Marketing Success Tips for Startup Budgets

Creating a successful startup takes more than just a good product or service. Up-and-coming businesses require well-planned marketing strategies. To pull in a client base, it’s vital to create an identifiable brand, connect with prospects, and establish a solid industry niche.

Without ample financial resources, new businesses often find that marketing is hardest when they’re just getting started. Startups often face challenges when they’re getting off the ground. Their main concern is getting their product out in the world, but they don’t always have the financial means for a full-throttle marketing campaign.

Even a genius new product can flop if it fails to communicate its purpose or concept to consumers. In fact, great products often fail because they do not get the public attention they deserve.

SET YOUR BRAND APART

 “Your product needs an audience, and if you really want it to succeed, it’s best if you get the audience before you launch,” argues Manish Dudharejia in a Venture Beat article.

Before jumping into marketing, take some time to develop a strategy that will set your campaign apart from the multitude. It is essential that the concept is consistent, unique and fits with your company goals.

According to a MaRS report, startups often fail to realize that brand identity is “the glue that bonds customers to their product or service.” And yet in today’s competitive world, it’s more important than ever. Consumers are bombarded with about 6,000 ads a day and 25,000 products a year. That’s a lot of competition for consumer attention.

ZERO IN ON A SPECIFIC TARGET

Those unsure where to start are advised to think about who the prospective customers are. Companies can go much further if they zero in on a specific segment that is more likely to help business grow, according to a Mashable article. This might be a select community of early-adapters, similar to what Google did with the invitation-only release of its Google Glass. Focusing efforts on the most valuable group at first helps save resources and perfect a product’s flaws.

GET NOTICED & CONNECT

Publicity and attention is useless unless it can capture and convert an audience. The web makes it cheap and easy to connect with clients through tools like social media and email marketing. Social media already gets plenty of attention for its marketing benefits, but companies shouldn’t ignore the importance of email marketing. In fact, Monetate's Ecommerce Quarterly report found that email marketing had a 3 percent conversion rate compared with social media, which was calculated at less than 1 percent. The statistics were based on 500 million shopping experiences in Q1 of 2013.

But social media must be done strategically in order to bring success to your company. Facebook and Twitter aren’t just there for you to freely promote your product or business. You should post content that people are interested in seeing and that they will share with their friends.

Social media isn’t the only way to make a brand visible to a target community. Direct community outreach is a surefire way to get some attention. Startups can reach out to local media companies like newspapers or radio shows to see if they would be willing to offer promotional bits. Entrepreneurs can also participate in or sponsor charity events or local competitions to get more visibility and forge investor connections.

GROW SHARE-THRUS & COVERAGE

Once they establish an engaged client base, startups can encourage those customers to share their discovery. This could mean offering a discount for customers who “Like” a Facebook business page or tweet about a product. Contests and free side products are another great way to reach out. By eliminating “the obstacle of payment,” free products “have a way of going viral with minimal effort on your end,” according to Venture Beat. Freckle – a tech startup that developed a paid time tracking tool – used this method when it launched a free side product called EveryTimeZone, which tells users any time zone in the world at a glance. Despite its simplicity, the tool took off and got some valuable coverage on CNN and other media platforms.

ONLINE SEARCH & VISIBILITY

When it comes to online marketing, content plays a major role in a company’s visibility and search engine results. Every startup should develop a strategy for branded content. “Branded content is a great way to align your company with themes that are pertinent to your industry, and if you have something intelligent to add to the dialogue you immediately establish yourself as an expert,” suggests a Mashable report.

There are a few considerations to keep in mind when developing unique, branded content. Business executives should be sure to avoid a promotional tone and should instead focus on educational and relevant information that establishes them as a thought leader in the industry. Secondly, they should develop content that stands out amid the deluge of Internet media. In addition to publishing articles, creating a YouTube video or publishing a free eBook are two effective ways to accomplish this.

Startup businesses face a multitude of hurdles when it comes to marketing. Lack of financial stability or a client base makes marketing investments challenging at first, although this is alleviated by the possibilities afforded by the Internet.