What Marketing Should I Do First?

Right, let’s cut to the chase. You’re staring at your business (whether it’s brand new or just new to marketing), and you’re wondering where on earth to begin. Should you jump on TikTok? Start a blog? Maybe throw some money at Facebook ads and hope for the best? Here’s what you’ll discover in this comprehensive guide: the exact sequence of marketing activities that’ll give you the biggest bang for your buck, based on real evidence and practical experience.

Look, I’ve watched countless businesses blow their entire marketing budget on the wrong things at the wrong time. It’s painful to witness. But here’s the good news – there’s actually a logical order to this madness, and once you understand it, you’ll save yourself thousands of pounds and months of frustration.

Marketing Foundation Assessment

Before you spend a single penny on marketing, you need to get your house in order. Think of it like building a house – you wouldn’t start with the roof, would you?

Business Goals Match

Let me tell you about a startup I consulted for last year. They were pumping £5,000 monthly into Instagram ads because, well, everyone else was doing it. Problem was, their actual goal was to land enterprise contracts worth £50,000+. Guess how many enterprise decision-makers they reached through Instagram? Exactly zero.

Your marketing strategy needs to align with your business objectives like a key fits a lock. Are you trying to build brand awareness? Generate immediate sales? Establish thought leadership? Each goal requires a completely different approach.

Start by answering these questions honestly:

• What revenue target do I need to hit in the next 12 months?
• How many customers does that translate to?
• What’s my average transaction value?
• What’s my current conversion rate (if you have one)?

These numbers aren’t just nice-to-haves; they’re the foundation of every marketing decision you’ll make. Without them, you’re essentially throwing darts blindfolded.

Target Audience Definition

You know what drives me bonkers? When business owners say their target audience is “everyone.” No, it’s not. Even Coca-Cola doesn’t target everyone.

I once worked with a fitness app that insisted their audience was “anyone who wants to get healthy.” After three months of terrible results, we dug deeper and discovered their actual paying customers were busy professionals aged 35-45 who’d previously had gym memberships but stopped going. Once we narrowed the focus, their conversion rate tripled.

According to market research from the U.S. Small Business Administration, understanding your market size and demand is needed before any marketing efforts begin. They emphasise that you need to know not just who might want your product, but who actually has the means and motivation to buy it.

Here’s a practical exercise: Create what I call a “Day in the Life” profile. Pick your ideal customer and map out their entire day. What time do they wake up? What’s the first app they check? What frustrates them before lunch? What podcasts do they listen to during their commute? This isn’t some fluffy exercise – it’s intelligence gathering that’ll inform every marketing channel you choose.

Don’t just think demographics (age, income, location). Think psychographics: values, fears, aspirations, and the specific language they use to describe their problems. If you’re selling project management software, your customer doesn’t wake up thinking “I need project management software.” They wake up thinking “Why can’t my team ever meet deadlines?

Resource Inventory Analysis

Alright, time for some tough love. What resources do you actually have? Not what you wish you had, not what you’ll have “once things take off,” but what’s available right now.

Budget is obvious, but it’s not just about money. Time is a resource. Skills are resources. Your network is a resource. That cousin who’s brilliant at video editing? Resource. Your ability to write compelling copy? Resource. Your complete inability to understand Instagram? That’s… well, that’s information you need to factor in.

I’ve seen solo entrepreneurs try to maintain eight different social media channels at the same time as running their business. Spoiler alert: it never works. Better to do one thing brilliantly than eight things poorly.

Create a simple spreadsheet with three columns: Resources I Have, Resources I Need, and How to Bridge the Gap. Be brutally honest. If you’ve got £500 per month and 10 hours per week, that’s your reality. Work with it, don’t fight it.

Market Review

Here’s where things get interesting. Your competitors have already made expensive mistakes – why not learn from them for free?

But first, who actually are your competitors? It’s not always who you think. Netflix famously said their biggest competitor wasn’t other streaming services – it was sleep. Your competition might be the status quo, DIY solutions, or completely different product categories solving the same problem.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation guidelines on market research emphasise the importance of understanding trade-offs in the market. What are customers currently sacrificing when they choose your competitors? What are they sacrificing when they choose you?

Spend a week studying your top three competitors. Sign up for their emails. Follow their social media. Read their reviews (especially the negative ones – gold mine of information there). What promises are they making? What language do they use? Where are they showing up consistently?

