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Creating an effective startup marketing plan does not have to be expensive. Nothing more than your time, effort, and creativity are required. These are just a few suggestions to get you started. Why spend a fortune on marketing when you can brainstorm your way to a winning startup marketing plan. The best marketing ideas are straightforward and affordable, but they do not appear in the form of an unconventional, innovative thought process. Always keep in mind that developing your brand is a continuous process, so begin with the right mindset. Here we break down the steps that you can take to succeed at your startup marketing plan.
Steps to achieve your perfect startup marketing plan
1. Set your aims
In the early stages of your business, your goals might vary depending on how you define success. But for many startups, plans often fall under 1 of 2 categories: raising brand awareness and acquiring new customers. And while both types are essential in the development of your startup, it can be helpful to prioritize the goals that make the most sense for you.
Raise brand awareness
When starting a new business, it’s essential to introduce yourself to your potential customers. You have to tell people who you are, what you do, and what sets you apart from everyone else. If you prioritize brand awareness, your goals and startup marketing plan might revolve around your target audience. Thus, they have to recognize your brand name, logo, or products.
Acquire new customers
If you choose to make acquiring new customers, your goals might include getting new people signed up to your platform, encouraging them to become active users of your product, or converting existing leads into paying customers. To reach these goals, you’ll need to develop a startup marketing plan using effective design, creative content, and compelling calls to grab people’s attention and make them want to engage with your business.
Understand your audience needs
Without the right prospects, what can you possibly accomplish? Regardless of how effective your marketing strategy, product, or service is, customers are critical to the success of your small business. However, who are these clients? It is vital to define your target customer so that your startup marketing plan can be structured to meet their needs.
Three suggestions to get you started:
- Determine your target audience’s basic demographic information, such as their gender, age, and location.
- Analyze your audience’s personalities and/or purchasing behavior to determine how to relate to them.
- Develop your brand’s message – These suggestions will assist you in focusing on your target audience and determining their needs to ensure that your offering satisfies them.
Understand your budget
A startup’s marketing budget is influenced by various factors, including operational costs and revenue projections. However, regardless of the available capital for startup marketing plan, it is critical to spend it responsibly. Consider your objectives and allocate your marketing budget to the channels that will assist you in achieving them. Never be afraid to adjust your strategy along the way or try something new if a particular channel fails. As your business and budget grow, you can always increase your marketing budget and reach previously untapped audiences.
2. Reach your audience on the social channels
Websites Traction
Websites are handy marketing tools that work around the clock to connect you with your audience and help you grow your business. If you’re not ready for a complete website or simply want to encourage visitors to take a specific action, start with a landing page. Landing pages are an excellent way to collect email addresses, sell a product, or give visitors a quick overview of your business, new products, or services.
As you create your website, keep the following points in mind:
- Purchase a domain name: Your domain name serves as your online identity, so it’s critical to choose a memorable name that fits your brand and which is easy to remember. While you’re considering your options, be sure to check each potential domain name’s availability on social media. Using the same name across all of your channels, you can create a consistent brand identity and expand your reach.
- Create Google Ads: Google Ads enable you to keep your business at the forefront of people’s minds by displaying targeted advertisements to people who visit your website. These advertisements are an effective way to increase traffic and recapture lost sales from customers, regardless of where they go on the web.
- Don’t forget SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) helps you increase your website’s visibility (and traffic from) search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. As a startup, you can incorporate a few essential SEO elements into your website to boost your search ranking, such as keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, internal links, and high-quality original content.
Pick a social media channel of your choice
Numerous startups understand the value of low-cost social media marketing. However, only a few understand the critical nature of social media channels. Each channel has a distinct set of personalities and demographics. And these people constantly interact differently with each channel. As a result, it is entirely up to you to decide what works best for your startup.
Several channels and their associated behaviors include the following:
- Facebook is the social media industry’s powerhouse. This platform is likely to cater to all audience types. However, because you are not in business to serve everyone, you must determine how to locate and contact your customers.
- Instagram is an excellent platform for native advertising. Because the algorithm is optimized for valuable content, you’re likely to gain a natural following from your target audience if you provide high-quality content.
- Twitter is another excellent social media platform. Here, consistency is critical for establishing and maintaining a sizable audience. The ultimate goal should be to provide your audience with content that is relevant to them.
You should evaluate and test each channel. You can invest a small amount of money in a sponsored campaign and be assured that your efforts will bear fruit sooner rather than later.
Content & Email Marketing
Email marketing is a highly effective method of developing a relationship with your audience and maintaining their engagement over time. Include a form on your website (or landing page) to collect visitors’ email addresses. Then begin sharing updates about your services, content, and products, as well as anything else that may be of interest to them.
If you decide to go a step further, you can always request additional information from your new contacts. By requesting information about your audiences, such as their date of birth, interests, or location, you can create even more personalized, relevant content.
On the other hand, content marketing focuses on creating (and sharing) content for your target audiences, such as blog posts, articles, videos, podcasts, and infographics. Unlike other forms of advertising or promotional messaging, this one is not solely about selling; it should provide relevant, valuable information that people care about.
Over time, content marketing can prove to be a cost-effective strategy that results in significant business benefits. Not only can it assist you in attracting (and converting) new customers, but it’s also an excellent way to establish yourself as an authoritative source of information in your field.
3. Assemble your Marketing team
Talented people with marketing abilities are critical for any business. However, teamwork takes it to the next level. To create effective startup marketing plan, you must assemble the right team. Consider the following factors when deciding whether to hire a professional marketing team on a contract basis or as employees:
- Determine the roles that must be filled to accomplish your end goals.
- Determine whether you require contract employees.
- Interview each candidate to ascertain their strengths, abilities, and experience.
- Conduct regular assessments of your team members.
Given the limited resources available to startups, the suggestions above may prove challenging to implement. However, you can explore other options. For instance, is your partner an expert in social media? Do you have an intern who is a coding expert? Utilize available resources until you can gradually expand your team.
4. Understand the success rate of your startup marketing plan
Startups frequently have a finite amount of funds and resources available, so your results must be both tangible and measurable. Here are three strategies for incorporating data into your startup marketing campaigns.
Define your marketing KPIs
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are used to track your progress toward marketing and business objectives. If your goal is to increase brand awareness, choose KPIs such as website traffic, social shares, and new contacts to track audience growth. If, on the other hand, your objective is to increase customer acquisition and revenue, compare your KPIs to daily or monthly sales and conversion rates.
Test and understand your customer feedback
Whatever type of startup you run, you must always listen to your audience. Even if they only communicate with you via click-throughs, page views, and conversions tracked in your reports. Be prepared to make changes if something does not work. If you’re considering incorporating email marketing into your startup marketing strategy, A/B testing is an excellent way to discover how small changes can have a significant impact on your results.
In Conclusion
Creating an effective startup marketing plan does not have to be expensive. Nothing more than your time, effort, and creativity are required. Concentrate on providing one-of-a-kind solutions. By being innovative with your service, you will quickly discover that your target customers will open their wallets for you.
A good marketing strategy is just one core part of a typical startup and is treated like a tool that supports the main idea. Thus, you should think more carefully about each part of your product development process (including the marketing stage) and seek the best possible business partner out there. But if you have tried and so far you have nothing in your browser bookmarks?
Then JetRuby might have exactly what you are looking for. Over the past 10+ years, we have been involved in numerous startups and entrepreneurs that have been actively engaged in developing unique digital products. All of them have been successfully raised to a solid stage when they can efficiently labor productive results. How did they accomplish that with us? Everything has begun with our technological flow or, more precisely, with the Product Development Strategy Session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours!
