Marketing basics for those starting a business

Many new founders think of marketing as “advertising”: open social media accounts, buy a few ads, hope. It’s the fastest way to burn through budget. Marketing, at the start, is above all clarity: knowing who you’re addressing, why they should choose you and where to find them. Here are the basics to get right before you spend a single franc.

1. Positioning comes first

Positioning answers one question: why should a customer choose you and not the alternative? If the answer is “because I’m cheaper”, you’re already in trouble. Good positioning is specific and defensible:

• For whom you are the best choice (not “everyone”).
• Which concrete problem you solve.
• How you are different from the alternatives, including “doing nothing”.

Clear positioning makes everything else easier and cheaper: messages, channels, price.

2. Define the ideal customer

“My product is for everyone” means, in practice, for no one. Defining the ideal customer — segment, need, budget, where they get information — lets you concentrate limited resources where they pay off. For a new founder, winning 50 right customers is worth more than talking to 5,000 wrong ones. Describe your ideal customer in a few concrete lines: who they are, what keeps them awake at night, how they decide.

3. The message: talk about them, not about you

The classic mistake in early communication is talking about oneself — “we are an innovative, dynamic company…”. The customer doesn’t care: they care about their problem. An effective message is simple:

1. Here is the problem you have.
2. Here is how we solve it.
3. Here is the proof it works (a case, a number, a testimonial).

Fewer adjectives, more concreteness.

4. Choose few channels, the right ones

You don’t need to be everywhere. You need to be where your customer is. The typical channels for a business starting out:

• Network and word of mouth: in B2B services this is often the first engine of customers.
• Website and search (SEO): getting found by those already looking for a solution.
• Content: demonstrating expertise by answering customers’ real questions.
• Social media: only those where your audience is really present and active.
• Paid ads: useful for accelerating, but only after the message and the offer already work organically.

Better one channel managed well than five managed badly.

5. Measure few numbers, but the real ones

Marketing without numbers is an opinion. At the start, a few honest metrics are enough:

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): how much you spend, on average, to acquire a customer.
• Customer value (LTV): how much they generate over time. The survival rule is simple: value must stably exceed the acquisition cost.
• Conversion rate: how many contacts become customers.

You don’t need complicated dashboards. You need to know whether every franc invested in marketing brings back more than one.

6. Budget: start small and reinvest what works

A new founder doesn’t need to “have a big marketing budget”: they need a process. You start with small, measurable investments, watch what brings customers at a sustainable cost, and reinvest there, cutting the rest. Effective marketing at the start is not the one that spends the most, but the one that learns fastest.

The connection with the company’s numbers

Marketing doesn’t live in isolation: CAC, margin per customer and the collection cycle directly affect the cash requirement and the sustainability of the business. A customer acquisition that costs more than the margin it generates is not a marketing problem: it’s a model problem. That’s why it’s worth reading marketing numbers together with those of the income statement and cash flow.

At SIH ONE we support new founders precisely on this bridge: connecting marketing and pricing choices to the company’s financial reality, so that growth is sustainable and not just visible. Are you preparing to launch your business and want to start on solid foundations? Let’s talk.