My experience with competitive analysis taught me this: most businesses severely underestimate what their competitors are spending on marketing. That local bakery with amazing Instagram presence? They might have a £2,000/month social media manager. Know what you’re up against.

Important Marketing Infrastructure

Now we’re getting to the meat and potatoes. You’ve done your homework, you understand your position – time to build the machine that’ll drive your marketing forward.

Website Development Priorities

Let’s address the elephant in the room: in 2025, if you don’t have a website, you basically don’t exist. But here’s what nobody tells you – your first website doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to be functional, findable, and focused on one primary action.

I remember working with a consultant who spent six months perfecting their website before launching. Meanwhile, their competitor threw up a simple one-page site in a weekend and had already landed three clients by the time Mr. Perfectionist went live. Guess who’s still in business?

Your website needs five key elements before anything else:

• A crystal-clear headline explaining what you do
• One primary call-to-action (CTA) that appears at least three times
• Social proof (testimonials, logos, numbers – something)
• A simple way to contact you
• Basic SEO setup (title tags, meta descriptions, header structure)

Everything else? Nice to have, not need to have. That fancy animation, the team photos, the company history dating back to 1847 – save it for version 2.0.

Here’s something key: your website’s job isn’t to close the sale (unless you’re e-commerce). Its job is to move people to the next step. Maybe that’s booking a call, downloading a guide, or signing up for a trial. Pick one primary action and optimise everything around it.

Mobile responsiveness isn’t optional anymore. Over 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices, and Google actively penalises sites that aren’t mobile-friendly. If your site doesn’t work on a phone, fix that before you do anything else.

Brand Identity Elements

Branding isn’t just your logo, though everyone seems to think it is. Your brand is the promise you make and the personality you project. It’s the reason someone chooses you over the cheaper option.

Start with your brand voice. Are you the friendly expert? The no-nonsense professional? The inventive disruptor? Pick a lane and stick to it. Consistency builds trust, and trust builds sales.

I worked with a law firm that tried to be “approachable and fun” in their marketing. Their rainbow logo and comic sans font didn’t exactly scream “trust us with your legal problems.” Know your industry’s expectations, then decide how much you want to push against them.

Your visual identity needs to work across all channels. That means your colours should look good on Instagram and invoice headers. Your fonts should be readable at business card size and billboard size (metaphorically speaking). Keep it simple: two fonts maximum, three to four colours, one consistent style of imagery.

Create a simple brand guide document. Nothing fancy – just a one-pager with your colours (include hex codes), fonts, logo variations, and three to five words that describe your brand personality. Share it with anyone who creates content for your business. Consistency is more important than creativity when you’re starting out.

Analytics Setup Requirements

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. But here’s the thing – most businesses are drowning in data they don’t understand or use. You need just enough information to make decisions, not so much that you’re paralysed.

According to Harvard Business School’s guide on marketing KPIs, the key is focusing on metrics that directly tie to your business objectives. They recommend starting with cost per acquisition and return on marketing investment as your north star metrics.

Start with Google Analytics 4 (yes, it’s free, and yes, it’s worth the learning curve). Set up:

• Goal conversions (form submissions, purchases, whatever matters to you)
• Audience demographics
• Traffic sources
• User behaviour flow

Then add Google Search Console to understand how people find you organically. These two tools will tell you 80% of what you need to know.

Set up a simple dashboard you’ll actually look at. Weekly traffic, conversion rate, top traffic sources, and top performing content. That’s it. Check it every Monday morning with your coffee. Make it a ritual.

Track your marketing spend religiously. Every penny. Create a simple spreadsheet with columns for: Date, Channel, Amount Spent, Results, and Cost Per Result. After three months, you’ll know exactly what’s working and what’s bleeding money.

Quick-Win Marketing Tactics

Right, foundations are laid. Now let’s talk about getting some actual results. These are the tactics that can start generating leads or sales within weeks, not months.

Email List Building Fundamentals

Email marketing isn’t sexy, but it works. Average ROI? £42 for every £1 spent. Show me another channel that delivers those numbers.

But here’s where most businesses cock it up: they start collecting emails without a plan for what to do with them. “Join our newsletter” is possibly the worst CTA in marketing history. Nobody wakes up thinking “You know what my inbox needs? More newsletters.

Instead, offer something immediately valuable. A checklist, a template, a mini-course, a discount code – something people actually want. I’ve seen a simple “5-minute guide to [solving specific problem]” outperform elaborate £2,000 lead magnets.

