Owning a startup is tough, but maintaining its reputation and expanding your reach is even more challenging — standing out from the fierce competition, adapting to a volatile economy, and keeping up with the marketplace’s demands. That’s why most startups don’t survive long, with over 20% of businesses failing to make it past the two-year mark.
To stand out among the competition and ensure a lasting and healthy business, you’ll need to have an effective marketing plan in place.
Here are some proven and efficient marketing strategies to kickstart your startup — ensuring long-term growth and success.
Leverage Inexpensive Marketing Tools
Even if your business is currently doing good and receiving a decent income flow, you still need to ensure people notice your products and services, meaning never stop marketing. However, ensure you keep your expenses to a minimum. After all, you don’t want to ruin getting the return on investment (ROI) you’ve set your eyes on just because you spent more than you needed on marketing.
So, leverage on inexpensive tools like the ServiceNow risk or business management apps to help you continue your marketing efforts at minimal costs, saving you money and increasing sales.
Stay Relevant
One of the simplest yet efficient marketing methods is staying relevant or remaining on top of what consumers want or need. If you see that your product or service is deemed less of a necessity or has fallen off the list of the marketplace trends, it can be challenging to get your brand back on the radar. Act fast and avoid this tragedy from happening. So, provide something new on top of your existing products or services, or create new ones altogether to ensure you stay relevant.
Establish a Referral Program
One of the quickest ways you can garner a significant following is by diving into referral marketing. It’s a basic strategy to allow consumers your products for you, helping you expand your reach and increase sales fast. In fact, 92% of consumers reveal that they trust recommendations from someone they know more than other marketing types.
Hold a Contest
Holding contests is another fun and efficient way of growing your startup. That’s because you’re giving people a chance to win something in exchange for much-needed publicity or ‘actions’ for your startup. These may include inviting friends to sign up for your newsletter or sharing promotional videos on social media.
Create a Viral Explainer Video
There’s a trend in viral marketing nowadays, thanks to it being one of the most efficient ways of driving numerous traffic to a specific product. One of the best ways to implement this is by creating a viral ‘explainer’ video of the particular item you plan on selling. However, if you really want it to ‘pop’ off, you’ll need to add a bit of humor in the video — making it more ‘share-worthy’ for your audience. It entices them to share the video more, as it is entertaining while helping them know more about the product.
Distribute Stickers
A simple yet extremely efficient offline marketing strategy is creating stickers advertising your startup and giving them away to people or placing them strategically in high-traffic areas, such as the mall or supermarket. Reddit’s founder, Alexis Ohanian, managed to grow the brand to a multi-billion organization from $500 worth of stickers.
To survive the fierce competition in the market, you’ll need to market your business like there’s no tomorrow, and the strategies mentioned can be a great starting point.
