5 Marketing Essentials: What Every Start-up Should Be Doing
An effective marketing strategy is essential for the success of any business. Early-stage startups benefit from having a marketing strategy, but often lack the expertise required to create and establish one as the primary focus is on building the technology. Understanding the core principles of digital marketing is crucial for reaching and engaging an audience in the early stages of your business. After working with several startup there are a few essentials that any start-up could benefit from putting into place.
1. Clearly Defining the Target Audience
It’s essential to have a deep understanding of your target audience. This involves creating detailed personas, which are representations of who you’ll be selling to, partnering with, and influencing. By knowing your audience's pain points, needs, preferences, and demographics, you can tailor your marketing efforts to resonate with them. Segmenting your audience allows you to personalize your marketing messages, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
As a start-up, your personas will evolve. You’ll have an idea of who they are based on who you build your solution for, but as you have more interactions with your audience, their definitive descriptions will become clearer. Be sure to document these descriptions and update regularly so that your team are all on the same page.
2. Build a Website
This may seem obvious, but I’d be remiss not to mention it. Your website is your primary salesperson, often the first point of contact for your audiences, and it must be clear and concise. A well-designed, user-friendly website is not only aesthetically pleasing but also functional. Ensure it is mobile responsive, as a growing number of users access the internet from mobile devices.
I’d also advise early-stage startups not to spend a lot of budget on the website, at least until you’re farther along in building the business. It can be easy to spend too much on a website, but if it’s complex and over-engineered or doesn’t tell your story well, it’s not worth it.
3. Social Media Marketing
There are so many social media platforms out there and each require a different strategy to be successful. The key to many is having a well thought out content strategy to share relevant and engaging content that allows you to engage with your audience, building a community around your brand.
I recommend choosing one to focus on until you have a larger staff to optimize the one you’ve invested in and to grow to other platforms. If you’re a B2B, early-stage startup, I suggest focusing on LinkedIn. It is the leading social platform for B2B businesses and reports show that nearly 80% of inbound leads come in from it.
4. Email Marketing and List Building
Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to engage with your audience. For an early-stage business, the focus should be on building a list that you can market to. To start, create a form on your website asking visitors to opt-in to receive email communications from you. Keep it simple: First name and email address. You can add additional fields later, but the less information that you require, the more people you’ll have opting in to hear from you.
As you have news and updates that can be shared externally, send out a message. You don’t need a fancy template or structure at this point. Creating a connection with your audience should be the key here.
5. Content Development
Creating valuable content is the cornerstone of your marketing efforts. You don’t need to create lots of it at this point, especially as your time will be limited. Focus on the key items that will help inform and educate your audience.
I’d also caution against getting too technical too soon. There will be a lot of proprietary information you can’t talk about, so be clear on what can be discussed externally. And share that cleared content. This can take many forms, such as LinkedIn articles or posts, blog posts, or a video. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just informative.
Setting Yourself Up for Success
Marketing is a fundamental component of a successful startup strategy. I understand that in early stages, most organizations don’t have a dedicated marketing person or the job to do the bare minimum falls to someone who isn’t an expert and isn’t doing it 100% of their time, or even 25%. The essentials I’ve listed here are the bare minimum of what I believe an early-stage startup should be doing.
It's good to keep in mind that marketing is not a one-time effort but an ongoing process that evolves with your business and your audience's needs. Implementing these essentials will assist in building an online presence and get you closer to achieving your business goals.
If you’d like a deeper dive into how to think about and implement these essentials, download my “Marketing Essentials for Startups Guide,” available here:
