Apply These Five Marketing Strategies for a Winning Startup

A good marketing strategy is nothing but positioning. It’s all about how you sell the product. Regardless of whether you claim a startup or an established business, you should know the customers’ mindset. Dig into the avenue they use to find you and what they do to validate the credentials. If you can determine that, then you can always stay on their radar.

The Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) suggests that the average investment cost to start a business is USD 30,000. However, some businesses may start with just a few hundred dollars while others may need millions. A well-planned business strategy framework is needed.

Though a higher-budget marketing strategy can bring more visibility and consistency, there are effective and low-cost marketing strategies you can afford for and help your startup grow. Creating a marketing plan requires your time, creativity, and effort.

Before you start your marketing, define your marketing and business goals. Ask yourself certain questions. Seeking answers for them helps you to establish a well-defined approach with specific objectives.

Some of the questions to think over are:

• What goals do you want to accomplish?
• Where do you want to see your business in the next two years? Five years?

When you have a destination, you can start using landmarks with marketing strategies. Get introduced to some of the online marketing strategies every startup can afford.

Online Marketing Strategies Every Start-up Can Afford

For early start-ups, feedback is more important as you can resolve customer pain points and improve the product at an early stage itself. A successful business strategist affords to match the market demand to gain long term benefits. Some of the valuable strategies are as briefed below.

1. Create a Referral Network

One of the best ways to market is to let customers speak for you. Because people are more likely to buy a product when referred by a friend, it is convincing to establish a referral program. People trust personal recommendations. Offer your customers a discount on subscriptions or a cash reward in exchange for referring a new customer.

2. Content Marketing and SEO

The simplest approach is to manage a blog page on your website. Keep adding unique content a few times a week. Try infographics, videos, and podcasts. All these contents help you to improve brand reputation, increase inbound traffic, and complements your other marketing strategies. You can also write PPC landing pages to run selective PPC campaigns.

When you are spending time writing, you can invest in improving search engine optimizations as well. Identifying relevant keywords that attract high traffic to the site and making structural changes can help you write high-quality content. A proper SEO implementation is beneficial for long term business.

3. Social Media Marketing

Stay connected with your audience. Start establishing profiles for your business on major social channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Each social media channel serves a different audience. So, research which channel works the best. It is recommended to test each channel. You can also opt for sponsored campaigns until you reach a desired number of audiences.

Facebook:

You will find all types of the audience here and you may not have business with all.

Instagram:

The algorithm is optimized for valuable content. It is the best channel for native advertisement and targets the right audience.

Twitter:

If you can provide relevant content to the audience, then you can maintain a significant number of audiences.

You can also try personal branding on social media channels. Have a separate outlet to syndicate content, earn new followers, and attract leads.

4. Email Marketing

It is an effective medium for promotions, marketing, and retargeting. You can use email marketing techniques to maximize business reach, automate drip marketing campaigns to convert visitors into customers.

It is recommended to deploy A/B test email marketing campaigns through subscribers and segment subscribers as per their interests and preferences.

5. Affiliate and Influencer Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a more powerful way to get acquisitions and increase conversions faster. When someone signs up from your affiliate referral link, then only you pay commission for affiliates.

Influencer marketing creates initial hype for your startup. It involves paying the social media influencer to promote messages within the circle. Though it might not guarantee sales, it spreads brand awareness.

Wrapping Up:

Well, before wrapping up, do not underestimate offline marketing. In some startups, offline marketing channels help to earn scattered potential customers. The channels include print media, TVs, banner ads, sponsorships, guerilla marketing, and event marketing.

To develop an effective marketing plan, have the right team and the right business strategist in place.

Measure your performance and then narrow campaigns on a select few that works for your business. Dare to change your startup direction to fit the market need. Fit your business to market demands to earn success.