Small businesses and startups make up a large percentage of overall jobs in the US, according to the SBA around 630,000 new businesses are started each year with some sources showing even higher numbers. All of these companies are started because the founders believe they can successfully create markets, compete in existing markets, change segmentation or develop a niche of their own.
Ultimately the ability to successfully grow revenue and manage costs lead to the failure or success of any business in the long term. One of the hardest steps for any startup is product-market fit, and developing enough customers at an early stage to be viable. Successfully identifying customer groups and profiles, pricing, how to reach these customers, and what they expect can be the difference between a very tough initial few years or a quick launch.
Let’s take a look at some tips and insights on developing a marketing strategy for your startup!
Get as much feedback as possible!
Most tech startup founders have adopted various spins on the lean startup process, but any small business needs to be very careful to get feedback from an early stage. The more data you have on how your customers use your product or service, what they like about it and what they don’t can drastically help your product-market fit, and generate more efficient use of both your marketing budget and development budget. Sometimes customers are using your firm for a reason you didn’t think of, or have chosen your product due to a benefit you didn’t think was a competitive advantage. By identifying that, you’re able to then market that to other customers in that segment.
Build Data on your Ideal Customer and Customer Segments!
The more you learn about your customers the better, it will lead to better marketing segmentation whether for your sales team, email marketing, paid digital, or even content creation. The best brands spend a significant amount of energy creating detailed segments of their current and potential customers.
Profitable Marketing
Most tech startups don’t have huge marketing budgets to blow testing different strategies. Typically startups are trying to be very careful to conserve cash and make the most out of each dollar.
This is where a number of marketing strategies come in that don’t cost that much in comparison. PR can be a low-cost marketing channel, as can content marketing, blogging, social media, and email marketing. All of these can be done for a very low dollar spend and can bring in a surprising amount of leads.
PR in particular will drastically help you build SEO and establish your brand as a thought leader in an industry. This could be anything from working with publications to be featured or writing a story, speaking at an industry conference or expo, getting press releases featured in industry news or even local news, working with charities, and many others.
Content marketing doesn’t have to be expensive either, a cheap camera and audio recording device can give you everything you need to start doing webinars, podcasts, product walk-throughs, industry news, and more. Video will be a powerful tool to help boost your SEO ranking and get your content in front of a wider and more engaged audience.
Engage on Social Media
Social media can have a major impact on local startups, staying in contact with customers, showing off specials, sales, and new products through bi-weekly posting will keep your audience engaged with what you have to offer! Encourage shares and likes which will future your posts’ reach.
Reviews are really important!
Following a good experience with a customer, ask for a review. Most customers will be happy to write one provided everything went well. Customer reviews on Yelp, Facebook, Google, and other relevant sites will help the SEO of your website and drive more inbound leads. Reviews are completely free as well which is always a good thing!
SEO and a Strong Website
A huge portion of B2B and B2C sales start online, and an ever increasing percentage close online, as e-commerce has rapidly expanded in the last year with the covid-19 pandemic.
Most customers will check out your website at some point before a sale, you want this experience to be a positive, not a negative! Don’t be satisfied with a website that looks like it was from the dot com boom or a website that doesn’t work correctly on mobile, as around 50% of web traffic is on mobile devices. Your website should be clean, easy to read, and navigate and help push your leads down your sales funnel.
Expos and Tradeshows Marketing for Startups
Tradeshows are a major part of many B2B marketing plans, as nearly every industry you can imagine has a tradeshow of some scope. These are opportunities to meet a lot of players within an industry and develop connections you otherwise wouldn’t have.
Your booth and the content you share at the tradeshow reflect heavily on your business. It’s generally recommended to work with a professional booth design firm to help your craft a great-looking booth that will draw visitors in.
Another trade show trend we’ve seen firsthand is the rise in video content and tradeshow expo 360 Vr content. Every tradeshow we’ve been to that uses some form of VR 360 content as a VR tradeshow experience gets a huge number of visitors lining up to it. Anything from a VR factory tour, to interactive branded roller coasters to package sorting simulations will make sure to keep a long line of people at your stand. While VR 360 tradeshow content isn’t cheap to make, imaging increasing the number of leads from any tradeshow you attend by 2-3x. The initial investment in a 360 VR tradeshow experience can be used over several years as well at any number of events.
Traditional video content is another major signal that a tradeshow booth is worth visiting. The best booths always have a big LED tv playing a mix of branded video content ranging from product demos to case studies and explainers.
Paid Digital Ads for Startups
Even firms with small budgets should devote a percentage of their marketing budget to paid digital avenues. Typically this is a mix of Facebook, google AdWords, potentially app store, Instagram, tik tok and youtube ads.
Typically we recommend working with an expert to create your initial campaign as it can be easy to waste budget if you aren’t sure how to properly set up campaigns and conduct keyword research. The amount you’ll spend working with digital marketing will quickly be worth it as your overall ad spend ROI will be higher.
Make sure to track data and use significant A/B testing to continually refine ads and campaign settings. Another important trend is the use of video content instead of traditional static ads, as video content generates a 50-150% increase in retention, click-through rates, and add effectiveness depending on the source. This is a MAJOR boost in ad effectiveness and will generate more customers faster using the same digital budget.
Explainer videos
Video content is expected for any startup. Google search any startup you’ve heard of and they will without fail have some sort of 1-3 minute video essentially explaining what they do and why anyone should care. Depending on your market, industry, and offering, an explainer video can take many forms, including both live-action and animated.
An explainer video is a powerful tool for any startup as it can be used across a variety of channels, use in sales meetings, email marketing campaigns, social media, played at conferences, paid marketing and more. Additionally, the investment you make in an explainer video will pay dividends over 3-4 years of continual use.
Marketing Sponsorships
Sponsorship is an outside-the-box startup marketing approach that is becoming more and more popular. Sponsorship opportunities for startups can range across a variety of sponsorship types but for tech startups are commonly expo/ industry events, e gaming teams, work with charities, and even putting on their own conference.
For locally anchored companies, local sports teams, sports venues, concerts, festivals, fairs and more can be great opportunities to have your brand and team in front of a lot of people.
Make sure that whatever type of sponsorship you do, that your company actively engages with it and has a strong presence at any event. You want customers to put a face and friendly conversation with your brand name!
These are just a few of many startup marketing strategies that can be employed by startups in nearly any industry and business type with as little or as large of a budget as you want!
Thinking about video content or want to learn more?
Contact us! We are a top Knoxville, Tennessee video production animation and marketing company that’s worked with dozens of clients on hundreds of projects with significant experience with video marketing, startup marketing strategy, and 360 VR trade show video experiences.
