Startup founders already have a lot on their tables and hardly get time to think about effective marketing strategies deliberately. Every experienced entrepreneur knows that acquiring initial clients is the most challenging aspect of a startup. However, building a massive audience for your startup is neither rocket science nor expensive. These top 10 marketing hacks can propel your startup to success and empower founders to dominate the marketplace.
Table of contents:
- Authentic Engagement On Social Media
- Unlock the Power of Email Marketing
- Revolutionize Your Startup’s Growth with Influencer Marketing
- Dominate the Digital Landscape With Ultimate SEO Hacks
- Engaging Customers With Freebies, Giveaways, and Contests
- Growth Opportunities: Leveraging Partnerships and Guest Posts
- Powering Up Your Startup By Hosting and Attending Community Events & Conferences
- Boost Your Customer Base With Referral Marketing
- Regularly Update Your Website for Optimal Performance and User Experience
- Empower Your Brand with the Power of Video
Authentic Engagement On Social Media
People are constantly active on social media, so your presence on several platforms is necessary.
Social Media can be a game-changer for your startup. Even with low engagement rates and limited budgets. Social media has the advantage of bringing customers into your store on their initiative, so they are usually eager to meet and discuss a possible purchase.
Implementing effective strategies to interact with followers can help to increase interest and possibly result in meteoric success.
Several social media marketing strategies help in increase the engagement rate early the expected. Here is a list of some of them which we have seen effective in our experience:
- Target Different audiences over different social media channels – Audiences are inseparable from every business. Every social media platform has a different sort of demographic. These social media demographics can help you target a different but relevant audience for your business.As per the analysis of 2023, in the below table, we can see that Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are top social media platforms having higher user rates. This analysis can help in making an effective strategy by analyzing the nature of the business we have so that we can boost engagement for different platforms.
- Creative Calendar development – If you are eager to increase the engagement rate of your business over social media, you must have a content calendar. A social media content calendar contains the timelines, content you plan to post, captions, and relevant hashtags.
All these things help streamline this process and make your business profile active. The additional advantage of having a pre-developed calendar will always give you all the posting stuff in one place, so you can save time and focus on other business activities. A creative social media agency to hire and get trendy and creative content calendars for your business is a reliable option for your business.
- Use Chatbots – The best option to get to know more about the type of audience you have and their interests. You always have to respond to their queries promptly. Chatbots and messengers of social media platforms help establish a seamless connection with the users. You can also share an introductory message that shows your business the products you are selling, their categories, and any active discount offers.
Also, you can set an auto-response that lets the customers know you are currently unavailable but will respond to them soon. This response also makes them wait till you can respond to their queries.
You may not immediately see the value of social media campaigning because the engagement rate will likely be low, if not nonexistent. However, social media can be a source of development with the help of the above key strategies if you’re looking for long-term advantages. It may be challenging to advertise your business on social media because of your limited marketing budget at the start. Still, you can do this once your social media profile gets a few followers and responsive users. You can also hire a social media company for you or your business. They will advise you better and help in making all this process feasible, and this will give you time to focus on the other activities and promotional strategies for your business.
Unlock the Power of Email Marketing
Utilizing email marketing techniques can be an excellent approach to growing your startup. Email marketing has several advantages that increase:
- Conversion rates,
- Website Traffic
- Brand recognition
- Revenue and sales
Maximize your startup’s potential with these reliable email marketing strategies:
- Build a pre-launch email list – The first and most crucial stage before beginning an email marketing campaign is developing an email list prior to a campaign launch. Without a reliable collection of email addresses, email marketing would be impossible.
Here’s how to build an email list easily:- Employ signup forms and buttons.
- Utilize pop-ups and navigations.
- Customize CTAs to go for blogs and landing pages.
- Publicize Newsletters on social media and other platforms
- Build personalized landing pages for your target audience.
- Write effective email content:
High-quality content can significantly increase the email open rate. Composing exceptional, relevant, and engaging email content is crucial to get a positive impression from customers unfamiliar with your business.
Revolutionize Your Startup’s Growth with Influencer Marketing
This involves using recognized social media users or bloggers to suggest or endorse a company’s goods or services. Businesses can use these social media influencers’ large, devoted, and active followings to increase their credibility, leading to many conversions and increased sales.
Social media is currently used by more than 4.89 billion people globally, and by 2027, this number is expected to reach almost 5.85 billion, making it the most popular online activity. Simply put, this influencer marketing industry is too large to ignore.
How can your business stand out in influencer marketing?
- Sponsorships
Engage with influencers with your target audience as their followers. Deliver to the influencer a campaign outline that explains the rules, instructions, or brand themes so that they understand your standards and introduce your products/services to their followers.
- Affiliate Marketing
This is an excellent method to collaborate with many influencers simultaneously for little money. The influencer uses a special promo code for advertising your product or service on their platforms.
The influencer will receive a commission once a promo code is utilized on your website, and you will receive a transaction.
