New companies are typically faced with small marketing budgets that need to be spent wisely. In many cases, marketing duties fall down the list of priorities or are spread over many members of a company, leading to inattentive and disjointed efforts.

For new companies, it’s more important than ever to have a thoughtful approach to build awareness. They need to understand market trends, the competitive landscape and which prospective customers need the company’s product or service. Startups are typically involved in: 

• Development of a branding strategy
• Development of a pricing strategy
• Creation of brand identity elements
• Securing intellectual property rights for trademarks and patents
• Creation of marketing collateral
• Identification and development of prospective customer lists
• Creation of sales presentations and literature
• Creation of an annual marketing communications plan and executing it throughout the year
• Development of simple measurement systems for marketing and sales activities
• Launching new products or services to the marketplace
• Early stage research and development
• Market research
• Website creation, including e-commerce sites
• Blogging
• Establish social marketing networks
• Securing speaking or article opportunities for business leaders with trade associations or trade publications

Companies in the growth stage are experiencing increasing revenue, increasing market share, expanding distribution channels, an expanding product or service offering and/or geographic expansion, and are beginning to build out their organizational structure.  Many companies begin to explore strategic partnering with third parties which offer complementary products, technologies, market position or sales channels. Very rarely is a company’s growth linear, instead companies will experience intermittent periods of low, moderate and high growth while in the growth stage. 

During the growth stage, it is important for owners or business leaders to have their finger on the pulse of the market including industry trends, competitor’s movements, technological innovations and customer needs. Companies in a growth stage will typically make substantial investments in marketing and sales and are typically engaged in:

• Strategic planning exercises, including the development of multi-year business plans and annual marketing plans
• Continuous refinement of pricing strategies
• Investment in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to track interaction with customers from cradle to grave and measure sales and marketing activities
• Refinement of marketing collateral, sales presentations and literature with key messages to target specific customer segments
• New products or service research and related product or service launches
• Market research on new and adjacent industries
• Development and rollout of sales training programs 
• Development and rollout of customer support initiatives
• Development of customer loyalty programs
• Development of customer communication programs
• Development of customer surveys
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing initiatives
• Development of a public relations strategy
• Development of web-based customer portals
• Continued positioning of business leaders as industry experts

Companies in mature stage typically have moderate to well-known brands in their target markets and have established client relationships, sales channels and distribution channels. At this stage it is important to understand the profitability drivers of the company, including determining which customer segments are the most profitable, analyzing profitability by product or service offering and monitoring where the company’s products are in their own life cycle. 

These companies need to ensure they are frequently examining the adequacy of their marketing strategy given changes in the competitive landscape and customer needs and are typically engaged in:

• Re-branding activities for products or services approaching the end of their life cycle
• Robust strategic planning exercises, including the development of 3-5 year business plans and annual marketing plans
• Systematic tracking of marketing and sales metrics through CRM or other automated system
• Refinement of marketing campaigns to be more focused on specific customer segments
• Market research
• Customer segmentation analysis
• Customer profitability analysis (with financial partner)
• Development of customer loyalty programs
• Customer communication programs
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing initiatives
• Public Relations activities
• Continued positioning of business leaders as industry experts

Companies in business decline typically face decreased revenue and profitability, cash flow constraints and negative growth rates. Depending on the cause of the decline and which products or services they should focus on going forward, there are different marketing strategies a company can pursue. They may decide to cut prices to increase sales and take market share from competitors, increase or continue their marketing investment in specific businesses to strengthen their competitive position, change distribution or sales channels or divest or discontinue unprofitable business lines or customers relationships. Companies in this stage are typically engaged in:

• Customer segmentation analysis
• Increased customer, employee and supplier communications activities
• Increased Public Relations activities
• Systematic tracking of marketing and sales metrics through a CRM or other automated system
• Market research on new products or new uses for existing products
• Determining the best way to harvest the last revenue dollar from sales of existing products or services
• Identification of new sales or distribution channels
• Analysis of sales force effectiveness
• Customer profitability analysis (with financial partner)