Your email list is the only marketing asset you truly own. Facebook can change its algorithm, Google can tank your rankings, but your email list is yours. Treat it like the valuable asset it is.

Start simple: one welcome email, then one weekly email. That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate it. Share one useful tip, one interesting observation, or one helpful resource. Build the habit first, optimise later.

Local SEO Optimisation

If you serve a local market, this is your lowest-hanging fruit. Most local businesses are terrible at local SEO, which means opportunity for you.

Claim your Google Business Profile immediately. Fill it out completely. Add photos (real ones, not stock). Respond to reviews (yes, even the bad ones). Post updates weekly. This free tool drives more local business than most paid advertising.

Get listed in relevant directories. Start with the major ones, then move to industry-specific options. Jasmine Business Directory is particularly good for establishing your business’s online presence and improving your local search visibility. The key is consistency – same name, address, phone number everywhere.

Create location-specific pages on your website if you serve multiple areas. Web Design in Manchester” performs way better than generic “Web Design Services.” Be specific, be local, be findable.

Content Marketing Essentials

Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. But you can start seeing traction within 60-90 days if you’re well-thought-out about it.

First rule: solve problems, don’t create content. Every piece of content should answer a question your customers are actually asking. How do I know what they’re asking? Easy – check your customer service emails, read forums in your industry, look at what people search for on Google.

Pick one content format and master it. Blog posts, videos, podcasts – doesn’t matter. What matters is consistency and quality. Better to publish one excellent piece monthly than four mediocre pieces weekly.

My experience with content marketing taught me this: your first 10 pieces will be rubbish. Your next 10 will be decent. By piece 30, you’ll start finding your voice. Embrace the process.

Channel Selection Strategy

Here’s where most businesses go wrong – they try to be everywhere at once. It’s like trying to juggle flaming torches when you’ve barely mastered regular balls.

Social Media Platform Priorities

Not all social media platforms are created equal, and more importantly, not all of them are right for your business. LinkedIn for B2B, Instagram for visual products, TikTok for younger demographics – these are generalisations, but they’re generally true.

Start with one platform. One. Master it, understand its quirks, build an audience, then consider adding another. I’ve watched too many businesses spread themselves thin across six platforms, doing none of them well.

Choose based on three factors: where your audience hangs out, what type of content you can consistently create, and what agrees with with your brand personality. If you’re a serious B2B company, dancing on TikTok probably isn’t your best move (though stranger things have worked).

Remember, organic social media is a long game. If you need results this month, it’s not your answer. But if you’re building for the long term, it’s an asset that compounds over time.

Paid Advertising Considerations

Should you start with paid ads? Honestly, probably not. Unless you have a proven offer, a clear understanding of your customer acquisition cost, and at least £1,000/month to test with, you’re likely to waste money.

That said, paid advertising can accelerate everything if done right. The key word there is “right.” I’ve seen businesses burn through £10,000 in Facebook ads with nothing to show for it because they didn’t understand the fundamentals.

If you’re going to dabble in paid advertising, start with retargeting. These are people who’ve already visited your website, so they’re warm leads. Set aside £500, install the Facebook Pixel or Google Ads tag, and run simple retargeting campaigns for 30 days. Learn from that before you try cold traffic.

Google Ads versus Facebook Ads? Depends on your business. Google catches people actively searching for solutions. Facebook interrupts people who might be interested. Generally, Google for immediate need, Facebook for creating desire.

Partnership Marketing Opportunities

This is the most underutilised marketing channel I see. Other businesses have already gathered your ideal customers. Why not work together?

Look for non-competing businesses that serve the same audience. Web designers partner with copywriters. Accountants partner with business coaches. Gyms partner with nutritionists. The possibilities are endless.

Start simple: guest blog posts, email swaps, bundled offers, referral agreements. No money needs to change hands initially. You’re trading access to audiences.

According to discussions on Reddit’s Product Marketing community, understanding your product and sales teams’ pain points is key for creating effective partnership solutions that actually drive sales.

My favourite partnership hack: create a resource that benefits your partner’s audience more than your own. Sounds counterintuitive, but it works. You become the valuable connection they want to share, not the person asking for favours.

Performance Measurement Framework

You’ve got marketing activities running – brilliant. Now, how do you know if they’re working? This is where most businesses fall apart. They either measure nothing or measure everything, and both approaches are equally useless.