Dominate the Digital Landscape With Ultimate SEO Hacks
Startups are very much occupied with providing top-notch products or services to their customers, but a well-defined marketing plan is equally essential from the outset. Therefore, integrating a robust marketing strategy into the early stages of the project is crucial for the company’s growth potential.
Top 3 SEO hacks For Startups With Little Time and Money:
- Write blogs with long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are more specific and expressive. They typically convert better. They enable you to increase site traffic by gradually being discovered to interested audiences. - Visual Storytelling With Compelling Infographics
When combined with other web components, infographics help websites appear higher in search results. Infographics make complex subjects interesting and straightforward to comprehend. - Utilize the AI SEO tools.
Surprisingly, the AI version of SEO tools is enough for bootstrapped startups to start. The AI SEO tools allow you to see the new and current keywords your competitors are ranking for. You can also find relevant and niche-specific terms with the support of AI search engine optimization tools that you might not have previously considered.
Engaging Customers With Freebies, Giveaways, and Contests
Who doesn’t like free stuff? In fact, we all love it. Select your merchandise wisely and something people can use along with promoting your brand. Here are some giveaway ideas:
- Brand partnerships
- Follower milestone giveaway
- Seasonal holiday-themed contests
- Movie tickets
- Subscriptions for streaming platforms
Free trials and Freemiums of the industry-relevant tools work best if you own a service-based startup or a Digital Marketing Company. Your company should hold a competition or giveaway that appeals to your target market and provides a prize that they would want to win. Whatever you decide on as a prize, make sure it will encourage people to participate in your giveaway or sweepstakes.
Growth Opportunities: Leveraging Partnerships and Guest Posts
One of the best growth hacking strategies is business alliances and collaborations because they generate a lot of buzz. Co-marketing, paid mentions, guest blogging, and product partnerships are some of the effective growth marketing strategies, as many companies have come to understand.
Services for guest blogging facilitate connection and community-building building-building. Nearly all of them currently operate their web pages.
By including your website in their services, these companies make it easy for potential customers to find you through relevant content, increasing organic website traffic and connecting with new audiences that ultimately boost your SERP rankings.
Bloggers frequently use guest blogging as a fantastic growth hack to increase their search engine rankings, attract organic website traffic, and connect with new audiences.
Powering Up Your Startup By Hosting and Attending Community Events & Conferences:
Organizing a launch party or grand opening event takes a lot of work. Still, the increased exposure you gain from promoting your brand to the public can be very beneficial.
You can get the knowledge and skills you need to ensure your company succeeds by attending top startup events.
Make connections, research your business, gain inspiration, and learn from the best. Nothing is at stake for you. Exposing your company to pertinent conferences and events will help you to achieve success by gaining media attention with the least amount of work.
Boost Your Customer Base With Referral Marketing
By providing incentives, businesses use referral marketing to increase their existing clients to recommend their goods or services to others in their network. The most affordable tactic companies use to increase their client base is referral marketing.
The benefits of referral marketing are:
- Increases your outreach
- Referred customers already have a positive
- It upgrades the customer retention rate
Regularly Update Your Website for Optimal Performance and User Experience
Updating your website requires more than just swapping out a few words. It entails a comprehensive approach encompassing all elements of your website, from written content to visuals like images, videos, and graphics. While this task may seem daunting, ensuring optimal performance and providing users with a seamless experience on your website is essential.
The benefits of keeping your website updated are:
- Upgrade SEO
The best way to demonstrate to Google that you are an established authority in the specialized industry is to keep the content on your website updated. Your rankings will rise and help bring more people to your site from organic and overall sources.” - Optimize marketing funnel
Regular content optimization on your website plays a significant role in assisting visitors in understanding the next move they are supposed to take in the purchasing process as you adjust your marketing approach to this funnel mindset.
Empower Your Brand with the Power of Video
Customers often hesitate to buy products as they need to understand their uses clearly. Making videos will not only help your brand get relatable, but it is also one of the most effective online marketing hacks.
Video marketing convinces the consumers to buy your brand’s products by getting to know the entire information and uses. Also, it helps in establishing trust between your brand and the customer.
As a startup, you must constantly develop creative methods to reach as many people as possible without exceeding the budget. Regularly including YouTube video marketing in your marketing plan can be profitable for expanding your company.
Among the many benefits of a visual presence, these are a few:
- Your brand will get recognized by people all over the globe
- With proper digital marketing, your startup will be easily found on google
- You can build an email list
- Make money with Adsense
In Conclusion,
Although not all startups will benefit significantly from these online marketing hacks, you must experiment with various business strategies to establish a strong brand identity. Follow the impact of each experiment on your startup development, analyze the metrics, and keep improving with the most effective strategies until you have a solid arsenal of methods to turn your startup into a thriving business.
Nikita Sharma is Chief Strategy Centrik @ hicentrik. She Strategizes, Optimizes & Revises digital activities to deliver optimum results & returns.
6 Years of Global Experience in Multi-tasking, i.e. Digital Advertising, Social Media, Ad Campaigns, Web Design & Development, Lead Generation, and Reporting.