Startups deal with many challenges, but none are as uncertain or critical as the strive to stay cash positive.
It’s hard to grow a startup. You may have heard or read about various marketing tactics but all won’t work the same way for newly launched companies as they do for more established ones. Instead of concentrating more on awareness and branding, your goal should be to generate conversions and revenue possibly with a low budget.
Here are a few marketing strategies that will help you get started but won’t break the bank.
#1. Make it Big with Cross Promotion
You need to target people in different capacities. Subdivide the divergent areas of your client base and think about how you can bring them together online and offline.
The biggest example is between Google’s Android and Nestle’s KitKat. There was a partnership between Nestle and Google for the promotion of the famous Android OS among the youngsters. Nestle produced around 50 million KitKat bars having the branding element of Android.
Although the example is of big brands still you can use it as a motivational factor to boost up the branding of your startup. You can tie up with other local businesses in your area and use their existing customer base to sell your products or services.
#2. Use StumbleUpon and Reddit Advertising
If you want to try some paid advertising with a low budget then StumbleUpon’s paid search discovery could be for you. Paid discovery redirects users straight to your site. Visual assets, photography and humorous content work best on StumbleUpon.
StumbleUpon is quite inexpensive as compared to other paid ad structures. You can initiate with a base price of 10 cents per click, then add +2 cents for age targeting, gender targeting, and device targeting. On the other hand, other social media ads like Facebook can cost as much as 80 cents per click.
To genuinely get benefited from stumble upon, use targeting options to ensure that you are striking the relevant audiences and niches.
Similarly, you can use Reddit advertising to reach your target audience especially Millennials who have the purchase decision in their hands. Reddit campaign can be set within minutes and there is no minimum spend commitment which makes it an ideal advertising platform for start-ups.
#3. Build Exceptional Resources That Earns You Free Publicity in Prominent Media Channels
Anything valuable for the audience is often shared and talked about. Such exceptional resources have the capability to go viral. As a startup, you need to get out from the old mentality of following your competitors’ strategy and do something unique. Having a USP for your brand is one of the most critical elements in your marketing strategy.
For example, Moz built the weather report tool called MozCast to show turbulence in the Google ranking algorithm. Hotter weather indicates major ranking fluctuations and more changes in the main algorithm. This tool was an instant hit and was shared and linked by most of the
#4. Adopt a Killer Content Marketing Strategy
Try to publish great content consistently. Write things that cover topics related to your specific industry niche. Create content that your ideal readers will be inclined to share with their colleagues, friends, and relatives.
- Have an agile content marketing strategy where the content that is created is based on facts. Conduct surveys and find out the questions whose answers will be helpful to your current or potential customers.
- Publish tutorials, webinars, blog posts, and podcasts that educate your audience. Complement the readers with newsletters that will allow the subscribers to keep in the loop with the latest updates happening around the industry.
- Producing niche content always works best. Distinguish yourself by creating content that is different from what your competitors are writing.
- Keep your audience happy and listen to what they are saying. Regular feedback from your audience should be a priority.
Here are some tools that will help you to aid you in your content marketing efforts:
- Grammarly – Hiring an expensive content editor is something that startups might not afford. Grammarly is a free tool that instantly checks for errors in grammar and provides suggestions to correct them.
- Free Stock Photos From Shopify – A picture is worth a thousand words. Successful content marketing strategies require pictures to acquire more subscribers. For startups with a limited budget, it is not always possible to buy images, hence you can make use of free stock photos to boost up your marketing efforts.
- Tweak Your Biz Title Generator – In order to ensure you are never short of content writing ideas, make use of this awesome tool to generate perfect blog content ideas within seconds.
#5. Build a Network With Online Influencers in Your Industry
Establishing a robust online network should be the foundation of any successful marketing strategy. It is an incredibly strong point to have other people talk about your brand.
If your network is lacking somewhere then start being active with influential people. Influencers can be anyone from celebrities to domain setters or bloggers. For startups, it can be extremely beneficial to tie up with micro influencers who are easy to network with and do not cost a fortune. You can easily connect with influencers on any of the top influencer marketing platforms. Follow them on their social sites, share their content with others and comment on their posts in order to get engaged and make them notice you. You can then make them your affiliates and start generating direct sales.
Show them that you care about who they are and they should care about you too. Always include a link to your site in your signature. You can even use a tool like Buzzsumo to search influential networks and bloggers based on your products target market keywords.
Startup marketing is always difficult because of a tight budget. Also, some start-ups even make the mistake of spending a fortune on excessive hiring and unnecessary marketing activities. It is important to follow the above mentioned five tactics to market your startup efficiently and effectively on a small budget.
