SebastiánGood morning, good afternoon, or whatever is appropriate for me to say hi to you, startups owners. As you can see I am not the most formal guy, but that’s okay, that’s the way I want to talk to my audiences and if you are here is probably because you were looking for something else…
Buuuuuuut this might be interesting for you if you have a startup going on and if not, well go somewhere else or start a business and come back.
Table of Contents
Let’s start with the basics
So you have a brand new startup, at this point I guess, and I hope for the sake of your financial health that you know how your business will work and some basis of how you will advertise your product or service, if not go back and think more carefully about your business model.
Anyhow, I will assume you have this knowledge and now you need to understand how the world of marketing works around your market category, yes it is not the same to sell a car that to sell this brand new software for real estate companies.
For this you might need to understand 3 things:
- What is marketing and how does it work in your line of business (you don’t always have to follow the rest, but it does help you understand the big picture).
- Marketing research, how does it work? Which data should you consider? etc.
- What is the best channel to find your target audience? (let’s face it, startups do not have so much budget to waste, you need to find the best channel).
For this I’d recommend you to take your time and really understand the concepts, even if you hire a professional marketer to do it for you, you do not want this person to talk to you in terms that you won’t understand. And for your startup to keep growing, you need to understand every single thing about it, including marketing.
Once you have acquired this basic knowledge, congratulations, you are still not ready to apply them, sorry. Hey, at least now you understand better, so it is not that bad.
Okay, maybe we are ready, Vamos!
At this point the most essential aspects are having your brand created, this means the logo, the color patterns, the voice which you’ve decided to talk to your audiences, etc. Also, it would be amazing if you had conducted a SWOT analysis in order to examine your startup, this is important to figure out where your business stands in the marketplace.
And, please tell me you already started working on a digital presence, if not, what are you waiting for? YOU NEED a digital presence, with your brand colors, with your voice, with everything you want your startup to stand for. (Be careful here, changing the public image of a brand is tough)
So it is the moment now to create your very first marketing plan for startups, and how? Easy! Think about the 3 following concepts:
- What does your business do?
- Who are your customers?
- What is the best way to market them?
If you need a bit more inspiration, this is a good article that can teach you further concepts and give you some ideas.
Your value proposition + Metrics
What makes your startup unique? Do you know? Yes? Amazing! There is where you want to start! Write down everything you find unique about your startup and relate it to your target audience, this will help you to better understand what your audiences want to hear, and which problem you solve for them.
Now, this is a crucial moment for your startup, you definitely want to choose the right goals and KPIs. Having short-term and long-term goals will help you to keep track of your marketing progress, is it successful? Not? Well, it is the moment to act! Believe me, this will save you tons of money.
And measuring the KPIs that suit your startup the most will also save you tons of money, the more you save the better, no, not to be cheap, but allocating good the resources of a startup can mean its survival; as I said it before, all businesses are different and do not require the same KPIs, but here is a list of the most common ones.
Probably you are thinking, what about social media?
Yes! you are completely right, social media is a mandatory tool for your business, especially if you are targeting B2C audiences, well actually no, even if you are targeting B2B audiences you need a good social media presence.
Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are incredibly huge! and you can easily reach big audiences with low effort and even low costs. However, you cannot think as big as Apple, they have been in the market for ages, and let’s face it, they have the budget to advertise themselves wherever they want, but well probably you don’t unless you are a (bi)millionaire, in that case, hey, don’t you want to hire me?
For the moment I will assume that you are not but I really hope your startup grows until that point. Coming back to social media, you need to focus your efforts and resources on building a social presence in the network in which most of your clients are, this will help you create awareness of your brand and more leads which will turn into sales.
Events, PR, and all that
Come on you are creating a brand new business, a startup that will change the market, you need to pitch your idea as much as possible to as many people as you can, there is where you will find most of your initial clients and investors!!!
For this, try reaching out to a local journalist, call your university and tell them you want to give a talk to the students, and professors. Also, talk to your friends/family to start word to mouth strategy.
Finally, content marketing
It is one of the oldest strategies in the book, but guess why? Because it damn works! People these days want to read, understand, re-read, understand once again, and finally, just contact you to ask you more questions.
I know, it is a long process to convert a sale when you are initiating, but hey, that’s the beauty of having a startup those first clients will be just the beginning of your business adventure, so be patient and your product and your brand will talk for itself, just with a little help of a good blog.
Remember this does not have to be only a written blog, you can start a podcast, or upload videos on YouTube.
I say bye now, I think you have a good article here to better work on your marketing plan for your startup, remember that if you have any questions I do not want to be bothered… yeah bad joke I know, but seriously if you have any doubt about marketing your startup you can always leave me a message, I’ll be glad to help! Have a good one!
Sebastián
