A few on my articles discuss the importance of marketing.  This article will discuss the importance of starting your ad campaigns with a bang!

I've seen so many companies that open up brick and mortar businesses or an online business and do very minimal to no marketing at all.  The company loses money for a year or two, then in a last ditch effort to save the business, the owner comes up with some money through a loan or refinances his house, etc. and starts an ad campaign.  If the ad campaign is too small or not done right, the business goes under after two years and the owner loses everything.  Even if a big ad campaign is launched, it still may not drum up enough business and the owner loses everything.  The final scenario would be that the owner launches an ad campaign that does well, and the owner stays in business and finally starts making money after two years, but this is a huge risk to try this at the end.

The key to all of these scenarios is "two years."  Most businesses that do not market are just going to lose money until they start marketing.  Wouldn't it be smart to budget in a big ad campaign right at the start of the business to see what direction it's going in?  Of course you might have to wait a month or two to get the business running smoothly, but after that you have to get the marketing started.  Personally, I would like to know within six months what direction my business is going in.  Does it have any potential to succeed?  A big ad campaign early in the business will tells me a lot about it and gives me some idea of what's going on very quickly.  You're a new company so you may not get amazing results at first, but if every different ad medium you try for several months is a total bomb, it may be time to close the doors and get out of your business before you "lose everything."

With my philosophy here, within 6-8 months you'll either make your business profitable, know for a fact it will be soon, or you'll close it and save a lot of money and a year and a half of your time.  With the "start marketing in two years after I opened the business plan" you could be wasting an extra year and a half of your time plus you could lose all the money you have on this one venture.  Not to mention two years of stress and heartache.  Eventually 95% of all businesses are going to have to advertise in some way.  Why wait two years?    

Note: An exception to this rule could be if your business is in an airport or in a busy enclosed indoor mall.  If this is the case, you pay triple or more rent because the entity is supposed to bring in your traffic (business).  But then again, all the bigger stores in the malls advertise.  That's how they got the big walk in traffic to begin with.  They continue to put flyers in papers, run tv ads, etc.

Lastly, as your ad campaign is running, you must make adjustments to the business for the better.  Maybe add new products, add new services, take customer surveys, do things that will increase sales.  The full potential of your business will not be realized unless you are constantly improving your business along with marketing it well.