Digital marketing is basically an engaging and advanced technique through which businesses across industries can strengthen their presence, increase revenues, boost conversion and engage clients/customers. In this post, the main focus will be on the impact of digital marketing strategies with respect to startups.
Digital marketing for start-ups has got a different perspective altogether.
- Startups normally have unique ideas with good resources but suffer on grounds of fund accumulation.
- Startups need to apply appropriate digital marketing techniques to become profitable as all the steps involved in this domain have diverse implications.
- The nature and scope of the business have to be properly assessed so that the applied procedures can meet the organizational objectives.
So are you ready to come up with your startup having an innovative idea? Before embarking on your new journey you need to remember that 90 percent of the Indian startups flunk or get closed within its initial years due to lack of proper knowledge, innovation and creativity. Cab Auto, Auto Raja, AskMe.com are a few examples of startups which could not succeed.
Only funds and ideas cannot make your startup business profitable or stable. For that, you need more sales and customers apart from increased gains. But you can make all these possible simultaneously with suitable approaches in startup marketing. To make your startup marketing concept unique, you need to incorporate suitable marketing channels to devise unbeatable strategies to stand out in the current competition.
With increased smartphone and internet users all over the world, the concept of digital marketing gained prominence. Successful startups have used digital marketing as a tool to attract and retain their customers along with streamlining business activities as per their tastes and preferences.
Listed below will be some of the popular digital marketing trends for you to have a clear idea on this aspect. Following these, you can give impetus to your startup business.
Social Media Marketing : This is one of the popular ways using which you can get the desired exposure and customers for your business initiative. This is also one of the low-cost marketing technique via which you can enhance the digital presence of your startup business. You can even make your brand profitable with this approach but prior to using it in your business, it is better to know how can it be utilised.
Some of the popular platforms for social media marketing are:
Facebook : With more than 2 billion users this is one of the most popular social networking platforms. With Facebook, you can reach out to any specific country with your business offerings or can even define targeted customers criteria. Thus you can analyse your business prospects and can ascertain conversion opportunities from the available potentialities. In addition to this, it will enable you to control your budget without compromising on your desired reach and lead generation.
Twitter : This is another online platform which is fruitful for both business to business and business to customer model. It will help you to run various types of advertisements for different business objectives.
Linkedin : This online networking platform is purely for getting connected with professionals from various industries. If your startup has a b2b model you can utilise this as a means to showcase your credibilities.
Some of the best practices which are to be followed with social media marketing are as follows:
- Enrich your pages and social profiles with proper images, logos and information.
- Come up with unique and engaging content to engage your audience through questions and answers, polls, discussions etc.
- Pixels can be used to retarget interested people so that they can be converted into customers.
- Select the right audience to target.
- Offer free trials, reports, ebooks, demos to collect email so that you can create a proper database.
- Be proactive and reply/comment on every message.
With suitable social media strategies, you can optimise your campaigns and serve those who are in actual need of your products/services.
Email Marketing : This is another vital and cost-effective technique which can enable your startup to grow and develop steadily. Using this technique you can probably yield up to 40 times on your investment. This means that if you invest 1 dollar your return can reach 40 dollars. Isn’t it amazing!
Few popular practices that can help you succeed with email marketing
- Email subject lines have to be engaging and catchy so that there are high chances of reading your mails.
- Highlight your business benefits and state how those can be beneficial for the customers.
- Make the content crisp with subheadings and bullet points so that the selling propositions can be noticed.
- Engage your email subscribers with relevant content twice or thrice a week.
- Include statistical data in your content so that the readers can actually measure their growth prospects.
Search Engine Marketing : To obtain instant results for your startup, this strategy is considered to be highly effective. In fact, you can get increased sales and exposure by advertising on search engines with respect to your startup business venture.
Some benefits of search engine marketing
- You can easily reach out to your targeted audience.
- Return on investment is high as you have to pay only when someone clicks on your advertisement.
- A small budget of 10 dollars per day is good enough for startups to begin with which can be stopped anytime.
Best practices associated with search engine marketing
- Google pixel can be used for re-targeting purpose
- The landing page should be of great quality with prominent call to actions
- To avoid overcharging you can set budget limit and bid cap
- Right keywords need to be chosen so that the brand’s presence can be effectively created
Search Engine Optimization : This is also a cost-effective platform which can give you a high ROI compared to other strategies. Through this process, you can get organic traffic from the search engines without any additional cost or expenses. Blog writing, optimising landing page, home page, service pages are some ways to obtain organic traffic from the search engines.
Some of its advantages are as follows:
- Long-lasting results
- High ROI with reduced costs
- Increase in organic reach
- Develop trust and authority
- Strengthen reputation
Influencer Marketing : This is one of the trending digital marketing technique which can help your start-up business with the following:
- Gain extensive exposure for your business
- Low-cost marketing procedure
- User-friendly
- Enhances brand value through customer loyalty
Popular influencers can be hired for your brand promotion to gain long term recognition and popularity.
Content Marketing : To make your startup competitive, content marketing strategy plays a vital role. Compared to paid search, content marketing helps in generating 3 times more leads. Helpful for SEO and SMO, content marketing is definitely cost-effective, yield long-lasting results but takes time to reflect the outcome.
Some of its advantages are:
- Create buzz about your startup business
- Less expensive compared to paid ads
- Generates authority for your brand
Referral Marketing : To create huge fan following or great customer base for your business, referral marketing should be your focus. In this technique, your customers play the role of your sellers. In other words, the selling is mainly done based on word of mouth publicity. Thus through personal recommendations, referral marketing can actually automate your business growth and development. Dropbox and Facebook follow this technique to increase their reach along with selling their services.
Thus in this post, you have come across several prominent digital marketing services which can be of immense help to your startup business. Depending on your offerings and targeted customers you can opt for any one of the services mentioned above. Each has its own benefits and if applied properly can give you the desired prospects to gain a competitive advantage from the very beginning.
Conclusion : Online presence has become a necessary activity for every business in today’s time. Startups are more prone to vulnerabilities as they lack experience and creativity compared to the established brands. So for the startups, digital marketing strategies have become all the more important. Some of the best techniques have been highlighted which can provide you with diverse benefits to ensure overall growth and development.
Feel free to get connected with us if you require personalised solutions with respect to any of these techniques.