If Adnan Sami had to create a hit song in 2022, it wouldn’t be “thodi si toh lift Kara de” it would probably be “thodi si toh trend kara de”. Everyone wants to ride the trend, but that’s one of the many things most startups get entirely wrong when it comes to marketing themselves.
Marketing is essential for businesses of all sizes, especially digital marketing and social media, when used right, can be very powerful tools for startups, allowing them to carve out a niche in their industry. The critical mistake most startups make is letting their marketing take a back seat, until they’re “in a better place” or not creating a clear marketing strategy. A social media managers worst nightmare is working with a brand that’s entirely focused on “let’s do something big” or “trend” to gain overnight followers, without a defined strategy. None of these tactics really work in the long run, instead, here are some ways you can create a winning startup marketing strategy from the get-go.
Define your target audience
Social media is basically a channel to connect your business to your audience, but you can’t market to an audience you don’t know. The first step to a well-defined marketing strategy is to understand your target audience. A basic persona mapping with age groups, location, gender, and interests/behaviors is sufficient to complete this exercise. These buyer personas will serve as an archetype of your real customers and should be based on market research and existing customers.
Get your messaging right
In a world of big-ticket, showy marketing campaigns and new trends to follow every day, it can be very easy to lose the essence of who are you are and what your brand does. At the end of the day, it’s really no point engaging a customer who doesn’t quite understand what you do. Therefore, your messaging needs to be created with your consumer always in mind. Leave behind the clichés and verbiage and tell your end user exactly what problem you can solve for them, what you can do for them, or make them feel!
Have measurable and attainable goals
Not creating your goals before-hand is like shooting darts in the dark. You may hit your target but you’ll also miss plenty. Today the channels for marketing are vast – multiple social media platforms, with multiple formats, email marketing, blogs, paid marketing, influencer marketing – the permutations and combinations are endless! The best way to figure out what is working for you is to define what you want to achieve and why. Looking to build a community? Host a virtual meetup or make use of user-generated content to tell your story, feature your consumers themselves! Want to increase website traffic? Create SEO-optimized content/blogs to attract visitors and make use of Google ads! Looking to create a buzz – influencer marketing!
Focus on sustainability
While it may be tempting to jump on every trend and “make waves” with a stellar marketing campaign, without a sustainable approach, people will soon forget what your brand is about. Paper Boat is more known for its heart-tugging campaigns than it’s fruit-based drinks, thanks to their content marketing approach that creates a high recall value. Theirs is in fact a very low cost and high-impact approach due to the repeated messaging of nostalgia across their social media posts and videos.
Integrate your PR strategy with marketing
This one’s a no-brainer, but really, not just for PR, all of your marketing efforts should be integrated towards your messaging for maximum impact. When Snickers came up with their slogan “You’re not you when you’re hungry” they spread this messaging across social media, TV ads, hoardings, videos and turned it into the company’s most enduring campaign, to the point that it’s the slogan for their nut-bar! If you’re a B2B business, you can also leverage your brand through your employees and top-line management, they are your most important influencers.
Keep optimizing!
Your brand and business will keep evolving, and as it does, keep optimizing your marketing strategies, not only with the changing brand, but with the fast-paced digital world too. And keep optimizing your SEO! ?
