It today’s market, if you’re not making an impact with your digital marketing tactics, odds are, you won’t last long.
Before the digital world took off, the success or failure of a business largely fell on how good it was. However, those days are over.
Even if you are the absolute best at what you do, if you’re digital marketing isn’t up to par, your business is going to struggle. Don’t become one of the many business owners who have to close down after a couple of years.
Instead, invest in knowledge.
What is the best digital marketing for startups? What options are out there? Is there a high return on investment?
For the answers to these questions (and many more), keep reading.
1. Start a Blog on Your Website
As a business, you must have an online presence. There’s absolutely no way around it, as 92 percent of consumers shop online.
Start by building a website. It will have your products/services page, a contact page full of your contact information and address, an about us page with your story, and more.
However, wise business owners are also including blogs on their websites. Blogs are hosts to relevant and helpful articles in regards to the business. The articles, in turn, are full of keywords that search engines will use to find the website through SEO.
SEO or search engine optimization is an algorithm used by Google and other search engines to find relevant websites when users type in keywords and keyword phrases. Having a website full of articles loaded with these keywords improves your SEO rating, resulting in more consumers finding your website.
SEO is vital in digital marketing for startups.
2. Be Active on Social Media
Next, whether you agree with it or not, you must be active on social media. With over 2.4 billion users, Facebook is one of the best places to do business and get noticed.
If you already have a personal account, build your business account attached to it. Then, you can ask all your personal followers to like and follow your business page, giving you an immediate, albeit small, following.
From there, stay active posting engaging articles, pictures, videos, and more relevant to your business. Try to increase engagement by running contests, giveaways, raffles, etc. Invite your current followers to share your posts with their followers to expand your reach and build more followers.
Make sure you’re not coming across too “sales-pitchy” or you’ll scare people away. Although, you should make sure most of your posts link back to your website.
3. Use Social Media Paid Advertising
When it comes to digital marketing for startups, it would be foolish not to use social media paid advertising. Facebook, for example, allows you to create your own ads from scratch or using their templates for ease-of-use. You can also choose how much money a day you want to spend on the ad, which dictates how many people see your ad.
From there, you can choose the demographics of people you want to see your ad based on several factors such as age, gender, location, hobbies, etc. This helps each dollar you spend to go to where it will make the most impact.
Finally, paid social media advertising comes with analytics – a review and breakdown of how each ad performs. It will tell you how many people saw it, liked it, commented on it, shared it, or clicked on a link. This information will help you craft more effective ads in the future.
4. Build an Email List
Next, build an email campaign composed of emails that are automatically sent a predetermined number of days after someone subscribes to your email. Your first few emails should start out light, thanking the subscriber for joining and introducing yourself and your company.
Then, start sending relevant information about your business such as upcoming events, products, promotions, etc. However, be sure to keep them engaged by continuing generosity with useful content, discounts, etc.
Finally, continue building your email subscriber list. Encourage people to subscribe by offering perks such as access to a free eBook, exclusive offers, a chance to win free products or services, etc. Use social media, landing pages, and your website to get more subscribers.
5. Explore Influencer Marketing
Truthfully, growing your own popularity takes time and dedication, but there are ways to help your business out. Some of the best digital marketing for startups involves taking advantage of someone else’s online popularity. It’s called influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing is a way for social media “celebrities” and businesses to work together for a favorable outcome to both parties. The influencer, who’s already amassed a large following through their own digital marketing skills, will promote your business to their followers for a price.
This could be in exchange for free products, a flat fee per post, or a commission based on what they help you sell. They can be given a distributer code that their followers use to buy products from you. It gives the customer a small discount but also helps you track how much revenue the influencer is bringing in – helping you determine the efficacy of the affiliation as well as how much commission they’ve earned.
6. Use PPC Marketing
Finally, if you like the idea of paid marketing to get leg up on the competition, consider PPC marketing. Pay per click marketing can be highly beneficial in digital marketing for startups.
One example would be PPC marketing through a search engine site, such as Google. You would pay Google a predetermined amount every time a user clicks on your link. In return, Google makes sure your website comes up at the top of the list when users type in relevant keywords.
This can get costly, but business owners who use PPC advertising often see a high ROI (return on investment).
Want More Advice on Digital Marketing for Startups?
Before you go, make sure you look through the rest of our articles. We have plenty of advice on digital marketing for startups, as well as managing money, growing your business, and more!
Good luck, and remember to stay consistent in your efforts. No marketing technique will work if you only apply it for a week at a time!