Beyond organic growth, startups need to understand that marketing is just as important as product development and business operations if they are going to scale.
As a new company, you need to build your brand from the ground up. You can’t expect customers to know about your company or trust your brand before you have even given them a chance to do either of those things. So how can you grow your company without jeopardizing its core values?
A reliable strategy is key, and it doesn’t get more reliable than marketing. Even if you don’t have much experience with marketing, or don’t know where to start; this blog will teach you everything you need to know about growing a startup through marketing.
Make effective use of PR via media mentions
Public relations (PR) is the practice of creating and distributing media relations, messages, and images about a person, group, organization, or product to increase recognition and acceptance among the public.
PR’s efficacy is determined by a number of factors, including the media channel being used, the timing of the communication, and how it is linked to the product/service itself. PR is an effective marketing strategy if your objective is to raise your company’s visibility among key decision-makers and to establish a personal connection with your target audience.
Why is PR preferable to advertising? Advertising is seen as intrusive and interruptive, which can be off-putting. While businesses are often encouraged to advertise, they are often discouraged from using advertising to build their own brands.
While PR is a form of marketing, it’s a good thing because it is less likely to be seen as an intrusion. And because it’s a form of communication, it has the potential to be more effective than advertising.
Create a consistent brand voice and tone
A consistent brand voice and tone will help your company establish its voice and personality, which will greatly help to build brand loyalty and trust among your customers.
When creating your brand voice, make sure to focus on the tone and style of your communications instead of the ad copy itself. A brand voice can help your company sound more professional and established while still sounding approachable and human. Your brand voice should complement the tone of your content, design elements, and marketing materials.
It’s important to note that your voice doesn’t need to differ too much from one channel to the next, since you’ll want to create a consistent impression for your customers across all channels.
Benefit from email targeting
Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing from a conversion rate perspective.
On average, 41% of email opens lead to a purchase, compared to just 8% for online ads and 13% for social ads.
Email targeting can help you optimize your email campaigns by offering your customers relevant content based on their buying habits and interests. For example, you may choose to target customers who purchased a certain product or service recently, or those who have expressed an interest in a certain topic recently.
You can also choose to target customers with similar characteristics to others you’ve recently interacted with, such as keywords in their email subject line or header. Email targeting can be particularly valuable if your primary goal is brand awareness. If prospective customers don’t know your brand exists, their likelihood of converting is significantly lower.
Email targeting helps you reach these prospects by showing them relevant product information and testimonial content. The more relevant content you show your audience, the more likely you are to earn their trust and encourage them to purchase your products.
Test everything you publish
Find a way to test every single new blog post or social post you create. You may have a brilliant idea for a blog post, but if no one reads it or nobody cares about the topic, posting it will be a waste of your time and efforts.
To avoid wasting time on blog posts nobody reads or blog posts that are simply not useful, you need to be testing new blog posts and social posts as they are being created.
Use data to iterate your marketing strategy
In marketing, it’s important to test and analyze your marketing strategy to determine how you are performing and which strategies are working best.
Businesses often make the mistake of basing their entire marketing strategy on past performance, but this is a dangerous and short-sighted way to design your marketing strategy.
You should use data to inform your marketing strategy because this will allow you to optimize the performance of your marketing tactics. For example, if it turns out that product launches are negatively affecting your sales, you can change your launch strategy to reduce the negative impact on your sales.
If you are not sure how to apply data to your marketing strategy or if you don’t have data to show you are making progress, ask yourself these basic questions:
Conclusion
Growing a startup takes time, patience, and dedication. It’s not an easy journey, but with a little bit of work, you’ll be well on your way to growing your company. With some patience and dedication, you can achieve anything you desire. There are many strategies you can implement to help grow your company, but the best ones are the ones that you can implement right now.
These strategies won’t take a lot of money to implement. They also won’t rely on a massive marketing budget. Instead, they’ll rely on you and your friends/family to make an effort. These strategies are effective, low-cost, and require very little effort. They can be used by just about any startup. They include social media ads, email marketing, and press releases.