KPI Selection Guidelines

Let’s get something straight: vanity metrics are called vanity metrics for a reason. Your Instagram follower count doesn’t pay the bills. Your website traffic doesn’t either. What matters are metrics that connect to money.

Start with these five KPIs:

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) – How much does it cost to get a customer?
• Lifetime Value (LTV) – How much is a customer worth over time?
• Conversion Rate – What percentage of prospects become customers?
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – For every pound spent, how much comes back?
• Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) or Total Revenue – The only metric that really matters

Everything else is supporting information. Nice to know, but not necessary.

Track trends, not snapshots. A 2% conversion rate might be terrible or brilliant depending on your industry and price point. What matters is whether it’s improving month over month.

Testing and Iteration Methods

Here’s a secret: your first marketing campaign will probably fail. Your second might too. The difference between successful marketers and everyone else? They treat failure as data, not defeat.

A/B testing sounds fancy, but it’s just comparing two versions to see which works better. Test one element at a time: headline, image, call-to-action, colour, whatever. But here’s the key bit – you need enough data for the results to mean something. Testing with 10 visitors tells you nothing.

My rule of thumb: don’t test until you have at least 1,000 visitors per month. Below that, focus on volume, not optimisation. It’s like tuning a guitar that only has three strings – fix the obvious problems first.

Document everything. Create a simple testing log: Date, What We Tested, Hypothesis, Result, Next Action. You’ll be amazed how quickly you forget what you’ve tried.

According to insights from marketing professionals discussing first marketing hires, the initial phase should focus on analysis and planning rather than rushing into execution. Take time to understand what’s actually moving the needle.

ROI Calculation Basics

If you can’t calculate your marketing ROI, you’re flying blind. The formula is simple: (Revenue from Marketing – Marketing Cost) / Marketing Cost x 100 = ROI%.

But here’s where it gets tricky: attribution. That customer who bought today might have seen your Instagram post last month, clicked your Google ad last week, and read your email this morning. Who gets the credit?

Start with last-touch attribution (whatever they did last gets the credit). It’s not perfect, but it’s simple and better than nothing. As you grow, you can get fancy with multi-touch attribution models.

Track both immediate ROI and lifetime ROI. That customer who cost £100 to acquire and spent £50 looks like a loss. But if they buy monthly for a year, that’s £600 revenue from £100 spend. Context matters.

Budget Allocation Strategies

Money talk time. How much should you spend on marketing? The standard answer is 7-10% of revenue, but that’s like saying everyone should wear size medium shirts. Your situation is unique.

Cost-Effective Starting Points

When you’re starting with a shoestring budget, every pound needs to work hard. Here’s where to put your first £1,000:

• £300 – Basic website improvements (better headlines, clear CTAs)
• £200 – Email marketing software and setup
• £(just to learn)

Notice what’s not on that list? Fancy logos, expensive software, or brand awareness campaigns. When you’re starting, you need customers, not recognition.

Sweat equity is real equity when you’re bootstrapping. Can’t afford a copywriter? Learn to write. Can’t afford a designer? Use Canva. Can’t afford ads? Double down on organic content. There’s always a way.

Scaling Investment Decisions

Once something’s working, the temptation is to immediately pour money into it. Resist that urge. Scale gradually and track religiously.

The 2x rule: Don’t double your spend until you’ve consistently hit your target ROI for three months straight. Markets change, competitors adapt, and what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow.

Diversification matters, but not immediately. Get one channel profitable first, then add another. I’ve seen too many businesses spread their budget across five channels, achieving mediocrity in all of them.

When you do scale, scale the entire system, not just ad spend. More traffic means you need better conversion optimisation, better customer service, better fulfilment. Make sure your business can handle the growth you’re buying.

Resource Optimisation Techniques

The biggest waste in marketing isn’t bad campaigns – it’s redundant effort. That blog post you wrote? Turn it into five social media posts, a email newsletter, and a video script. Work smarter, not harder.

Batch similar tasks. Write all your social media posts for the week in one sitting. Record all your videos in one day. Design all your graphics in one session. Context switching kills productivity.

Automate the repetitive stuff. Email welcome sequences, social media scheduling, report generation – if you’re doing it more than twice, find a tool to do it for you. Your time is better spent on strategy and creation.

Consider bartering when cash is tight. Trade your services for marketing help. I’ve seen web developers trade sites for SEO services, consultants trade advice for design work. Get creative with value exchange.

