Innovative Strategies for Marketing Your Start-up Business

1. Introduction to Start-up Marketing

In large consumer markets, some investors fear adverse feedback. The companies and their market research agencies learn how to commission the kind of research that tells them the truth, and the companies adjust the offering to take advantage of the reactions. But, however honest the answers to the questionnaires, they are still only about potential. Where the response in surveys is based on a very early idea, where only a few of the potentially interested people have actually been shown the product in a kind of unsatisfactory preview or early prototype, then when the product goes on the market, it is at very high risk.

When launching a new business, one of the most challenging things to do is also one of the most important: marketing. When a start-up makes the decision to push a product out to the marketplace, it has to be confident that the marketplace is ready, or will be ready well before the product hits. The business has to be sure that some of these future customers somewhere need the product so much that they are prepared to pay for the early beta versions or pilot solutions that it will have to sell. In expensive market sectors, particularly in the business-to-business world, serious consideration has to be given to a wide beta pre-launch, or even commissioning a piece of software against a committed company. With zero revenue, serious ongoing lack of funds, and the investors wondering how long and how much further it will have to go before it breaks even, this is a high-risk strategy.

2. Utilizing Social Media and Influencer Marketing

Companies large and small can engage the services of internet influencers to promote their products to a wider audience. In addition to having a large following, popular influencers boast a high level of engagement with their followers. They are influential because of their volume of tweets, likes, and comments. Some influencers are celebrities, but many are not. By either paying influencers or providing them with free products, start-ups can utilize the power of social reach. When negotiating terms with an influencer, it is important to be clear about your expectations. Many seasoned influencers have guidelines regarding sponsored posts. Make sure that you are transparent about whether a post is sponsored. The reach of influencer markets is so great that some start-ups bank their entire launch budget on physical events or influencer endorsements to get the news out.

The key to effective social media marketing is engagement and relationship building. While it may be tempting to only pitch sales and attract new customers, effective social media marketing also focuses on customer retention and loyalty. Social media offers an unprecedented opportunity for two-way communication with your customers and potential clients. Acknowledge your social media followers when they comment or share something about your product or service offerings. By acknowledging your followers individually, you show them that you care about their feedback.

3. Implementing Growth Hacking Techniques
4. Use social media. 2. Host a local or online event. 3. Public relations. 4. Collaborate with other businesses. 5. Email marketing. 6. Paid ads on Facebook & Google Ads. 7. Influencer advertising. 8. Website editorial. 9. Create a blog for your business. 10. Marketing actions for local business.

Growth hacking is a strategy that uses creativity, analytical thought, and social metrics to sell products and gain exposure. It evolved from the necessity for start-ups with limited budgets to market their products and services. Instead of classical marketing strategies, growth hacking uses simple methods including user feedback, study of market segments, and social media in order to drive traffic and profits. The key is to allow your business to grow a loyal customer base, thus growing organically. By encouraging customers to talk about their experiences with your product, or by sharing interesting things about your product, the content that you create is shared and engages a growing base of followers. In this form of marketing, users do the work for you by talking positively about their experiences with your product. Further, growth hacking encourages experimentation to better serve and understand your audiences.

4. Utilizing Data Analytics for Targeted Marketing

Utilizing data analytics for targeted marketing essentially necessitates the use of big data. In general, big data is the huge amount of information that flows through a business’s communication channels each day. Data analytics sorts and sifts all this enormous information into informational matter, and then pattern-recognition software allows management to use this data to develop business strategies. These strategies could include how to increase revenue by learning all about loyal customers and how to offer them targeted marketing, discovering which customers can be more profitable, and discovering what caused potential customers to not enter a sales transaction. Data analytics also allows businesses to predict customer behaviors and determine how much customers are willing to invest in a product, how much they are willing to pay, what they are looking for, what they need, why they need it, and when they are likely to buy and understand the interactions customers have had with a business over a period of months or even years.

Marketing your business isn’t the only advantage that data analytics can give to a business. It can also be used to give potential insight into how a target market behaves. Marketing teams, together with technology and operations managers, are the three potential organizational groups that are expected to drive revenue growth. Technology managers analyze the data to learn how to develop new products, and operations managers use it to help business functions become more cost-effective. However, marketing departments are uniquely positioned since they have clear business value from successfully accomplishing both tasks. If they do their job well, they can attract profitable customers and build profitable products, which in turn attract additional customers.

5. Building a Strong Brand Identity
6. Develop a solid value proposition: This is the belief that underlies the reason a potential customer might buy what you’re selling in the first place. It resonates more strongly with the customer than any other value proposition, minimizing “friction” in the buying process and, preferably, making it an easy decision. Developing a value proposition to be reckoned with is not easy. You can’t claim to be all things to all people (even 250 years ago the Universal Men and Women were pretty rare). You have to understand very clearly who your customer is and what they need. Then you must understand exactly what it is that you bring to the table. The intersection of these two circles will be very small – but it exists. In fact, since your startup is small and agile you can sometimes target a segment of the market that larger competitors can’t afford to serve. This can allow you to develop a laser-sharp value proposition.

You have to innovate your way to success, whether you offer a product or service. Unlike your marketing strategies and sales tactics, innovation is not just about technology solutions. Your business’s value proposition, key strengths, and target customer, the cornerstones of your marketing efforts, are also key areas for innovation. They represent three hard decisions that set the foundation for all other business operations.