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Startups can face a tough challenge when it comes to marketing. 47% of startup owners run marketing on their own because they lack a substantial marketing budget. Without the budget of larger companies, they need to be creative and make the most of their marketing budget.
Fortunately, startups can take advantage of some low-cost marketing strategies to market themselves and generate leads.
A low-cost marketing strategy is a way for startups to use marketing strategies that have a low impact on their budget. This allows them to focus their funds on other important business areas while still generating leads and getting their brand out there.
Low-cost marketing strategies allow startups to conduct competitive research, understand their target audience, get people talking about them online, get PR exposure and generate more leads.
Many startups launch without any marketing strategy or plan in place.
While it is important to focus on building the product, gaining early customers, and validating your startup idea, startups should also put some time aside for marketing purposes.
The sooner you start marketing your startup, the more time you will have to get it out there and increase awareness of your company.
Marketing should be done at the beginning stages of building a business because once you’ve launched, it’s too late to start. You need an audience ready to buy for your product or service to be successful.
This is particularly important for ecommerce stores that rely on traffic to generate revenue. Effective marketing will get you, customers, within a short period.
Also, marketing should be a consistent effort and not start and stop once the product is finished and launched. Marketing is a long game and shouldn’t be put on the back-burner after the product is done.
Startups can take advantage of many low-cost strategies to get the word out about their brand and generate more leads. Many of these strategies can be done in combination, allowing startups to reap great rewards at little cost.
Here are some low-cost marketing strategies for startups:
Social media allows you to reach out to a large audience and get your name out there. You can use sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to grow your startup’s presence online.
About 90% of marketers vouch for the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool for small businesses.
However, it is important that startups not view social media as a place to simply tweet or post about their brand. You need to use these platforms strategically in order to get the most out of them.
For example, you can create Facebook contests where users submit photos for a chance to win something related to your product or service. This allows you to promote engagement and grow your page’s following simultaneously.
You can also use social media to run a contest where you give away your product at the end of it, creating some buzz for your brand in the process.
Getting press coverage is another easy way for startups to market themselves and get their name out there. While getting press isn’t easy, getting some PR coverage for your startup will be beneficial.
You can secure press through many low-cost methods such as recording a video and writing a press release about your company to distribute online. You can also approach bloggers in your industry directly and ask them to write about you or do an interview.
Mostly getting PR coverage for your brand is free, but it takes time and persistence to spread the word. However, if you’re persistent enough, you will see some returns.
Guest blogging is an excellent low-cost marketing strategy that allows you to reach a new audience while providing good content for the blog you’re writing on.
Startups can reach out to other bloggers in their industry and ask if they would be interested in publishing a guest post about a relevant topic. If the blogger is interested, you can submit your article to publish on their website.
In return, startups will hopefully start seeing some traffic from the site where their guest blog was published. If the post is good enough, then it could go viral and generate a lot of traffic for your site in a short period.
You can create an infographic about a relevant topic and release it online to get more eyeballs on your brand. These graphics can quickly spread across the web because they’re shareable and engaging.
If a startup uses a catchy infographic to get its message out, then it’s likely that people will be interested in sharing this infographic with others through social media or email. This increases the brand awareness strategy for your company at a minimal cost.
Paid advertising is another low-cost marketing strategy that can give startups the exposure they need, especially if you run it through Google Ads or Facebook ads.
You should be careful about how much money you spend on your startup’s paid advertising campaigns, but if you do it right and target the correct keywords, then you’ll see a good return on your investment.
Giveaways are another way to market your startup and generate interest in your product or service — even though you don’t directly sell anything through these giveaways. If people want to win something from you, then they’ll have to share your startup with their friends.
In order for this strategy to work well, it’s important that the giveaway item doesn’t cost too much and is relevant to the type of business you run (i.e., if you sell nerdy T-shirts, don’t give away an iPad).
Videos are a great way to promote your brand, especially if it’s an entertaining or informative one. Using videos in your startup marketing plan will help you reach new audiences and give them a reason to share your brand with others on social media.
Videos also allow you to educate potential clients about the industry you’re in and why your product or service is valuable. In return, they may choose to patronize your company due to watching this video.
People are generally more inclined to buy from brands with characters that represent them or stand for their values. Think of the ‘Apple Guy’ (Steve Jobs) or the “Geeky Techie” (from XKCD).
This mascot allows people to identify your brand and create a relationship with it easily. People might even start associating certain traits or qualities with your startup because of how your mascot acts.
Once you have a group of loyal customers, you can use that to your advantage by creating a referral program. If your current audience is happy with what they’re receiving from your company, they’re probably willing to share it with their friends and family.
The key here is to give something away to your customers for referring people to your company. This can be a percentage of their next purchase, free shipping, or even just 10% of the product cost.
You’ll have to gauge what will work best for your brand and current audience, but by showing that you care about them, you’re more likely to get positive word-of-mouth referrals.
