With all the different marketing strategies nowadays, small business owners can quickly feel overwhelmed. Most marketing strategies require large budgets, which SMEs usually can’t provide.
While small businesses have their particular niche, competing with big brands that have already established their name in the market is difficult. This gives rise to a pressing question
“With the already existing big guns, how can your small business make its name?”
Most of the big brands and companies have their names everywhere – no televisions, magazines, or even on large advertisements on billboards.
But the key to remember is that just like every other business, they started small. They achieved their success and name with the deployment of effective marketing strategies. When you wish to make a name for yourself, you must remember that it tests your marketing skills.
If you do not know where to start, we have some tips to help you design an effective marketing strategy for your startup.
Build Your Brand and Its Website
The first step in digital marketing is to create a strong online presence for your brand. You can create a functional and attractive website for your customers. Establish your website and build your brand to start strong.
For any online store, branding is very important. How you present your brand to your customers leads to building a big name for your work. Google loves to showcase brands in its search results, and you can attract your target audience.
Here is what you have to cover when working on your business’s branding.
Create a Unique Logo
Remember – A logo is your identity.
Just as names are important to recognize humans, logos are important to recognize brands. You need a logo that correctly represents your brand, delivers a powerful message, and can be used everywhere, i.e., your website, social media pages, browser icons, etc.
You do not have to make a complicated logo or something artistic. Your brand’s logo must be simple, attractive, and easy to remember. But it must differentiate your brand from the rest.
Create a Website That Accurately Represents Your Brand
The next big step is digital marketing.
Many startups either omit this step or do not pay enough attention. A professionally made website is essential as it will be the focal point of all your digital marketing campaigns.
Through effective branding and marketing strategies, you can get people to visit your website, sign up for your newsletter, follow your brand, become loyal customers, and eventually become your brand ambassadors.
Study and Know Your Target Audience
Businesses survive because of their customer base. If a business cannot reach its target audience, it will shut down instantly. At the same time, many businesses like working with a smaller niche; having a wider customer base can help businesses insulate their brands from fickle markets. What other great way to have a large customer base than to take your brand worldwide?
Conduct business in a different language and optimize your website to serve many different cultures and nationalities worldwide. However, you must study your target market before marketing your business worldwide. You can also use customer insight analytic tools to better understand your customer base. Once you have determined your target audience, you can build more effective marketing strategies.
This way, you would know in which countries to market your brand, which languages to use, what discounts to offer and how to create your advertisements.
Help People Discover Your Content
If you have started your business online, you must be working on the marketing strategies of the twenty-first century and may have started your own brand’s blog. Just because your content is online does not guarantee that it is accessible or even reaching your target audience. Your content can be out there with nobody to read it.
Once you have put up something with your brand name on it, you also have to ensure your audience is reading it. Every post or blog you publish must incorporate keywords in your text. These keywords would be based on what your audience is searching for if they want your brand’s product or service. This will also help you improve your website’s ranking on search engines.
You can also use hyper-targeted keywords on your social media for customer acquisition. Put organic SEO techniques to use, which can help your audience find you. Give the correct title to your pages that are relevant to your business. Post original and unique content to make your website perform faster, and implement other SEO techniques to promote your content.
Don’t Just Sell – Engage with your audience
As an entrepreneur, it may come to you as an instinct that you would try to sell to everybody you meet. Hold that back. While there is nothing wrong with flaunting your brand, it is also important to make it relevant.
Engage in important discussions which do not have to revolve around your business and leave your impression. This way, you make a place for yourself in the big brands’ market. You can use various social media platforms to engage with your audience without looking like you are trying to advertise. Engage in conversations and let people discover your brand.
Carve a Niche And Build Industry Credibility
Your startup’s shoestring budget can not hold you back from carving out its niche. Create a culture around your brand and give an insider’s perspective to those on the outside. You can create blogs that can give you a chance to help others understand your trade with a new perspective. A webinar or a podcast can help your audience connect in a better way.
Speaking at an incubator or an expo can give you access to a platform where you can share your groundbreaking ideas with an immediate audience. The small business convention you attend every year may need a few more keynoters, and you can try to speak and engage instead of being just an observer.
Send Out Irresistible E-Coupons
Luring your audience with coupon and promotions is a temptation they cannot resist.
Research shows that very few people can resist the offering of a great coupon or discount vouchers. 4 out of 5 customers use coupons regularly. Moreover, more than half the people conduct business with a company because they are offered coupons.
