Strategic marketing tips for startups

Start-ups are usually a little low on budget as they’ve to cope up with the procedures of starting a new business from scratch. However, marketing for a start-up is crucial because the public needs to know about the product/service offered and avail them.

The following effective marketing tips could be implemented by start-ups to hit it off:

1. Positioning your product correctly is crucial

Customers buy the benefit and not merely the product irrespective of the price. The value offered, risks and the demand for the product in the market are factors which boost its sale. However, it is important to position your product correctly in the minds of your customers. If a start-up makes a mistake in the positioning, it will affect the venture hugely.

For instance, Unwanted-72, a morning pill didn’t work well with the women in India because of the negative connotation attached to the word Unwanted. Hence, naming your product also defines its position.

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2. The customer is the king

Always stick by “you exist for the customer and not vice versa.” Try and give customers a feel of your product and make them believe that they are special while the use the same. Understand your target audience and then take steps to market your venture; otherwise, you’ll unnecessarily be spamming people which will lead in a negative name for your venture and cause losses in the very beginning. You could use various SEO tools available to understand and then, target your audience.



3. Be innovative

You cannot hope to get customers if you aren’t offering them something new. However, even when you offer them an old or revamped product, it is very essential to bring about changes in the marketing tactics to create new and lasting impressions in the minds of your customers. This can be done only by thinking out of the box and not sticking to the done and dusted marketing tactics.

Ariel, a detergent brand, used a hashtag to break gender stereotypes existing in the country. They denied the age-old belief that laundry is a woman’s job by using #ShareTheLoad. This campaign struck a chord with a billion Indians and it was an immediate success.

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4. Use social media creatively

Social media is growing at a rapid rate today and platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are used actively by marketers to promote their products. In the same way, a start-ups could employ various organic and inorganic tools to promote their venture online and target their niche audience.

All brands use social media to promote their products today. However, Hippo took it one step forward by asking people on Twitter for locations where there is no availability of Hippo. Through replies garnered, they improved their sales and distribution channels by providing Hippo to the locations suggested by the Twitter users.

5. Generate exceptional content

It is very important to use inbound techniques like content generation to market your product more. The website of your company should be dynamic and updated with relevant information, ads, success stories and more to attract more online traffic and boost sales.

Related Post: 6 Inbound marketing strategies every startup could adopt

6. Make the customers a part of your team

This is a fool-proof, effective and simple marketing tactic through which an entrepreneur can build loyalty amongst customers. Once, they feel like they belong to a group, it is very difficult to switch from it. So, give preferences to loyal customers and try and incorporate them into a group.

MI did a brilliant job at this as the first few customers were given the status of MI pioneers who initiated discussions of the websites and spread goodwill about the brand.

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