Marketing strategies play a crucial role in the success of a startup. You have to convince your customers to choose your brand over several other competitors. And as a growing startup, that’s a big challenge. How do you implement great marketing strategies without compromising your limited budget? Today, we’ll look into what the pros did to market their startups.

The first step to successfully create your marketing strategy is to understand the whole concept of marketing. What is Marketing? It’s a pretty broad word that can refer to several things. If we look at the dictionary definition, it’s described as “the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.” In other words, it’s the act of creating interest in your product and services. And these said techniques have dramatically evolved through the years. Consequently, there are now so many subcategories when you talk about marketing. Digital marketing, for one, is the go-to strategy.

Simply put, the goal of marketing is to get your message in front of as many people as possible. As Marknology founder Andrew Morgan would put it, “[Marketing means to] bring awareness to your product.”

Top Marketing Strategies

These days, most companies use a combination of digital marketing and traditional advertising. Depending on the type of industry they’re in, they join the platforms their customers frequent.

There’s really no one main marketing strategy for a growing business. It’s usually a combination of two or more types of marketing strategies. We’ve narrowed it down to what most startup founders use for their company’s promotion.

Influencer Marketing

Firstly, we have Influencer marketing. Influencer marketing has been a buzzword for a while, but most businesses have yet to fully utilize the method. It combines the traditional practice of celebrity endorsement with a modern twist on the platforms used. This method was birthed from the amassed popularity of social media influencers.

Influencers are people that have gathered a large following. With a new generation of tech-savvy consumers, influencers have gradually reached celebrity status with the content they put out.

“The biggest benefit of using Influencer marketing is immediate access to an audience that trusts, admires, or listens to what the influencer has to say,” explains Full Scale founder Matt DeCoursey. He suggests, “[Negotiate] a partnership, agreement, or payment to get them to help you spread the word about what you’re doing or selling.”

Content Marketing

Content marketing is considered the most effective digital marketing technique used by marketers. It’s the top marketing activity, followed by AI, Big Data, and social media marketing.

Matt Watson, the founder of Stackify, explains how his company’s marketing relied heavily on blogging to increase their website’s traffic.

“The key to Stackify’s digital marketing strategy is the content marketing that we do that’s based on blogging. We would put out two to three blog posts per week. And we’ve published probably over 800 blog posts now. Those blogs are still out there generating traffic for articles we wrote years ago,” says Watson.

Social Media Marketing

With several online marketing platforms available, you need to make the most out of them for your business. There’s a good chance your customers are active on Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, Instagram, etc. Therefore, you have to be on those channels to keep up with them.

If you happen to have a lot of good substance to share over social media, you might turn into an influencer yourself. For example, the Perkins Brothers have successfully leveraged the Youtube platform to promote their business. As a result, they earn more by making videos about their construction projects than the actual projects they’re working on.

Word-of-Mouth

Despite all the newest marketing tactics that have emerged through the years, there are still age-old methods that work well even in today’s market. For instance, word-of-mouth is still an effective promotional tool. A lot of small businesses benefit from client referrals. Oftentimes, all you need is to invest in the quality of your products and services. They will speak on your behalf.

“Our biggest marketing strategy for Mixtape is word-of-mouth. In the last 15 days, we got 2,300 downloads of the Mixtape app, which was a big spike. I don’t know where they came from, but I’m not running ads anywhere,” says Joel Johnson, CEO of Mixtape.

Get more tips from the Pros!

Startup marketing is hard. You’ll have to go through trial and error to determine which methods work best for your business. Overall, there may not be a foolproof formula to successfully baiting your audience, but there are practices that can guarantee good progress. It’s just a matter of getting experience and learning from them.

Want to learn more about marketing? Or get more tips on business? Learn from seasoned startup owners! Startup Hustle TV features entrepreneur stories. Watch behind-the-scenes struggles and little victories in running a business. Watch today!