the same objectives.

Once you’ve drawn up your marketing plan, you need to complement it with a customer service policy. While the first attracts customers, the second will keep them coming back for more. After all, customer retention and repeat custom are the backbone of every successful business.

While a marketing plan is essential to your start-up, it doesn’t guarantee success. What it does, however, is increase your chance for success. Moreover, the work you put into it will help you better understand your start-up as well as the market segment you’re operating in.

Apart from traditional media, word of mouth referrals are indispensable in building trust in your start-up. Ask for referrals from suppliers, friends and former colleagues and encourage them to spread the word.

If you don’t have a healthy marketing budget, there are still things which you can do at little or no cost but which still give you plenty of media mileage. Reach out to local media outlets, tell them about your new start-up, and try and convince them why covering your business venture is worth their time and effort.

Awards are also a great way of getting your name known. Apply for business awards. Competing will get you precious recognition, while winning an award will give your start-up more legitimacy.

Be social

Contrary to what many think, social media is neither free nor easy to use. However, if you use it wisely, social media can be very rewarding.

First of all, you need to be consistent. Putting up a post whenever you have a few spare minutes isn’t enough: you need to constantly engage with your customers. Also, make sure that the content you are publishing is informative and interesting; in order to capture your audience’s attention, your content needs to have value. Also, social media isn’t just Facebook or Twitter. If you think that your product or service is best marketed in a visual manner, consider other platforms like Instagram and Pinterest.

Incentivise people to share your content. Offer a discount to those who tweet about your product or service and give an additional perk to those who ‘like’ your start-up.