Best Marketing Practices for Start-ups

What are the best marketing practices for start-ups?

Have you found yourself stuck trying to market your start-up company? Scratching your head while researching the myriad of mind perplexing options, only to freak out when you realize the time and price involved. If you want your start-up to succeed, you need to throw an exorbitant amount of money at marketing. Right? Not necessarily.

If you’re a start-up, there’s plenty of marketing practices that you can use that focus on being budget-friendly – something that is vital to a start-ups health.

So what exactly are the best marketing practices for start-ups?

Content is king – that’s something that all start-ups should have spray painted on the walls in big letters.

Content comes in many different forms, so it’s comes down to the start-up to decide which one (or combination of methods) they’re going to focus on. Video is perhaps the most impactful, but there’s always a time and place for written content and images too, depending on how and where they’re being shared.

Content is king – it might sound like a snappy, overused line, but it has real meaning and if you constantly strive to create more and more pieces of high-quality content, you’ll be in the money in no time.  It’s better to be personal and interesting that overly polished. Think the funny kitty video vs a boring couch ad. People want to be entertained, especially with their video marketing. Their are a ton of great video content social media marketing apps. Here’s a few of our favorites:

• Animoto

• Biteable

• Magisto

Once you’ve started churning out content like cheese at a dairy farm, it’s time to distribute this content somewhere potential customers will see it.

There are so many different places that this can be shared, from traditional methods like billboards, bus stops and television to guerrilla marketing and out-of-the-box concepts. But if you’re looking to get the biggest bang for your buck (which you should be in the start-up phase) you’re going to want to focus on social media.

By posting the created content on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn and any others that your potential customers would be spending their time – you can generate a great buzz around your product or service.  Start to tailor each piece of content to get the biggest reaction from the chosen social platform and you’ve cracked the code.

A few examples of  guerrilla marketing:

1.  Interactive quiz:  Showcase a series of multiple-choice quizes for viewers to provide answers and feedback. Make something playful and fun. Ask questions about your products. Make the quiz interesting and engaging to prompt interaction with clients on social platforms.

2.  Showcase a contest on your social media site such as Instagram. Have the contest play out over several days or weeks. Provide hints and clues to interact further. Offering a small prize can also give a big bump in appeal for social awareness.

One of the very best ways in which start-ups can save a little money on their marketing is the refer-a-friend scheme.

Getting friends, family and past clients to refer your business to others is a great way to expand your network. By making it so that both parties receive some forms of benefit from your refer-a-friend scheme, customers are more likely to suggest and others more likely to listen with a referral from a trustworthy individual. 

Execute a referral scheme correctly and this can cost you nothing at all, depending on the nature of your business. Just sit back, relax and watch the customer count increase.

Although it may be easier to go into the world of marketing with a good stack of cash, start-ups should focus on “safe” cost effective methods to boost their company awareness.

It may take time, but with consistent content creation, clever distribution techniques and refer-a-friend schemes, customers will begin rolling in.