Creating perfect Marketing strategies for Startup business is not an easy task for newbies…however, laying a strong foundation for your business at the very beginning is something better to start with…
Some of you might have launched your business and looking for a killer marketing plan… You have a long way to travel and you’ll explore more once you set the perfect business plan.
Believe that it’s not as hard as you think. To put it in the right place, knowing the basics is important.
Here in this article, we are going to discuss some of the Effective Marketing Strategies for Startup Business.
Determine the Target Audience
Customers play a major role in your business. Every single buyer of your products is the contributor who adds the value to grow your Business.
Identifying them and customizing your products to their needs is vital for you to attract them.
Some of the Entrepreneurs may presume that their product is common to all groups of people.
If you think so, it is not viable for most businessmen.
Rather determine your customer according to several aspects like
- Age group,
- Gender, and
- Demographic data etc…
Another crucial thing to consider regarding your audience is Buyer’s persona.
There are many best ways to attract your customers and keep them engaging.
We are going to see some of the mediums that act as a bridge between you and your audience, in further reading.
Also Read Innovative Marketing Strategies
Know Your Competitors
Well, after identifying the audience, ask yourself that, would you able to reach them?
To identify the factor, you must know the top players in your industry. They are your competitors, who may offer a better value to the customer.
You should outperform them. To do so, you need to analyze their performance. This will help you to identify the marketing channels that they use to reach the customer.
You will get to know the strength and weakness of them. If the competitor lack somewhere, then there is the key for you. This makes you to design your own marketing strategies.
Budget
“Just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you should buy it.”
Suze Orman
As the quote suggests,
There may be many ways and means to brand your product, but you don’t need to spend on all the mediums for your Marketing.
Many startup companies fail because of their improper budgeting and money management.
Research on which medium you’re going to put money on and get paid from the same. Use minimum resources for the paid activity.
With advancements in digital technology, you can find out many free marketing campaigns. Some paid services are also available. It is all about how you choose them wisely.
Be calculative on the budgeting and cost estimation. This will ensure you to get a high Return On Investment (ROI).
Some of the free marketing plans are social media marketing, personal branding, and writing a blog for your company, etc…
Here is what you need to know the exact marketing plan for your business.
Let’s explore…
Referral
The referral is one of the best things to market your product. Here customers do the marketing work through their words. You could gain the credibility of your product among people.
According to research, 92% of people buy products on personal recommendations.
This referral model costs you less when compared to other methods, where you may have to give some discount to the customer who will refer to many people.
You can also get feedback from customers that would let you know more information about the personalities of your target audience. This will help you to modify your product according to your customers.
Using this referral strategy can multiply your business. The only thing you should maintain is transparency and keep delivering your products as you have assured.
Press Releases
Today, there is ‘n’ number of news channels, magazines, and apps available online that have a special column for marketing your brand.
Although it is not a 100% guaranteed model for marketing your brand, yet it would work on a small scale because of the millions of users available online.
At earlier stages, you could manage on your own by writing about your product to capture audience attention and send it to press release.
But, you can deal with any specific PR agency in the future as it is not much expensive.
Benefits of Using Press Releases
- Instant exposure
- Increase sales potential
- Opportunity to show your Brand essence
- Boost your SEO
Content Marketing
According to a study, 72% of the content marketers say, content marketing increases engagement.
Blogging is the most important content marketing strategy you will ever use for any business. Keep creating engaging content about your product which will be a crucial thing to convert readers into customers.
Learn a content marketing strategy that will help you to provide creative blog posts which include infographics, pictures, videos, and podcasts.
Content writing for your blog will not cost you much, but you’ll need to invest your time to write proper content. If you don’t find the time, then you can hire good content writing professional for your blog.
There are many freelance websites where you could find good content experts at a cheap cost.
- Freelancer
- Fiverr
- Upwork
Benefits of content marketing for your startup company
- Increase audience engagement
- Improve the visibility of your brand
- Generate more sales leads
- Build authority and credibility
To write awesome and engaging content you need to practice and implement SEO techniques.
