Article provided by Pine3 Marketing
Marketing is essential for all businesses, but it’s even more important for start-ups. If people don’t know about your start-up and what it offers, they probably won’t buy your products or use the services you have on offer.
As your business grows and expands its presence, it may attract customers through word of mouth. But until that happens, let’s go over a few things that can spread the word about your start-up and get your marketing moving in the right direction.
Send emails
While email marketing is crucial for both start-ups and small businesses, start-ups should implement email marketing as it is an essential strategy for attracting customers to your start-up for little to no cost. Once you have a prospect (lead) or customer’s email address, you can send him/her emails to promote your product or service more effectively.
First, you must collect the prospect’s email address. If you have a website, you can place a newsletter signup form on it. Alternatively, you can ask customers directly for their email addresses for marketing.
Don’t forget to diversify your emails with non-commercial content like guides, how-to articles, videos and infographics. If you only send advertorial emails, you will risk that subscribers will opt out of receiving your newsletter.
Post on social media
It is important to incorporate social media into your start-up’s marketing strategy, as statistics shows that more than 2.4 billion people are using this channel. As your start-up’s presence on social media grows, more people will see and recognize your brand.
Find the networks that will work the best for you and start with one or two. Post engaging, relevant content that people who follow you will want to share. Encourage your followers to stay by being active and involved. Respond to any messages and replies in a timely manner.
Start a blog
Start-ups need exposure. Regardless of what niche your start-up belongs to, blogging is a powerful strategy that can help your start-up generate the exposure it needs. Blogging drives organic traffic to your website, one report found that businesses that blog witness their monthly leads rise by 126% more than those who don’t.
Search engines are the best media to reach a large number of potential customers. Ensure that you create an effective business blog by publishing relevant content that your audience wants to read. If it’s valuable and as per the latest accepted standards of search engines, your website can show up on the first page of a search engine’s result pages (SERPs).
Higher rankings will attract more visitors, allowing you to enjoy relevant organic traffic on your website, meaning more people will learn about your start-up.
Help people discover your content
As a start-up in the twenty-first century you will have to maintain some sort of online presence. You may have a website, maybe a blog and some social media pages or even a pre-launch web page. However, your content may be online but that doesn’t automatically mean it is easily discoverable by your target audience.
With every post you publish, use keywords specific to your niche to improve your Google rankings. You can also use these hyper-targeted keywords in your social media ads and campaigns.
By practicing a few search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, you are improving your SEO ranking and making it easier for people to find your content. Title the pages on your website with phrases exclusive to your business to make sure they stand apart from other sites. Ensure that your website loads fast and always post original content instead of copying from another site.
Use paid search advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing has become a popular advertising channel for start-ups. PPC is a method of using search engine advertising to bring visitors to your website. It allows business owners to buy laser-targeted traffic from search engines and is a powerful marketing tool to generate sales-ready leads.
Pay-per-click advertising offers many practical advantages. You can reach your customers at the right time with the right ad and because you are only charged when someone clicks on your ad, you are guaranteed a higher return on investment (ROI) as you will have to pay only when an interested person clicks.
Sponsor an event within your niche
Every industry hosts special events, therefore sponsoring a local event can help get your start-up elevated on your prospects’ radar. This provides you with a fantastic niche marketing opportunity. By becoming a sponsor, you get the opportunity to promote your business with signs, stationery, banners, booths and other marketing materials at the event. Business owners should sponsor events that are relevant to their products and to what they offer.
For example, if your start-up business is a health and wellness app, you can consider sponsoring marathons or other active events.
Create giveaways
If you’re just starting out, you may experience that it can be hard to introduce your company to the public. A great way to build a niche and generate word-of-mouth is through samples and giveaways.
Try reaching out to eager members of your target audience offering your product or service in return for a review and shares on social media. Those who participate get to try your product and to share their experience with their friends, while your business gets trust and visibility on social media. This is also an interactive way of using your prospect as your advertiser.
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