While you could deploy the old-fashioned method of sending coupons through the mail, e-coupons can hit two birds with one stone. You can invite people to join your email list and get a coupon in return. This way, you make people sign up for your newsletter and purchase from your brand because they have a coupon.
There are also other clever ways to integrate e-coupons into your marketing strategy. Those customers who are already invested in your business would appreciate how you thank them. People who are new to your brand would most likely start to follow you. So it’s a win-win.
Engage in Partnership Marketing
Startups can benefit a lot from partnership marketing. Creating effective marketing campaigns with other booming brands is a great way to improve brand awareness, leading to acquiring more customers with marketing that is cost-effective.
Of course, your partner should benefit from the collaboration too. So build a plan that is effective both ways and would want brands to partner with you.
For starters, you can go with affiliate marketing. You can get as creative as you want with this. If you are trying for an established business to partner with you, you must be ready with a compelling pitch to prove they can benefit from your partnership.
Have a Link Building Strategy
Link building is also a great way to improve your brand’s awareness and customer interaction with your website. Building links with other websites with high traffic inflow and good metrics improve your visibility.
This strategy is also the core of good SEO; with that, you have a better chance of ranking high on search engines and reaching your target market. But for this strategy to be effective, you would have to invest a lot of time and effort into link building. You can also outsource your SEO services to get the job done while focusing on other marketing strategies.
Use Video Marketing
Video marketing is a startup’s most effective marketing strategy. It is more engaging than other forms of content and can effectively deliver your message and create a strong connection with your audience.
You can also use social media platforms to promote your video. Through social media, you are likely to get more customers than ever. You can also use various video marketing tools and websites to track the consumption of your video and how your target audience is reacting to it.
Social Media Engagement
Social media is more powerful than any other advertising method. This is because it allows brands to interact daily with potential and existing customers. Every time your customer interacts with your brand’s post on social media, their interest is spiked in the brand. They understand what the brand stands for and shows interest in it.
A powerful social media engagement strategy can help your brand foster a strong and long-lasting relationship with your customers. This can also build brand loyalty and word on mouth referrals that go a long way. Social media marketing strategy is a must for every startup as they are resource constrained, and this is one of the most cost-effective ways of marketing.
Make sure you keep the following in mind when creating your social media marketing strategy –
- Understand and clearly outline the goals of your marketing campaign. With this, you can keep track of ROI and the action taken much more smoothly.
- Post regularly. We cannot stress this point enough! According to research, one post a day is a must for businesses. Set up a calendar, so you do not miss out!
- Engage with your Audience. You can do this by hosting polls, creating content on relevant topics, teaching a skill to your audience, or conducting live. You can also share your brand story with your audience. It’s always good practice!
- Use TikTok. While it is fun, it is a very powerful marketing tool. The best part is you would not have to spend too much time with it creating content, and you get to engage with potential customers quickly!
Listen and Observe
Lastly, just listen and observe. It is ridiculous to think that as soon as you launch your marketing campaign, it will get instant results as you desire. This is not how it works. You need to give time and pay close attention to what your audience is reacting to and what does not work well.
Watch your SEO techniques, content, and social media closely and observe what content your audience likes to interact with. What do people consume and react to, and what does not foster engagement? Once you conduct a proper analysis, you will know what to do to drive the audience to your brand.
When it comes to business, listening holds significance as well. This way, you will be able to get a chance to address negative feedback straightaway and build on the positive aspects of your brand as well. Startups must listen and build themselves right from the very beginning.
Frequently Asked Questions
Marketing Strategy for Startups:
- Build Your Brand and Its Website
- Study and Know Your Target Audience
- Help People Discover Your Content
- Don’t Just Sell – Engage with your audience
The 6 types of start ups are
- Scalable startups.
- Small business startups.
- Lifestyle startups.
- Buyable startups.
- Big business startups.
- Social startups.
These 11 elements are product, price, place (distribution), promotion, people, process, physical evidence, personal relationships, packaging, positioning and performance.
With all the different marketing strategies nowadays, small business owners can quickly feel overwhelmed. To keep your business going and boost it against the big guns you need an efficient marketing plan.
Conclusion
Successful marketing is constantly refining your methods and understanding what works for you and doesn’t. Incorporate what you learn into your marketing strategy. Go back, evaluate and re-strategize at every step of your marketing campaign.
Constantly ask yourself questions like, what areas can you improve on? Do you have the right target audience? Are you giving your audience what they are looking for?
With this, you can listen, learn, change, and grow with time. All you have to do is have a little patience and a lot of consistency.