SEO
Do keyword research to get a good rank in search engine pages and be more frequent in creating good quality content and post it regularly to increase your organic search traffic for your website.
If you get more traffic for your blog, there is a higher possibility to generate more leads for your product sales.
Many SEO tools are available online to do keyword research for your content.
Social Media Marketing
One thing that is freely available for your marketing plan is social media marketing. It could be done casually but, again it is time that you will need to spend on it.
- Linked in
- Snapchat
73% of marketers say social media marketing is effective for them. Managing social media networks is an easy task that requires you to post consistently and it is not expensive to run advertisements.
Make your presence on social media every day, try to post your content in different ways. Get different ideas to stay connected with your audience by conducting polls, product reviews, etc…
Come up with different stories or scenarios to grab your audience’s attention and find a way to pull out them to read your blog as well.
Contest
Try to mingle with the people to create interest among them.
Conducting a contest either directly or virtually makes people to actively participate. This enables the brand to reach the customer faster than you think.
Along this way, it increases the growth speed of your startup company.
Sponsor An Event
Sponsoring any social or sports event, with relevance to your product would be eminent for your new business. If you do so, you can create an emotional value for the people.
Sponsoring an event includes ads, banners, and other promotional activities that would get the attention of thousands of people.
When conducting such events, it also attracts many outsiders, who may be the future buyers of your product.
Video Marketing
Video marketing is a type of digital marketing that uses video to create awareness and drive sales to the company.
Hubspot research says that 50% of the customers like to see video content than any other content. Because the video content will entertain and engages the audience. Therefore it leads to 80% of conversion rates.
Now you think about that, should you give your first preference to video marketing?
The answer will be yes, for sure…!
You can create video content and post it on social media like Facebook, Youtube, etc… you can also opt for paid ad networks, that cost very low when compared to others.
Webinars
Besides this video marketing, some of the startups conduct webinars.
A webinar is an online event that allows many participants (your audience) to interact with you. Through these sessions, you have the possibility to create awareness and generate more leads.
Why Webinar is important for you?
- Directly interactions and discussions with your target audience online.
- You can create actionable content that includes a traditional presentation with slides, documents, video content, etc…
- You can offer materials to the audience.
- Opportunity to understand the audience and their behaviour.
E-mail Marketing
Once you sell your products or service to the customer, you can make them a recurring customer.
Email marketing is a type of digital marketing strategy that uses email to retain your customers. In 2019, the number of global e-mail users amounted to 3.9 billion and is set to grow to 4.48 billion users in 2024 – Statista report.
Every startup business must opt for email marketing because for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42.
Benefits of Email marketing
- Improve sales
- Increase leads
- Cost-effective
- Retain your customers
- Strengthen your relationship with customer
- Easy to segment your customers.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a kind of Social media marketing that uses Influencers to create an endorsement for your Product.
Marketing Campaign uses Influencers who is an expert in a particular niche and has a strong social following.
The target audience for your business trust the Influencers, whom you use for Brand marketing.
PPC Ads
Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is a type of internet marketing that uses search engines or other social media to display your ads.
If your company targets a particular niche market, a PPC ad is viable to drive more traffic to your website.
How does PPC ad work?
- If your target audience searches for a particular keyword through search engines, your ad or website will be displayed at top of the page.
- This enables people to click on your ad or website link. It will bring more visitors to your products.
- But the ranking depends upon, how much you pay for an ad. It is a little expensive to get a high rank, because of the competition available in the market.
- If you invest in PPC ads, it will give more conversions and a high Return on Investment.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a type of program that uses affiliates to promote or sell your product.
Here, an affiliate might be a person or a company, who recommends your product to their customers and earns a small commission from you.
Why affiliate marketing is important for startups?
- Less time and effort.
- Quick reach to the customer, because the affiliate acts as an influencer for your audience.
- Low cost.
- Affiliates can review your product or service.
To set all these prospects into a potential business, you must choose the best program that suits your business. And be creative in devising your own marketing strategy for your startup company.
Reader’s Insight:
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