Starting a business is exhilarating. Unfortunately, the “build it and they will come” theory doesn’t hold much weight. Simply put, startup marketing is a unique challenge oftentimes because of limited resources – whether it is time, money or talent.
There are two fundamental truths that exist when marketing a startup: 1) A great product alone is not enough to succeed; and 2) No amount of marketing will make a crap product gain a mass audience. Successful startup marketing requires that you have both great product and great marketing. Or as David Ogilvy said: “Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster”.
For early stage startups, feedback is more important than paying customers. The faster you can resolve customer objections, improve the product to match market demand the more likely you are to win over the long run.
But let’s say you have created a great product/service, what next? There are seven essential aspects that lay the foundation for an aggressive marketing strategy:
- Viral marketing and growth hacking. The most successful startup marketing strategies are those that embed marketing into their product. Think of Dropbox, Eventbrite, Mailbox and Snapchat – they all acquired millions of users with almost no money spent on marketing. How did they do that? They built virality right into their product – their products were worth recommending so and they made it easy for their users to find other users and drive exponential growth.
- Conversion rate optimization. Don’t be afraid to experiment to drive increased signups/usage/purchases. It is not the experiments themselves that are so important, but driving an understanding of potential customer objections. Use tools such as Olark (live chat plugin), Survey Monkey and UserTesting.com or just invite a potential customer to Skype/coffee/lunch to understand what it is that is driving customer objections.
- Try Facebook Advertising – not so much to drive signups but as an ideal customer research tool. Facebook Ads are the best way to quickly and affordably verify who your audience is and what your cost-per-acquisition is for different demographic groups.
- Install a customer feedback loop. A simple “give us feedback” form is not enough, use incentive, meet your users and study user behavior data tp understand where people fall off your funnel
- Follow the innovation and target early adopters. If you go after the “mass market” too soon you may never make it to that next funding round because most users – consumers and businesses – resist change and are not receptive to products and services that are not already recommended by early adopters.
- Fine tune your message for conversion. The “why” is as important in your message as the what or how. If you want to inspire someone to take action in a new direction, they need a deep motivation and you must begin with explaining why you do what you do and why that is important, not just what or how. Think Apple versus Dell. They both sell hardware, but one drives passion through the why of what they do while the other just sells bigger processors and more RAM at lower prices – which drives long lines?
- Drive for differentiation in your marketing. When we are exposed to somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 advertisements per day, how do you compete and stand out? The answer is by being a shepherd, not a sheep. You need to lead and differentiate in your marketing. This is more than just “first mover” advantage but about observing where everyone else is and being the opposite – it will allow you to stand out from the noise. Apply this from the most macro aspect of your marketing strategy down to the micro, and you will be amazed at how significant this is.