Effective Marketing Tactics & Strategies For Startups With Shane Barker
marketing tactics

Effective Marketing Tactics & Strategies For Startups With Shane Barker

The internet is a noisy space riddled with startups and businesses advertising their brands to attract eyeballs. To cope up and to conquer means your startup needs kickass marketing tactics to trump everyone else. And this is not a simple task.

However, it isn’t very hard either. To win at startup marketing, you need a tactical approach.

Which is why we spoke with Shane Barker, Digital Strategist, Brand & Influencer Consultant, to shed light on the most suited online marketing tactics that startups should channel their efforts on for optimum results. Read on!

Google Ads vs Facebook Ads: Which Of These Online Marketing Tactics Should A Startup Focus More On?

marketing tactics
Shane Baker

Personally, I think you get the best results when you use the two online marketing tactics as complementary platforms, rather than have them compete against each other.

At the same time, startups may have limited funds and resources and may only be able to focus on one of these options.

Even then, there’s no absolute choice that works for all startups. The choice mainly depends on their unique business goals.

Most startups focus on raising brand awareness and generating quality leads with minimal expenses.

 

 

In these cases, Facebook ads may be a better option because of the advanced targeting features.

You’ll be putting your brand and products in front of a relevant target audience that isn’t actively looking to buy something.

Google ads would be a better option for a startup that’s targeting immediate sales for quick revenue. With Google ads, you’ll be able to reach a target audience that’s actively looking to buy something and conducting purchase-related research.

What Are Some Of The Most Economical Marketing Tactics To Advertise Online?

My top recommendation would be influencer marketing. Besides being one of the most cost-effective customer acquisition channels, it’s a great way for businesses to build trust with their target audiences.

Since your brand’s message will reach your target audience through someone they trust and look up to, i.e. an influencer, it’s a lot more trustworthy than any other advertising channel. This makes influencer marketing vital for a business that’s just starting out and still needs to earn the trust of consumers.

 

Besides this, I would also recommend investing in paid social media ads (because of the highly accurate targeting), inviting guest posts (for increased exposure among a relevant audience), and referral programs (to build customer loyalty while drawing in new customers).

SEO, SEM, And Social Media – What Marketing Tactics Should A Tech Startup First Deploy?

When it comes to implementing a solid marketing strategy, this is where a lot of startups make a mistake. Because SEO seems free from a distance, they think it’s the most cost-effective option and they give it a top priority, even before their business takes off.

However, SEO is a longevity game and therefore it takes several months for it to start delivering quality results. During that time, you’ll need to constantly work on creating fresh and relevant content.

3 Brilliant Ways Your Tech Startup Can Win at SEO

Hands down, Search Engine Optimization is still at the heart of digital marketing. And while startup marketing best practices suggest optimizing for SEO, startups often struggle to learn their way around it. Most entrepreneurs resort to allocating big bucks on advertising and paid promotions instead of opting for SEO optimization.

So, although it delivers long-term results, you can’t immediately enjoy the fruit of your SEO efforts. Not to mention how the constant changes in search engine algorithms can set your efforts back several steps.

I’d recommend that you prioritize SEM and online ads over SEO when starting out. But, consistently invest in optimizing for SEO along the way. Because SEO has a stronger threshold in digital marketing as compared to online ads or paid avenues.

But even before SEM, I think social media is still the best channel for a startup to focus their initial marketing efforts. This is mainly because it’s cheap, it’s effective, and it provides accurate targeting.

With social media, you can focus your marketing dollars on a highly relevant audience while enjoying a platform to engage with relevant people and with whom you can build brand loyalty.

What Are Your Thoughts On Content Re-purposing?

Content repurposing, in my opinion, is one of the most effective tactics in content marketing. You save tons of time and resources in the ideation process because the idea already exists; you just need to convert it into a different format.

 

 

And since the content has already performed well with your target audience before, there’s an assurance that the new content will perform as expected.

So, there’s minimal risk and investment involved in content repurposing, making it one of the most effective marketing tactics for businesses that are just starting out.

How To Define A Go-To-Market Strategy In A Startup?

There are several frameworks that startups can follow to define their go-to-market strategy. But to keep it simple, let’s go with my favorite framework – the 4 P’s of Marketing.

A Simple Guide to Crafting the Perfect Go To Market Strategy

Setting up a startup and starting your own business is no easy feat. However, once you’ve taken off, how do you reach your destination without any turbulence? You need the perfect go to market strategy to ensure that your tech startup becomes a force to be reckoned with.

Here, the 4 P’s are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Your go-to-market strategy should align all of these together.

Product: Define what problem your product can solve and how big the problem is. From there, you can identify the target market and your buyer personas.

This will help you assess whether you have a big enough market to target and how you to go about developing an effective value proposition.

Price: Determine a price for your product based on the value it delivers while keeping in mind the existing prices set by competitors. Once that’s done, develop a pricing structure – whether you’ll charge a flat fee, create tiers, etc.

Place: This aspect will answer questions like: How and where will you sell the product? Will you do direct sales or work with partners and resellers?

Promotion: This will answer questions like: How will you tell your brand’s story? What kind of marketing campaigns will you launch, and which channels will you use?

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