Common Pitfalls and Solutions

Let’s talk about the mistakes everyone makes (yes, everyone, including me) and how to avoid them.

Avoiding Overwhelm

Marketing overwhelm is real. There are approximately 8,000 marketing tactics you could try, 47 social media platforms to consider, and roughly infinite experts telling you their way is the only way. It’s enough to make anyone want to hide under their desk.

The solution? Pick three things. That’s it. Three marketing activities you’ll commit to for the next 90 days. Could be blogging, email marketing, and LinkedIn. Could be Google Ads, SEO, and partnerships. Doesn’t matter what they are, matters that you stick to them.

Create a “Not Doing” list. Write down all the marketing tactics you’re explicitly choosing not to do right now. When someone suggests you should be on TikTok, point to your list. It’s liberating.

According to discussions about marketing analytics tools, even choosing between SQL and Tableau can be overwhelming. The key is to start with one, get comfortable, then expand your toolkit.

Timeline Expectations

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: marketing takes longer than you think. SEO? 6-12 months to see real results. Content marketing? 3-6 months minimum. Social media? Unless you go viral (you won’t), it’s a year-long commitment minimum.

The only fast marketing is paid advertising, and even that requires weeks of testing to get right. Anyone promising overnight success is selling snake oil.

Set 30-60-90 day milestones, not just end goals. Month 1: Systems set up and first content published. Month 2: Consistent rhythm established, first data collected. Month 3: Initial optimisations based on data. This keeps you motivated when the big results haven’t arrived yet.

Quality vs Quantity Balance

The eternal debate: is it better to publish daily mediocre content or weekly excellent content? From my experience, quality wins, but consistency matters more than both.

Better to publish good content twice a week for a year than brilliant content randomly whenever you feel inspired. Your audience needs to know when to expect you.

That said, don’t let perfectionism paralyse you. Your first 50 pieces of content are practice. Ship them, learn from them, improve. You can’t edit a blank page, and you can’t optimise marketing that doesn’t exist.

Find your minimum viable frequency – the least often you can publish when maintaining momentum. For most businesses, that’s weekly. Then focus on making each piece as valuable as possible within your time constraints.

Future Directions

Right, you’ve made it this far. You’ve got your foundations sorted, you’re running campaigns, you’re measuring results. What’s next?

The marketing environment never stops evolving. What works today might be obsolete tomorrow. But here’s the thing – the fundamentals rarely change. People still want solutions to their problems. They still want to feel understood. They still buy from businesses they trust.

As you grow, your marketing will need to evolve too. That scrappy email campaign that worked when you had 100 subscribers won’t scale to 10,000. The personal touch that won you your first clients becomes impossible at scale. This isn’t failure; it’s growth.

Start documenting your processes now, even if you’re a team of one. Write down what works, what doesn’t, and why. Create templates for everything. Build systems that can survive your absence. The goal isn’t to work yourself out of a job; it’s to free yourself up for higher-level strategy.

Keep an eye on emerging channels, but don’t chase every shiny object. AI tools, new social platforms, the metaverse – evaluate them against your core strategy, not FOMO. If it serves your audience and matches with your goals, test it. If not, add it to your “Not Doing” list.

Investment in learning pays the highest dividends. Whether that’s courses, books, conferences, or just following smart people in your industry, stay curious. Marketing is part art, part science, and the proportions keep shifting.

Build relationships, not just campaigns. The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing at all. It feels like a conversation with someone who understands your problems and genuinely wants to help. That’s not a tactic; it’s a philosophy.

Remember, every massive brand started where you are now. Amazon began in a garage. Facebook started in a dorm room. They didn’t have it all figured out on day one, and neither do you. That’s perfectly fine.

The question isn’t whether you’ll make mistakes – you will. The question is whether you’ll learn from them faster than your competition. Speed of learning beats perfection every time.

So what marketing should you do first? Start with understanding your customer deeply. Build a simple but effective website. Create valuable content consistently. Measure what matters. Test, learn, iterate. Everything else is just tactics.

The path forward isn’t always clear, but it’s always there. Take the first step, then the next, then the next. Before you know it, you’ll look back and be amazed at how far you’ve come.

And hey, when you’re ready to expand your online presence and improve your visibility, getting listed in quality directories is a smart move. It’s one of those foundational tactics that keeps working year after year.

Now stop reading and start doing. Your future customers are waiting.