How To Create An Effective Marketing Strategy For Your Startup
With 90% of today’s startups failing, an effective marketing strategy could be your ticket into the top ten percent.
Anyone who’s started a business can relate to the passion, enthusiasm, and determination that comes naturally to entrepreneurial individuals.
That rush of excitement when your business website goes live for the first time, the joy of checking emails to find that new leads have appeared overnight, the scent of fresh coffee coupled with new office space.
It’s like falling in love, everything feels new again, simple things seem more exciting, and we, as entrepreneurs feel whole again.
So why do businesses fail?
Well, there’s a myriad of reasons…
Lack of competitor analysis, poor market research, overspending, understaffing, and… POOR MARKETING!
How can you expect anyone to buy from you if they don’t know what you sell, where you are, or who you are?
Below, are some steps to follow to market your startup effectively.
Identify Your Target Market:
First of all, you must decide to whom you will want to sell your products or services.
I know, in an ideal world, your brand would suit everybody, and the world would be your target market. But we don’t live in a perfect world, so you must split your target market into segments.
Start by casting the net wide, and then focus on more specific groups of individuals.
For instance, if your company sells protein powder, will this protein powder be aimed at women, men, or both?
Will it be aimed at the weight loss market, the bodybuilding market, or both?
Can you hone it down more specifically to groups such as male bodybuilders?
By choosing the best target market for your product or service, you can construct your brand and messaging to cater specifically to their needs. That being said, don’t be so specific that you alienate a large portion of people that could benefit from your offering, try and find a middle ground.
Undertake Market Research:
Just because you think your target audience will love what you offer them, doesn’t mean that they will.
That’s where market research comes in handy.
It’s a way of finding out if people want or need your business in their lives. If they don’t, it’s time for a rethink.
Some great ways to conduct market research are to:
Not every business creates something unique. You may have just made improvements on products or services that already exist.
Analyze your Competitors:
Almost every type of startup will have competitors out there before they even think of their business idea.
That’s fine because an excellent marketing strategy will help to fend off and even beat the competition.
Analyze your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats using a chart similar to the high-tech diagram shown above.
Compare competitors to your brand… Who is their target market?
Find strength in the flaws of your competitors and don’t forget to acknowledge where they went wrong.
Set a Realistic Budget:
The second biggest reason startups fail is because they are unable to budget and run out of cash.
As a startup, consumers often don’t know who you are, and you won’t have a steady client base.
If you are currently in the early stages of writing a business plan and securing funding for your startup, make sure you estimate your marketing costs accurately.
Including your marketing budget in your business plan is essential. Marketing does not have to be expensive, so don’t worry and stick to your budget at all costs, overspending kills startups like a plague.
Save Cash by Creating your own Marketing Channels:
We live in an age where we have a huge amount of control over the information that we create and distribute.
Startups can utilize social media profiles and create leverage very quickly and cost-effectively.
Consider creating a free profile on one of the following websites:
It’s essential to establish a presence on these. Especially if you want to market your brand within budgetary confines.
You can save cash by setting these profiles up yourself and creating your own organic content to publish across these channels.
Which social media sites are your target market most active on? Concentrate your efforts on creating great content for these platforms.
Expand your Email List:
Email is still a great tool for communicating with and growing your audience.
Check out these email list building tips and follow them to increase your immediate network gradually.
Pick the Best Types of Content to Entice your Audience:
When creating content you have to choose the most appropriate formats to deliver your message and entice your target audience. You may consider:
Try and focus on just a few of these options when you start out. A concentrated marketing effort across a few channels and mediums is better than a diluted outpour of content that doesn’t strike a chord with anyone.
Specialize-Concentrate-Dominate!
Test and Measure your Marketing Efforts:
Once you’ve kickstarted your marketing campaigns, you need to measure how effective they have been
Otherwise, you won’t be able to calculate the Return on Investment, (ROI) for the time and money that you have spent. Use Google Analytics to measure the amount of web traffic that you receive and where it comes from.
Look at your conversion rates and measure engagement on social media.
For email campaigns, evaluate open rates, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes.
Finally, make changes based on your findings.
Don’t be Scared:
Follow the steps outlined in this guide, and you’re well on your way to successfully starting to market your startup business.
Find your target market, do your market research, set a budget, analyze competitors, then decide how you contact your potential customers, how you’ll talk to them, and how you’ll evaluate their response.
If at first, you don’t succeed.. Don’t blame me!
How To Create An Effective Marketing Strategy For Your Startup
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