Marketing strategies for any startup. When it comes to giving your startup the best chance at success, you need to ensure that you are catering to your products and services for, and marketing them to, your specific target audience. They say, “You can never please everyone,” and it’s true – you can’t. Rather than trying to generally please the public, and market your business to a wide base of consumers, narrow your focus so that you can connect with more people who can truly gain value from what your startup has to offer.
If you are unsure as to who exactly makes up your startup’s target audience, you will need to conduct market research in order to find out. You can do this by utilizing either primary or secondary research methods.
Marketing strategies for any startup
Primary research
Primary research is research that is done start to finish by your business. You gather information directly from consumers to identify who they are, in terms of demographics, as well as what they are like as individuals. Primary research methods include surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews.
Through these personal methods for gathering data, you are able to engage the consumer directly, and allow them to see that your brand has a genuine interest in serving them. Plus, instead of just taking numerical statistics and surface-level facts, and assessing them how you see fit, your brand can really learn more about the consumer, such as their likes and dislikes relevant to your startup, and their typical ways of making purchasing decisions.
Secondary research
Secondary research is that which is done using information already gathered by other organizations, be it another business, government agency, or a market research firm. Your startup can analyze the data that has already been collected and go on to form your own conclusions. Secondary research is using existing data to make informed decisions and marketing strategies that will work well for your brand.
Once you have undertaken the necessary market research to identify and understand the target audience of your startup, you can begin to craft the right marketing strategy that reaches and engages them in a compelling way. If you implement effective marketing tactics, your startup will establish a positive, engaging image for your brand identity in the minds of your target audience members. This will help to increase your conversion ratio, increasing your bottom line, and improving your ROI.
The Outlets you Can Use to Engage Your Ideal Audience
Social Media
Your startup needs to use the powers of social media networks to its advantage. Otherwise, your brand is leaving an entire social community, and their potential brand engagement and loyalty, completely untapped. Create original content and share other people’s content that’s relevant to your brand, or will be of interest to and useful for your target audience.
With your social media accounts and all that you post, speak with a clear, consistent voice. Have fun with your content and the way in which you engage your audience, but keep everything relevant to your startup and its personality in order to build up your reputation.
Your Website
Your startup’s website will essentially serve as an information hub for the public, and more importantly, for your target audience. It should be free of grammatical errors and inaccuracies, as well as text-only pages and broken internal links.
Overall, your startup’s website should serve as a valuable online resource for your target audience, and be recognized as such by search engines and their ranking algorithms. Make it interesting and informative, always tie your content back to your brand in some form or fashion. It should provide visitors with a strong sense of your brand’s identity, as well as with the ability to see how your brand sets itself apart from competitors, has the consumer’s best interest in mind, and establish you as an expert in your industry.
Email Marketing
With email marketing, your startup can deliver personalized, branded marketing directly to the inboxes of your target audience. With the traffic that comes to your site, you can compel visitors to subscribe to your email list so they receive valuable information and offers from your startup. Use your email marketing strategy to connect with consumers, and to further build awareness for and engagement with your brand.
Use a compelling subject line.
The subject line of any email your startup sends is what allows the recipient to form a first impression of you. From their initial judgment, they can decide whether they will go on to open the email message and see what it contains.
Include visual elements.
On average, people retain 80% of what they see, as opposed to only 20% of what they read. Grab the attention of your email recipients and make them remember your startup and the content you presented to them long after they’ve closed the email.
Give a CTA.
Use the messaging of your email marketing to call the members of your target audience to action. Draw them in with pleasing visual designs and/or a spectacular promotional offer, then ask them to do something beneficial for your brand, such as “Shop now” or “Contact us today.” By effectively using a CTA in your email marketing, your startup can accomplish things like increasing sales, generating more traffic to your site, and/or boosting its rankings with search engines.
Redirect to other online channels.
You can use your email marketing to gain traffic to your startup’s online media. In emails, include your custom URL as a clickable link so that people can check out your company website, as well as social media icons where email recipients can be directed to your social media accounts. Provide your target audience with an opportunity to further connect and engage with your brand.
Your startup’s greatest asset lies in its target audience. Knowing who that is, and effectively marketing to them, allows your startup to create a strong brand for itself, and to really begin to develop a customer base and start making sales. Identify who your startup is working to impress and convert, then use your online presence and marketing efforts to reach and engage this target audience.