Blogs are great for content marketing, and they’re also easy to rank on Google, which means that you’ll be able to get more attention from people looking for information about your industry or brand online.
81% of consumers search for information online before making a purchase decision. Writing a blog post should not be seen as another item on your to-do list because it’s actually a great marketing tool. Keep your audience in mind at all times and make sure to answer their questions.
These two sites are filled with crowd-sourced answers that can be very helpful if you’re looking for feedback about your product or services before investing too much into them.
These are also great communities for startups because they can tell if you’re just trying to sell a product. So by engaging people on these sites, you can create a long-lasting relationship.
With so many millions of people using their smartphones every day, you might think that mobile is the only way to reach your audience. However, mobile should not be seen as a replacement for traditional offline marketing tactics because they can generate more direct results if done correctly. Business cards, t-shirts, banners, billboards, newspapers, magazines, flyers, radio advertising, car wraps – or even tattoos are generally to be considered as offline marketing ideas.
You may have noticed that these offline marketing strategies are similar to online efforts. Still, they’re often much more effective because you can focus on just one platform rather than building a brand online and then extending it into the real world.
It’s important that you always reach out to new audiences to gain loyalty from them early on. Think about what someone does right before they’re ready to purchase a product or service, and then come up with some content that can grab their attention right at that moment.
For example, if the person is searching for reviews of your product or service, you should have some customer testimonials on hand to convince them that you’re the right choice.
The better your content and outreach are, the more likely you’ll be able to reach new customers before they even start looking for what you have to offer.
Over 50% of consumers mentioned that they got to know about a product or service through influencers.
Influencer marketing is when you work with a group of people with a lot of influence over potential customers to get your product or service in front of them.
For example, if your brand sells shoes then you might want to partner up with someone who has a large following on Instagram and regularly posts pictures of their feet while wearing the most fashionable shoes.
This is a very effective way to target new audiences because most of them trust the opinions of influential people, which is why it’s often the preferred method for most startups who are just beginning their marketing efforts.
Successful startups are excellent at building lists because it allows them to reach new customers for free. They do this by collecting emails from anyone who visits their website, either through a form or an email signup box.
They might also ask their current customers to refer a friend or leave a testimonial, which is another great way of growing your list. A lot of these techniques require that you’re offering something for free in return, but if you give people a reason to sign up then they’ll be more likely to do it.
Once you have all those emails, you can use them to send out newsletters and let everyone know what you’re up to. You can also send people offers or discount codes that would be exclusive for people on your list, which is why it’s such a good strategy for acquiring new customers.
Having a physical presence at an event will make it more likely for people to remember who you are because they’ll be able to pick up flyers or business cards with your name on them.
By attending events, you’ll also be able to meet new people and form business relationships, which is a great way of getting your name out there.
Email marketing is a very inexpensive way of reaching new people because it’s based on permission, which means that they have chosen to sign up for your newsletters.
Also, email marketing is the most effective form of marketing with an average ROI of 122%.
However, you should avoid using your list just to send out promotional information about a product or service because most people will consider that spam and unsubscribe from your list as a result.
You should instead focus on providing your audience with useful information that they might find helpful. For example, you could send them a list of things to do before leaving on vacation or some interesting facts about the city you live in.
People will appreciate the effort and be more willing to open your emails, which is what you need if you want to get your message in front of them.
Guerrilla marketing is a popular approach to marketing that involves doing things in a low-budget way.
You might consider putting up flyers around your city about a product or service you’re offering, which can be very effective if you target the right audience.
For example, if one of your products is essential oil then you might want to place ads with images of plants in public places where people will see them, like the subway or the mall.
That way they’ll associate your product with nature which can be beneficial for selling it to customers, especially if you’re trying to target a specific audience.
People are always looking for ways to save money and if you can offer them a coupon or discount code then they’re more likely to buy from you.
That’s why it’s such a good marketing idea because it only requires that you create some sort of deal, like offering 10% off or free shipping. Just make sure that the terms of your offer are clear and easy to follow, otherwise, people might not redeem it.
One of the best marketing strategies you can employ is to turn one of your customers into a brand advocate.
If someone likes your product or service enough then they might be willing to recommend it to their friends and family, which will ultimately help increase sales.
Brand advocates often have a lot more credibility with other people because they can vouch for a company.
Repurposing content means that you take old material and make it appeal to a different audience. For example, if you wrote an article on “How to Fix Your Car” then you could stick the same information into a video for YouTube and target people who prefer watching videos online.
That way you’ll reach more people and spread your brand awareness, which can be very powerful if you do it correctly.
Start by asking yourself what kind of material you have already created and how else could you repurpose it so that it appeals to another audience or market?
These 21 low-cost marketing strategies can help your startup get more exposure and generate a lot of interest from your audience, which should eventually lead to more sales and happy customers.
There are different digital marketing channels available at the disposal of startups. You can incorporate these strategies with digital marketing channels to acquire new customers for free or at a minimal cost.
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