Truth be told: A marketing strategy is vital for businesses of all categories, but it is more crucial for startups. For people to know that your startup exists, you must put strategies in place to make it known. Nobody will buy your products or services from you if they don’t know anything about you.
Marketing is unique for startups since more emphasis is made on growth and we hope this article will act as a basis to get your feet wet. Once your startup has grown and expanded its reach, more customers will know about it and will spread the word to other new customers.
A startup without a marketing strategy that focuses on attracting customers is as good as dead. A marketing strategy creates your brand’s awareness and lets customers know about your brand in a relevant and relatable manner.
Continue reading to learn how to build a successful marketing strategy for your startup in the fastest way possible.

• Formulate Your Vision Statement

A vision statement is an outline of the main goal(s) of your startup. For instance, you are planning to develop an App that will help people to develop healthy eating habits through locally available ingredients. You can have your vision statement as “Become an effective health recipe app for people of all ages”.
John Craft, the founder and owner of Essaygeeks advice founders to keep vision statements as short as possible to make it easy to recall.
Remember, all your actions should align with your vision statement since that’s what you aim to accomplish. Formulate it and ensure to place it in a visible place you can see it always.

• Know Your Target Customers

Who are the target customers for your startup? Which companies do you intend to work with? Who are the users of your products or services? These are the most important things you should consider first.
Get to know every category of companies and people so that you know who the real users of your products are and their buyer personas.

• Identify Your Customers’ Concerns

This is by far the most important reason why you’ve decided to start your business. There must be something that has sparked your need to start that particular business of yours. So, spell it out. What problems are you trying to solve?  For instance, in our example of the health recipe app above, the customers’ problems could be: They want to eat healthier, but they can’t find simple and affordable recipes.
Converting Visitors into Leads [Marketing Strategy]!

• Identify Your Competitors

Every venture has competition and assessing your competition will help you know who your business rivalries are and what you can do to stand out from the crowd. So, evaluate each major competitor. Find out what keeps your competitors ahead of you.

• Create  Your go-to-Market Plan

After you’ve created your vision statement, known your target customers, found out their problems, and you’ve also assessed the competition you need to plan how to market your startup to them.
Identify the channels you wish to use to promote your products or services. Also, state your price for your products; in this case, you also need to know what your target customers are willing to pay for your offers.

• Put Your Marketing Strategy to Work

We assume you’ve identified your target customers and you have created your go-to-market plan. It’s now time to put it into use. Launch campaigns that will make your brand known to your target customers. Remember, you should ensure you align your campaigns to the buyer personas.
Your campaign should also be centred to make your target customers know that you are the solution to their problems.
8 Efficient Digital Marketing Tips For New Age Entrepreneurs

What Your Startup Needs to Become Successful

• Learn SEO

If you are still new to search marketing and Search Engine Optimization, you might think that it’s a complex thing to do. Although it might be a complicated thing, it is crucial when it comes to making your startup visible to your target customers.
You need to learn to target your customers by use of search phrases they use while searching for products or services like yours online.

• Blogging

Blogging is a crucial thing your startup needs but you should not blog for the sake of blogging but do it with a clear purpose that focuses on attracting readers. You could decide to share the latest and trending news in your industry with your readers or entertain them. In other words, your blog should inform, entertain and convince readers to buy your offers.

• Content Creation

Content is crucial when it comes to taking your startup to the world. From the text, audio to video content you post on your blog or social media pages, all should speak the purpose of your startup.
Catchy headlines, video tutorials, infographics, and stories are the most valuable pieces of content in 2018. These are the pieces of content you can use to provide your target customers with the info about your startup.

• Social Media

Building trust in social media is important for the success of your startup. Create social media accounts either on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more. This is an effective way to promote your products or services and also create a lasting relationship with your target customers. You don’t have to be on all the social media platforms, but you can choose one that will help you effectively market your startup.
6 Steps to Creating a Winning Social Media Strategy

Well, building a successful strategy for your startup can be tough and overwhelming but using the tips we’ve described in this article could help you to create your plan and put it into action in 20 minutes. Remember; as your startup starts to grow, ensure your goals align with your overall strategy. And to be successful, you must know where to start and where you are going and why you started.

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