Marketing for Startups: A 5‑Step Guide to Creating Your Strategy

Build­ing a start­up from scratch is no easy task! Accord­ing to the Small Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion, the fail­ure rate for star­tups is 90%. One of the rea­sons most star­tups fail is due to poor mar­ket­ing. With the right mar­ket­ing and sales strat­e­gy for star­tups, you can avoid being anoth­er sta­tis­tic and set your busi­ness up for suc­cess over the long run. As award-win­ning mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ists, we know a few things about small busi­ness mar­ket­ing. We’ll share how you can cre­ate a strate­gic busi­ness strat­e­gy for star­tups that can help posi­tion your orga­ni­za­tion in front of the right peo­ple and increase sales. 

Creating Marketing and Sales Strategy for Startups

Most entre­pre­neurs start a busi­ness based on what they excel at and the poten­tial val­ue of the prod­uct or ser­vice to the tar­get mar­ket. The most chal­leng­ing aspect of busi­ness strat­e­gy for star­tups is accu­rate­ly iden­ti­fy­ing poten­tial clients and cus­tomers. Out­sourc­ing sales strat­e­gy for star­tups is a great way to avoid the pit­falls asso­ci­at­ed with build­ing a mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy while focus­ing on expand­ing your busi­ness oper­a­tions. For busi­ness own­ers who have cho­sen to start the process them­selves, here are a few online mar­ket­ing tips to get started:

• Web­site opti­miza­tion — A web­site is a vir­tu­al busi­ness card that reach­es a vast amount of peo­ple you may not oth­er­wise come in con­tact with. Build­ing brand aware­ness with a mar­ket­ing and sales strat­e­gy for star­tups starts with good web­site design. Using SEO opti­miza­tion will put you light years ahead of the com­pe­ti­tion by rank­ing you well on search engines. When online users are look­ing for prod­ucts or ser­vices you pro­vide, it is rec­om­mend­ed that you are first on the list of links pre­sent­ed. Here’s how to accom­plish this: 
  • Start from the begin­ning — Incor­po­rat­ing SEO into a busi­ness strat­e­gy for star­tups from the begin­ning while using tar­get­ed key­words will ensure prospec­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties find you from any­where in the world. Start­ing with SEO in mind will gen­er­ate great rewards later. 
  • Lead gen­er­a­tion — An effec­tive sales strat­e­gy for star­tups is not com­plete with­out lead gen­er­a­tion. When vis­i­tors come to your web­site, you must direct them to the next step. By offer­ing some­thing of val­ue, poten­tial cus­tomers are more like­ly to pro­vide con­tact infor­ma­tion. Once you’ve gath­ered this infor­ma­tion, you can fol­low up with more infor­ma­tion or a dis­count offer. Lead­ing cus­tomers down the sales fun­nel through automa­tion and per­son­al­iza­tion is one of the best ways to entice customers. 
  • Blog­ging - Con­tent is still king, and blog­ging is a great way to engage cur­rent and future cus­tomers. Many B2B cus­tomers read the con­tent pro­vid­ed by an orga­ni­za­tion before mak­ing a pur­chase. When you cre­ate a blog, you are shar­ing valu­able exper­tise and build­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty with your tar­get audi­ence. It is also a cost-effi­cient way of engag­ing with poten­tial cus­tomers at every lev­el of the pur­chase cycle while dri­ving traf­fic to your website. 
• Cre­ate a social media strat­e­gy — After devel­op­ing an SEO web­site, adding social media to the mix is the next step. With so many social media plat­form options avail­able, it’s easy to get over­whelmed. Here’s where to start: 
  • Chan­nels — Under­stand­ing your tar­get audi­ence is an essen­tial step in cre­at­ing a suc­cess­ful sales strat­e­gy for star­tups. All social media plat­forms have dif­fer­ent audi­ences, and under­stand­ing who you want to tar­get will help you choose the appro­pri­ate one to use. By choos­ing the right plat­form using key per­sonas, you’ll avoid wast­ing your time on the wrong plat­forms and cre­ate tar­get­ed messaging. 
  • Val­ue — After you’ve cho­sen the right chan­nels for your tar­get audi­ence, it’s time to decide what to pub­lish. Any con­tent cre­at­ed should guide, inform, edu­cate, and direct your audi­ence with valu­able infor­ma­tion. Avoid sound­ing like a sales­man in your mes­sag­ing since the social media audi­ence tends to block con­tent that comes off too transactional. 
  • Engage­ment - Social media encour­ages two-way com­mu­ni­ca­tion and tar­get­ed engage­ment. It is rec­om­mend­ed to stay active by answer­ing ques­tions, mak­ing com­ments, and respond­ing to fol­low­ers on your pages. Inter­act­ing with influ­encers in your indus­try is a pow­er­ful way to spread the word about your busi­ness while build­ing valu­able relationships. 
  • Adver­tis­ing — Adver­tis­ing on social media can be a del­i­cate activ­i­ty. It’s best to start small and exper­i­ment to avoid mount­ing costs. Begin with a min­i­mal spend­ing bud­get and make adjust­ments based on your results. 
• Recruit ambas­sadors — Hap­py cus­tomers are a price­less asset as part of a busi­ness strat­e­gy for star­tups. They can gen­er­ate word-of-mouth buzz that can snow­ball into increased sales. Here’s how to cre­ate cus­tomer ambas­sadors to pro­mote your business: 
  • Refer­ral sys­tem — When hap­py cus­tomers rec­om­mend your prod­ucts or ser­vices to their friends and fam­i­ly, your brand cred­i­bil­i­ty and trust­wor­thi­ness are on full dis­play. A sys­tem of refer­ring your busi­ness to oth­ers should be built into your fun­nel from the start with the use of incen­tives for refer­ral subscriptions. 
  • Reviews and tes­ti­mo­ni­als — Accord­ing to recent research, over 90% of peo­ple read cus­tomer reviews and tes­ti­mo­ni­als before mak­ing a pur­chase. By adding well-writ­ten case stud­ies, tes­ti­mo­ni­als, and reviews to your online strat­e­gy, you can lever­age this influ­en­tial con­tent with all lev­els of the sales fun­nel. The best way to accom­plish this is by col­lect­ing infor­ma­tion from hap­py cus­tomers ear­ly by ask­ing them to describe their experience. 

