Best Digital Marketing Strategy For Your Startup

Have you taken a great leap in your career getting your startup idea off the ground? If so, you might want to know that this undertaking isn’t a piece of cake. The determination it takes to pull together a startup is sky-high. Although, it takes more than just enthusiasm to run a successful startup. According to Forbes, About 90% of startups fail due to various reasons. We’re here to eliminate the Digital marketing strategies from being one of those reasons. One less(Major) reason to worry about!

No matter how well-funded your company can be, without a schematic Digital Marketing Strategy, it becomes absolutely difficult to receive brand recognition. Here, we have put together the best digital marketing strategies for startups to reach a diversified set of brand goals

Know your market:

The first and foremost concern of any startup should be being aware of their market. Only after knowing to whom they can market themselves can a startup welcome success to their doorstep. But, how does one get to know their target set of audience? This process of becoming familiar with the market can be achieved by the following steps:

• Solid Understanding of the Product:

It’s crucial for one to understand the product from the customer’s perspective. Ask questions to yourself if the product helps the customers and what could be altered to make it better than the competitors. Only when you perceive the potential of the product, the audience who’ll benefit from it will be known

• Define the Goals:

When you know what you are offering and who needs your product, set your goals. What are you hoping to get back with your strategy?. The answer to this question will pave the path to the right Digital marketing strategy. This is because not all strategies are the same. And, the one that works for one company/product will not be the same for others. Be crystal clear in determining your goals and proceed with planning your strategies only after that

• Ideal Customer Configuration:

Now that you know what you have, what you want can be achieved only by marketing to whoever wants you. Digital Marketing is not about targeting a large set of audience. The whole point is about targeting the right one. Quality over Quantity, right? The right one is whom we call the “Ideal Customer”. To build an ideal customer profile, you have to get into the buyer’s head

Starting from basics such as demographics, don’t stop until you have figured out what influences your buying decisions. Build a profile by answering the questions on how your ideal customer should be. If needed, interact with the customers directly to know more about customer behavior towards your product. Those inputs make a huge impact on your understanding of the market

Power of Social Media:

It may be common for any business to maintain a social media presence. But, the key aspect they overlook is to have a social media strategy. A social media strategy helps startups to attract their customers and create brand value among their potential audience. The following is a quick guide on how to make the best use of the power that social media beholds:

• Choose the Right Platform:

Before you jump right into the social media world, it is vital to choose the right platform to establish your social media strategies. When you’re performing research on knowing your customers, determine which social media platform they use the most

• Draft a Marketing Plan:

Your social media strategy is planned according to your marketing goals and the online behavior of your customers. Be cognizant of the demographics, time spent online by your customers, and how often they visit the particular platform. Without this knowledge, allocating a budget for social media promotions and exploiting it would not be rewarding

Also, do not have a too specific target in the beginning. Keep updating your goals on a timely basis to move ahead with your strategies

• Forge your Brand-Tone:

Setting a tone for your brand brings a feeling of authenticity to the customers. Based on your goals, choose what your customers should know about your brand. Let the customers know how your brand impacts the challenges in society through your activities.

Keep the profile complete with your unique logo, description, and images. Pick a message, publish it, and always stand on the side of your customer by speaking their language. There you go, with an optimistic set of followers who recognize the value you offer.

• Stay Active:

Consistency is always the key. Stick with your plan and keep the customers engaged with your consistent posts. Also, it creates a positive outlook on your brand when their queries are answered instantly. This will help your audience understand your brand better

Knowing the right platforms, your social media strategy, a brand message, and your consistency takes you a long way in making your social media game strong. While you’re focused on building your profile strong, keep an eye out to observe what your competitor’s game is too

SEO — The Organic Way!:

Search Engine Optimization for your startup is the real challenge in digital marketing to get your hands on. It could be tricky but with the right strategies, it could pay off a great deal of fortune. Google doesn’t care if you’re a startup or a big organization as long as you have relevant content with user-friendliness established. Let’s get into a quick tour to familiarize ourselves with the nuances of SEO:

What does a search engine expect?

