10 Marketing Strategies for Startups
You have the Idea and you have your team ready. Working day and night you have made the prototype ready . So now the problem comes how your product will enter the market and what marketing strategies can be obtained in low cost giving you high growth rate.
Here are the 10 marketing strategies that can be opted by any start up and be cost effective and reach significant growth level.
Before designing any marketing strategies following 7 things should be kept in consideration
1. Your target audience (whom you’ll sell your products).
2. Projected Target Users (or no. of products you want to sell).
3. Marketing budget.
4. Targeted Projectile Growth (how much your marketing campaign will contribute your business growth).
5. Survey the target market segment and get their feedback.
6. How your product will reach your customer?
7. How you will be providing after sales services?
After analyzing the above steps. You can design any marketing and promotional strategies.
Here are the 10 market strategies that can be opted by any startups:
1. Strategic positioning (Early Adopter target market definition): The first step for a successful brand/product launch program is a strategic positioning exercise, including the early adopter target market simulation. Correct positioning is as critical as aiming your guns in the right direction at the start of an assault.
Start by defining the ‘category’ that your product/service exists within and then map it to its key product benefits, the core value proposition and competitor benchmarking — right down to core messages and launch strategies, plans and objectives — at least for the first 12–24 months.
Keep asking: “who exactly is my customer and why exactly should they buy from me?”
2. Brand development: In this world of intangibles and endless competition, branding is everything. Your name, logo and URL need to stand out from the crowd and really ‘mean something’. You should run a quality yet rapid program for developing the best-fit brand name, iconography and/or logo — and start with URLs that are available. Get creative. Don’t put it off. You’ll only regret it later.Strap lines need to be created as well where necessary. If you already have the right name and URLs then give it the right look and feel — create an arresting logo that lures employees, customers and partners from day one.
3. Facebook advertising: Facebook is the most effective platform to reach your target customers. You can choose, analyze, and monetize your target customer. You can reach and convey messages such as discount or new product launch.
4. Instagram: Instagram is best place to show off your product and service category. Be sure to post high quality products.
5. Twitter: Twitter can be use to get customer feedback.
Make sure to post regularly and keep engaging your customer in your social media platform.
6. Now you have advertised your product and services now next step is to build an online presence by creating a website.
7. Now you have your website ready. Its necessary your website to be shown on 1st page of search engine. Which can be done through SEO (search engine optimization). Semantic as well as algorithmic SEO initiatives must be applied to ensure that your Web presence, blog, digital PR and social media marketing activities have a solid technical underpinning and get effectively amplified with the network dynamics that the Internet can deliver. A link-spreading and link-baiting strategy should be tightly co-ordinated with the digital PR and social media marketing program. Keywords are important — research them, develop them, extend them and have them drive your content.
8. Blog strategy: No business can get by without a successful blog. From 2009 to 2012, the percentage of respondents with a company blog grew from 48% to 62% — don’t be left behind. It’s the core of a modern, ‘social’ marketing and communications strategy.
“To support and drive the company’s web presence and social media marketing activities a digital PR and partnering program needs to be kicked off.”
It should enhance the company’s strategic positioning, promote its product/service category, define credentials, messages, and benefits as well as drive a successful thought leadership and ‘challenger’ framework. The blog is your marketing front foot — make sure it strikes out for you. Blog sites should be set up properly, designed professionally and managed tightly. Editorial strategies need to be developed, writers appointed, guest programs implemented and content carefully planned and produced.
9.Viral videos and guerrilla marketing: Viral video and guerrilla marketing programs (both for B2B and B2C environments) done in the right way can help amplify and spike awareness and WOM. They should be carefully produced and executed as done in the wrong way or too fast they can backfire.
Viral videos/games and guerrilla activities are all about great, original ideas, content and production. Some of the most viral videos cost next to nothing to produce. Just get creative — and remember real humor nearly always works.
A great example of a low cost, inventive viral video is ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE
10.Referral marketing: Referral marketing is very important for organic growth. Provide free trials to the consumer and provide some freebies if they refer it to their friends.
Conclusion:-
It is important that every marketing strategy you form should be in the form of campaign. This will not only attract the consumer but also spread awareness about your product and services. Hope the above contents will help you to design your own marketing strategy.
