Why startups need to invest in marketing

Being an entrepreneur is no easy job. You have to come up with an idea that’s worth sharing, that makes a difference to people’s lives and will be useful to individuals or businesses. Once that’s done, it’s all a bit of a rush to get your product or service out there on the market; set up your office, hire staff etc. Having a great product or service is, of course, important, but if no one’s going to see it, what’s the point?

That’s why marketing is so important to startups. You’re likely competing with other larger businesses who have a whole in-house team of marketing experts and a seemingly bottomless budget. This is why you need to invest in an innovative marketing plan. Having a plan that makes the most of the resources available to you to ensures that your brand becomes more visible than your competitors.

A lot of startups are innovating with the latest technologies – they know tech inside out and deliver great products, but the part they struggle with is communicating with people. Creating a brand that is relatable and speaks to people can be difficult. Often it’s best to hire outside help for this who can create a brand with a striking and emotive message and put together an effective marketing plan for your startup.

What types of marketing do startups need?

The world of marketing has changed drastically over the last ten years. Once upon a time, you needed large amounts of capital to run campaigns on traditional forms of marketing such as TV, Radio and Print. Now, with digital marketing including websites, social media ads, SEO and conversion rate optimization startups can reach their audience much faster and with smaller initial investments.

Websites for startups

A website is a business essential these days – that goes double for startups who have no prior presence in the marketplace. With people spending more time online than they do sleeping, a website is your best chance of attracting new customers. As a startup owner, cost is probably a big concern to you but websites come at much lower costs than they used to. You can spend as much or as little as you want to. It will all depend on the functionality you need and a website can always be expanded on later. (Once you start to generating that all important revenue!).

Whilst websites are key to having an online presence, just building a site and leaving it alone is probably not going to do your startup much good. You will need to generate traffic and help customers convert to ensure your website is generating revenue. Some ways you can do this are:

Setting up PPC Ads

Facebook and Google Ads are a great marketing tool for startups to take advantage of. With low pricing, you can create campaigns on budgets as low as £5 a day. From there, using conversion tracking, we can test audiences – seeing which have the highest conversion rate allowing you to verify your audience.  Once your audience is clearly defined we can do A/B testing on different campaigns, working out what most attracts customers. With audience targeting and a massive reach, Facebook and Google ads become a powerful tool for any business.

SEO

93% of all online experiences start with a search engine. With billions of people online every day, this is an astonishing figure. If your startup’s website is not optimised for search engines you are missing out on getting in front of a huge audience and they will go to your competitors instead.

Social Media

Harnessing the power and reach of social media has a number of advantages for startups. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter allow you to create meaningful connections with your audience and build your brand awareness.

Conversion Rate Optimisation

CRO is a science. It allows you to see and understand your user’s journey and behaviour on your website. We then start to notice where they are dropping off can help you understand why they are not converting. This allows you to make tweaks to your site that have measurable results on conversion rates.

How marketing will benefit your startup

Standing out

Having a defined brand allows you to stand out. You need to be able to pinpoint what makes your business different from all your competitors. Having a meaningful position, and understanding what it is, will help you understand why your business matters and in turn why consumers should care.

Reaching your audience

You are likely competing with hundreds of other businesses in your market space. The world is now more competitive for businesses than it has ever been. There is so much content out there that just creating content is not enough to help your startup. By having a thorough content marketing strategy we can ensure that your content is reaching a receptive audience. By posting on the right platforms, at the right times, targeting the right people your campaigns will be most effective.

Data-driven results

Today brands are much more customer-centric than they used to be. The ability to connect with your audience is what will lead to your success, but doing this on a large scale can be difficult. That’s why most designers and marketers use data to get a deeper understanding of their customers. Data allows us to create campaigns that are more pertinent to your customers and resonate with them personally. By creating more personal campaigns that understand customers specific pain points, you can advertise for specific products and services in a way that will appeal to them individually.

Transparency

Having a clear marketing strategy means there will be no mixed messages. You and your employees will be able to unite behind a defined goal. This ensures transparency and will help you keep a good reputation. Most of the sales you get will come off the back of that reputation. As your reputation grows so will your business. Having strong and intuitive communication with your audience that stays on message is vital to the success of any startup.  

Building relationships

Because of the now highly competitive marketplace, it’s no longer just logic that fuels consumer purchasing decisions. Often emotion plays a bigger role than logic, consumers will stick with their favourite brands even if their competitor is offering the same service for less.

You need to win both the hearts and minds of consumers. By having an active presence on your website and social media you are able to respond quickly and personally to queries.