5 Marketing Tips for a Startup Company!

Getting a Startup Company off the ground and running can be an arduous task, with no specific recipe for success.  However, many startups become successful everyday!  This post will focus on affordable and simple ways that can help startups gain recognition through Marketing. Believe it or not, Marketing your company can be a very low cost and effective way to reach consumers and build brand recognition.

Sometimes Marketing efforts may be pushed to the back burner due to lack of resources, lack of knowledge, or lack of money. However, if you focus on a few affordable and less time consuming ways to Market your new company, it can go a long way. The five Marketing Tips that are elaborated on below can be done with fewer resources and little to no money.

5 Marketing Tips:

1. Focus on your Target Market

• A Target Market is a group of customers that a business has decided to aim its marketing efforts towards. Focusing on a specific Target Market, as opposed to everyone, is very important for a startup company. Obviously, you will not turn customers away, but you will be more successful if you market to the consumers that are more inclined to buy your product or service. The product or service you are selling may be amazing, but that does not mean that it is a great product or service for everyone. One important piece of the Marketing puzzle is to choose your audience and tailor all of your marketing materials, channels, and messages to their liking. An important thing to consider when targeting a certain Market is to think about the Demographics of the Market and channels that they like to communicate through. Gen-Y consumers, for example, will not want to be called on the telephone. So once you have your product or service in place and ready to go, take a hard look and decide who is most likely to want what you’re selling and Market to them.

2. Leverage Social Media

• One of the easiest and most affordable ways to market your startup is through social media. There are still important things to consider when using social media to market. It can be very positive for your business, but it could also hurt you if it is not done right. You want to make sure you are posting regularly, responding in a timely manner to customers, and engaging everyone who is following you. The information you post should be helpful to your followers, interesting or both. Therefore, it is important to know who your target market is and post materials that will help them in their endeavors or peak their interest.

3. Incentivize people to share

• Most of the content you share through social media or email will not be shared by your customers. However, getting your customers to share your content can be very beneficial. It is not that most of them are against sharing, they just may not think of it or take the time to stop and do it. Also, how many of your customers are actually seeing the content you publish? This is why sharing can be so important. The way to get customers to share the information is to incentivize them. One example of this may be to give a discount or some type of financial incentive if you get “X number of likes”.  A few other examples would be to give people who share your information something exclusive or recognize and reward super fans.

4. Efficient Email Marketing

• Email is a very affordable and convenient way to reach consumers. However, many companies have realized that this is a way to market all of their sales specials or promotions.  Therefore, people can be flooded with 20-30 Marketing emails a day from companies that they have purchased from in the past. The intended reader now has a few options.  They can read the email, ignore the email, or unsubscribe from a particular vendor due to lack of interest.  E-mails have no impact if they are never read by the intended reader.  The good news is that there are ways to increase your chances of having your emails read. By following a few guidelines, you can increase the effectiveness of your e-mail marketing.  E-mail Marketing can be effective and has little to no cost when it is done correctly. A few basic guidelines that you should follow are that you do not want to send too many emails (or they will be ignored), the email should have good content that the customer will benefit from, and make sure to stay focused on your target audience when deciding on the content and design. Successful email marketing can do great things for your startup, if you follow the guidelines suggested above.

5. Develop Branded Content – Blogs, Articles, White Papers.

• This may not happen right when you open your doors, but it is a great way to get noticed by your industry and to be considered an “expert”. Branded content should not be promotional in any way. It should be unique and original content that you are going to share. Try to share a ‘Tip of the Week’ post or ‘How To’ articles as often as possible. You want to set yourself a part from the competition by showing that you are knowledgeable about the Industry and that you have a quality brand.

The tips listed above will help your startup begin to get recognized through affordable channels. However, do not forget that you should always be Marketing.   Believe in your company! You need to be selling the message 24/7 to anyone who might be or know a good customer because you never know where your next big lead may come from!