Scaling Your Business with a Sales Strategy for Startups

After cre­at­ing a mar­ket­ing and sales strat­e­gy for star­tups, it’s time to scale the busi­ness. It will be a con­tin­u­ous process of exper­i­men­ta­tion, mea­sure­ment, and piv­ot­ing. Here’s where to begin: 

• Exper­i­men­ta­tion — Nowa­days, inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing plans that include social media and pub­lic rela­tions com­po­nents are the norm. The most suc­cess­ful mar­ket­ing and sales strat­e­gy for star­tups will include a degree of con­tin­u­ous tri­al and error when allo­cat­ing funds and mak­ing adjust­ments. The abil­i­ty to become an adapt­able and agile learn­er dur­ing this process is the key to attain­ing your mar­ket­ing goals and objectives.
• Mea­sure­ment — Dur­ing the exper­i­men­ta­tion phase, it’s wise to doc­u­ment and mea­sure all KPIs, also known as key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors. All KPIs should be aligned with the over­all busi­ness strat­e­gy for star­tups. Some KPIs to keep track of include: 

• • Chan­nel con­ver­sion rates
  • Chan­nel acqui­si­tion costs
  • Chan­nel mar­ket­ing leads

The best way to mea­sure this infor­ma­tion is to stream­line incom­ing data by sync­ing all apps col­lect­ing insights. This will con­tribute to a cul­ture of data trans­paren­cy and integri­ty with­in your busi­ness while opti­miz­ing accuracy. 

• Piv­ot­ing — Remem­ber to piv­ot away from any­thing that is not work­ing ear­ly on by learn­ing from exper­i­ment­ing. Dur­ing this process of piv­ot­ing, doc­u­ment your activ­i­ties and funds spent. This is espe­cial­ly ben­e­fi­cial when onboard­ing new hires who will not have to rein­vent the wheel and gath­er this infor­ma­tion again. Impor­tant ques­tions to ask that will help define your direc­tion dur­ing this phase include: 
  • Who is your busi­ness helping?
  • What are you help­ing them with? 
  • How are you going to accom­plish this? 

Once you are sat­is­fied with your brand mes­sag­ing and sto­ry, it’s time to add these com­po­nents to all of your com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels, includ­ing social media, web­sites, case stud­ies, and oth­er con­tent used to engage your audi­ence. One of the most impor­tant activ­i­ties is to doc­u­ment and mea­sure your results to track your progress and impact. Busi­ness strat­e­gy for star­tups should always include mea­sure­ment ele­ments that pro­vide infor­ma­tion about how the con­tent is being received. 

We Help with Business Strategy for Startups

To be a part of the 20% of busi­ness­es that suc­ceed in the first year, you will need a fruit­ful sales strat­e­gy for star­tups tai­lored to your spe­cif­ic goals and objec­tives. By part­ner­ing with us and out­sourc­ing your mar­ket­ing efforts, you will have exclu­sive access to a team of spe­cial­ists who know SEO and under­stand how to build mech­a­nisms that get results. Some of the ser­vices we pro­vide include: 

• Social media
• Dig­i­tal advertising
• PPC (pay per click)
• Web devel­op­ment
• Video devel­op­ment
• Pho­tog­ra­phy
• E‑newsletters
• Direct mail campaigns
• Event and sem­i­nar planning
• Cus­tom brand­ed merchandise

Is your cur­rent web­site mobile-ready? Most cus­tomers are look­ing for busi­ness­es from their cell phones. Your web­site is your call­ing card and is the first thing poten­tial cus­tomers will see. We pro­vide sev­er­al dif­fer­ent types of web­sites like cor­po­rate, respon­sive, and cus­tom devel­op­ment with main­te­nance. The foun­da­tion of any dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing cam­paign is SEO, which should be includ­ed in your web­site. If you’re new to SEO or just pre­fer to out­source your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing efforts, we are here to help. 

Give us a call for a free mar­ket­ing audit to dis­cuss how we can help you mar­ket your busi­ness today!