Connecting with the right people at the right time is always a challenge. It’s even harder when you’re competing for the spotlight with little to no brand recognition on your side, and doing it all on a tight marketing budget. Welcome to the world of startup marketing where the competition is fierce and the audience is skeptical.
Top challenges of marketing a startup:
- Differentiating the startup from the competition
- Building brand awareness
- Connecting with the right people
- Marketing on a tight budget and busy schedule
Last year, over 5 million Americans filed applications to start a new business. At 90%, startup failure rates are high, and their top reasons for failure include a lack of market demand, competition and an inability to pivot. A strong marketing strategy is essential to avoiding these common startup challenges.
To help you turn your startup into a growing business, we’ve identified what you need to effectively market a startup.
1. A summary of your startup’s ideal customer
Before you can begin marketing your startup, you need to identify who is likely to buy your products or services. You can do this by crafting a buyer persona, which should guide every aspect of your marketing strategy. From brand colors to the language you use to speak to prospective customers, the buyer persona is an important reference used to create effective marketing campaigns.
Here’s what you should include in your buyer persona:
- Demographic information
- Lifestyle information
- Preferred communication channels
- Challenges your business can solve for them
- How your business can solve these challenges
You can get as specific as you want with your buyer persona. You can even create multiple personas to target your marketing efforts even more effectively.
2. A focused social media marketing strategy
Social media is one of the best methods you have to connect with your target customer. In the early stages of your business, it could be tempting to establish a presence across multiple channels to get your name out there. However, a more effective strategy could be to focus on the social media channel that’s most popular with your target audience.
This enables you to focus your efforts on building a community where you’re likely to connect with potential customers. Agency 102 helped our client, Exforce, kickstart their social media strategy on LinkedIn. Because Exforce’s target customer is professionals and other business leaders, LinkedIn was the best social channel to start cultivating a following.
To learn more about building a successful social media strategy, read 3 Things Your Followers Really Want to See on Social Media.
3. A unique startup brand identity
One of the biggest challenges you’re likely to face as a startup is simply getting noticed. For that reason, it’s crucial to identify what sets your business apart from other companies vying for the attention of your target audience. You have to identify what makes your company special, and communicate that through all aspects of your marketing strategy.
Our client, Wines That Rock, is just one company of many in the wine industry. However, one thing sets them apart from the rest: they create wines curated for popular brands. Plus, each line of their wines has its own brand identity, including TCM Wine Club, Joyful Heart Wine Co. and more. For each line of wines, the Agency 102 team creates unique content relevant to their target audience.
4. Professional marketing support
Starting a new business is one of the most challenging things you can do, and many new entrepreneurs are both the founder and the only employee. To successfully market your business you need a website, a social media presence, and an email list at minimum. Plus, you need to regularly update your prospects through each of these communication channels to stay on their minds.
Professional support can be crucial to a growing business. By outsourcing to a team of marketing experts, you can create an attractive website, appeal to customers with social media content and begin to build an email subscriber list of likely customers.
Work with Agency 102
Agency 102 works with a wide array of brands, including B2B startups and consumer brands. Our team of content specialists is well-versed in crafting eye-catching content for unique companies. Whether you’re working to connect your startup with likely customers or you’re looking to grow your business to a new level, we can create impactful marketing to achieve your goals. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help!
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