Search Engines offer to rank sites based on various factors. The better the ranking, the more potential audience will reach out to you. The factors that will help you rank better are:

• Quality Content:

Content is always the king. Not any content but useful, relevant, and unique content. When incorporated with the right keywords that would match the user’s search queries, search engines get a really good feeling about it

• User Friendliness:

The design also plays a major role in determining the quality of your site. The more user-friendly your site is, the more users will be drawn towards it. And, this is exactly what makes your site desirable for a search engine. Thus, invest in remarkable design for your brand.

• Engagement:

Great content and user-friendliness together bring in user engagement. When the user spends more time on your site, the search engine perceives that the site is valuable to offer to the audience. The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who navigate away from your site without spending a considerable amount of time. User Engagement makes the audience not want to navigate away. Thereby causing a lower bounce rate and higher rankings.

How do search engines rank you?

Since content and user-friendliness are qualitative, you might want to know how a search engine judges you based on it. Some of the many factors that the search engines use to determine your rank are:

• Keyword Strategy:

Acquire the right keywords from sources like Google Keyword Planner and also analyze what your competitors have used. Before deciding on the right keyword, one must be aware of the search volume and competition on the keyword. Keywords are a significant aspect of the search engine’s ranking process. So, focus on the right keywords to drive traffic towards you

• Linking:

Links remain the top three aspects that determine the page’s rank. Focussing on making the right sources link to you increases the legitimacy and trust of your site. Also, it creates a sense of assurance that the site is authentic and value-offering

• Engagement Signals:

Factors like bounce rate, time spent on the site, and the number of pages visited within the site are some of the engagement signals. Search engines take these signals pretty seriously to determine the rank of the site

SEM — The Ingenuity!:

Search Engine Marketing gains visitors to the site using paid efforts. While there is a free option named “SEO” why would anyone opt for SEM? Because SEO requires a certain period of time and effort to gain benefits while Paid Search Advertising produces instant results with smartly planned campaigns. The main purpose of SEM is to receive quick traffic with the help of qualified/professional assistance

It is not recommended for a startup to wait for months to get some organic traffic through SEO. A competent digital marketer advocates making initial investments for the purpose of increased site visits. So, always don’t rely on only one source for traffic

During the initial stages of your startup, your brand name might not be widely known. Hence, plan the campaign with a well-researched set of keywords and queries to reap the maximum benefits out of your investments. Your Paid Marketing strategy can be well-appreciated when it reaches the maximum target audience on a low budget

Click-through rates (CTR) are the number of times the link is used to visit a site. Therefore, the CTR of your search advertisement remains the measure of success for your campaign. While it is scary for a startup to operate with a limited budget, investing on pay per click marketing (PPC) always results in building your business when planned skilfully

Customer Interaction & Retargeting:

Customer interaction governs the relationship between an organization and its customers. Interact with them in each stage of the customer journey to enhance the reliability of the brand. Positive customer experience is known to retain customers in the long run

Even a minor inconvenience in your service will cause the customers to look for others who can provide your service. So, never let go of your hard-earned customers just because their expectations are not satisfied with CX(Customer Experience)

A strategy of displaying ads to those who have already engaged with the brand is what we call “Retargeting”. This strategy is highly focused on the field of digital marketing to acquire more potential customers. This is mainly achieved through “Email Marketing”. With the data already acquired from them in the past interaction, those potential leads will be re-targeted through emails

Upcoming Marketing Trends:

With your boundless spirit of entrepreneurship, is it fair to not explore other mediums of marketing for business expansion? Don’t limit yourself to just mainstream digital marketing. Let us give you an idea about future marketing trends:

Mobile Marketing:

To keep up with the current audience, it’s crucial to include mobile marketing in your strategy. It could be anything from SMS, MMS, or in-app push notifications. Keeping your audience updated with your activities strengthens brand awareness among them

Video Marketing:

Video is becoming the source of connecting to the consumer’s heart directly. Exploiting this medium assists in creating brand awareness to some extent for your startup. A high-definition video with content of great value incorporated into your marketing strategies could be the next viral sensation

Localized Marketing:

Consciously focusing your marketing efforts localized is known as “Localized Marketing”. This strategy helps startups to gain exposure, leads, and sales. Updating the SEO to fit into local search queries while keeping the company’s core values and goals unaltered

The core facet of digital marketing is to keep yourself updated regardless of the expertise you possess. With perpetual progress being made in this field, it is only wise to expand your marketing strategies from time to time. Alongside the growth of your startup, the expansion of digital marketing maneuvers should also be instituted