Digital Marketing Tips For Start-Ups

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Digital Marketing Tips For Start-Ups Today, every start-up needs a well-defined digital media strategy to make a sustaining impact and establish the brand. But the Internet is a tricky place. It gives you hundreds of options and that looks like a great thing, till the time you realize that this excess of available choices is the first and the biggest hurdle that you’ll need to conquer.
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Mentioned here, are some tips that will help you design and implement an effective digital media approach for your start-up.

Focus on your Target Audience
In today’s digitally connected world, where promotions are becoming increasingly affordable and audience is becoming easy to reach to, the temptation for going all out to everyone could be strong. And yet, even in this digitally developed new world, it could be a fatal mistake for a startup.

If you are everywhere for everyone, there’s no brand exclusivity, hardly any brand aspiration, and as a result, barely any top-of-the-mind recall.

So, rein in your high horses and remain focused on the customer segment that’s likely to add the most to your business growth in the short-to-middle term. Understand who these people are and ask yourself relevant questions like: Your offerings are expected to find the maximum resonance with which age group, which socio-economic strata, which geography? What are the choices available to your target audience in your sphere of business? What are the challenges that they’re facing? In what way are your offerings designed to fill in these gaps? What is your USP? Should you be targeting consumers (B2C), businesses (B2B) or both? Get answers to all these questions and more, before you decide to go the digital way.
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Every start-up has resource limitations and knowing exactly where you’ll be putting in your money is the best way of using the bucks.

Identify The Right Digital Platform
Once again, the options at your disposal are limitless. Internet tsunami has practically swept away many traditional marketing platforms with its wide range of options. However, to crack it you need focus. Websites, blogs, video and pod casts, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Linkedin – where do you fit in and how?

First, figure out digital strategies to transfer Internet traffic from your target audience to your own website. This will require having a good idea of your customers’ digital choices – the websites or blogs they visit, and the people and brands they follow on various social media platforms.

This brings us to the task of deciding the social media platforms that make sense for your brand. If your product requires visual representation, Instagram or Pinterest could be your best bets. And if your brand is more into information-sharing, then tie-ups with suitable blogs along with a strong Twitter or Facebook presence may help.

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If you are going to be on the social media don’t be a half player. You need to post consistently, interact with your potential customer base, and be responsive and agile. Thank people for their suggestions or mentioning your brand in their posts – even competitors, once in a while.

Also be clever in your messaging – social media is a fickle place and people quickly lose interest. So, post interesting and relevant information, which your target audience may want to share with others. Refrain from posting promotional messages on people’s walls as this is likely to turn them off and block/ mute you. Not a nice thing to happen to a start-up.

Get Creative With Community Outreach
Keep in mind, locally relevant digital media platforms may give you early conversions. Reach out to your school/ college website to post relevant content and offerings, with some alumni discounts to boost initial sales, if you please. Educational institutes are usually very proud of the success of their alumni and could be more than willing to help out.

Taking into confidence the blogger community relevant to your offerings also makes sense. Most of these people have an already established and loyal reader base, which could be made available for your messages. Make requests for product / service review, provide the reviewers perks like discounted or even free trials, write a thought leadership post for their blogs as a guest writer, and finally request them for the link to the post so that you can monitor the online traffic to your article.

You can also organize locally-relevant digital contests. If your brand’s offering is in itself a digital platform, try getting roped in as a digital partner for content emanating from other synergetic partners.
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Also, identify locally relevant pages on social media. For example, if you’ve opened a drama school, you may want to announce your presence on your city theatre pages in Facebook. Similarly, LinkedIn is a good platform for business community outreach.

Motivate Readers To Share Your Content
While you should always endeavor to post interesting material that is likely to be shared or liked, it won’t happen every time. So, you need to give the viewers a reason to promote your content. This could be something like a discount coupon for an immediate purchase or a small gift after a certain number of shares. You could also take the path of an online contest and aim to make it go viral. Whatever you do, make sure that the incentive is something that has real value, not something that will make your target audience roll their eyes.

Look At Exclusive Branded Content
Wait till your brand’s a little more established and when you can afford to produce periodic original branded content. This is a great tool to align your company with what’s relevant in your industry, and establish thought and idea leadership. There are several ways to do this: online bylines, guest blog posts, recurring contests, exclusive survey findings pertinent to your business, etc. All such content should never be promotional because the idea is not to boost sales, but build and augment the brand.

Image: thinkstock
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