Marketing is critical for any startup because if people are not aware of the startup’s existence, they will not buy from it. However, when done the conventional way, marketing campaigns can be very costly, particularly for startups. Startups can use non-conventional marketing strategies to reach their target audience and grow their business. These marketing strategies that ride on modern trends that include the use of postcards newsletter template builder, email templates, content creation, search engine optimization, social media, and landing pages.
Sometimes even promotional products, and promotional products of Personalized Basketballs. Startups need to use as many of these strategies are they can to promote their products and services. Here are seven marketing strategies that every startup should explore:
- Sending Email Newsletters
Emails are effective marketing tools that can help startups attract customers at minimal or no cost. To use this strategy, startups need to build an email list of prospective and existing customers in order to send them emails that promote their products or services. You can do this through your website. For instance, you could include a newsletter subscription form on the website to collect email addresses from visitors.
The other way of building an email list is by asking customers to share their email addresses directly, even if you run a podcast. To interest customers, ensure that you include non-commercial information on your newsletters. For instance, a startup could feature content such as infographics, videos, articles and guides that empowers its target audience on the newsletter.
- Use of Social Media Posts
At this time and age, businesses cannot underestimate the power of marketing through social media platforms. With more than 3.5 billion people currently using social media across the globe, these platforms are taking marketing to a high level. Startups can use social media to promote their products or services by sharing posts such as videos, articles, infographics, offers, and promotions with their followers.
In addition to marketing products, social media platforms serve as great spaces for engaging existing and prospective customers to understand their pain points and feedback on how they experience the products or services being offered by the startup. Some of the leading social media platforms that each startup should consider using include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon.
- Use of Blog Posts
Blogs are great marketing tools that can give business startups the exposure they need. Statistics show that through blogging, businesses can generate up to 126% more leads compared to their competitors who do not blog. Using blogs, startups can position themselves as leaders in their industry and drive organic traffic to their sites through internet searches.
The best way to create an effective blog is through publishing content that your target audience is seeking for or interested in. When such content is valuable, search engines will rank your blog highly on search results. This translates to high traffic as more people get to know about your startup.
- Generate shareable content
Internet marketing thrives on sharing. This means that the content you create about your startup should be interesting and valuable to make your audience want to share. The more people share a piece of content, the more that content goes viral and reached more people. Some of the content formats that entice people, encouraging them to share include visual content such as short videos, infographics, images as well as blogs, stories, and articles.
In creating content, consider information that is related to your business or is about your business. Of importance to note is that providing additional information to your followers or customers could entice them to become more curious about what you are offering.
- Use Referral Programs
To grow your business fast, consider using the referral marketing strategy. This strategy thrives on allowing customers to promote your products or services to their friends and family. Most successful companies set up referral programs because people tend to believe in personal recommendations from people they know more than they believe company adverts.
Every startup can reach more customers through a referral strategy by getting current customers to refer other people to the business. Find creative ways to encourage existing customers to refer their friends to your startup. For instance, you could offer customers who refer people to your business commissions, discount vouchers or coupons that they can claim in the future. An example of this could be ‘refer 2 friends and get free shipping the next time your shop’. The audience you attract through referrals can be a strong lead for your startup.
- Hold a pre-launch event
When you are launching your business or product, create a buzz about it and let your target audience about it online and offline. One way to do this is by issuing raffles. Though this will cost you, it will entice them to get raffles and market the business. Through raffles, you can also encourage your audience to follow your business on different social media platforms. Once they connect with you on social media, you will be able to get their feedback about the products or services you offer. You will also be able to develop a contact list for use in future events or communication.
- Use Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing is a strategy that involves driving traffic to your website and other online platforms through search engines such as Bing, Google, and Yahoo. For this strategy to work, you need to focus on optimizing your website for the search engines so that people can find your startup without having to call you.
Statistics show that every day, millions of internet use search engines to find stuff on the web. If you optimize content such as blog posts, articles, images, videos and social media posts for search engines, you will attract visitors to your website and begin connecting with them to grow your customer base.
Since you will be driving traffic to your website, ensure that it is loads fast so that visitors can access it without having to wait. To achieve this, you need to avoid the use of many heavy images as those will slow the website. Instead, use images only where they are really needed.