Often times, marketing and other elements in the marketing mix are seen as expensive by Startups when the reality is that it is an essential part of their business growth.
As against these common beliefs marketing is highly affordable and as we have good marketing programs that fit every business regardless of size or budget.
It does not matter if you have a modest media exposure budget or you operate on a very lean budget from Angel investors, the fact is that Intentional marketing in the early stages of Startups has many proven benefits.
This enables the Startup to have a working knowledge of the business dynamics and the behavioral patterns of different segments of the market. It also affords startups to understand which channel is most effective for customer acquisition and sales.
As the year is running to a close and strategies for the following year are being documented as organizations take stock of their gains and losses in the eventful year, the points in the oncoming lines will be of benefit for the intentional startup in 2021.
Startups must note that content marketing costs nothing and therefore should start blogging immediately, using long-tail keywords to gain traction even without paid search ads. If you don’t have a website yet, create an account on Medium, LinkedIn, or an industry-specific content publisher to publish blog posts and attract a following.
Startups must also maximize all the free tools available on each social media platform. As a reminder, Facebook offers free marketing tools majorly conceptualized for startup businesses.
As an intentional startup, automating the frequently asked questions on Facebook Messenger could positively impact your customer service response time and help customers get the information they require to make an informed and rational purchase.
Startups must understand that it will not be business as usual in the coming year as competition will get even stiffer. A startup should have a list of keywords to reach the target audience. Because of a great number of content available online now, some businesses utilize long-tail keywords as well to reach customers.
There is the need for Startups to identify the keywords, and then do a weekly review of where the business-owned pages rank on the search engine results page for each given keyword. For instance, a fintech outfit is trying to reach a broader market with keyword research.
The fintech is headquartered in Africa Nigeria, and users can transact on their website. The fintech startup would keep a list of keywords like “Paylink Africa” and “Africa Paylink” and Google them to see where their website ranks every week.
If their website ranks in the top five on the search results page, that means the fintech startup has a solid Search Engine Optimization strategy. They can continue to track these keywords on Google and record on a spreadsheet where their e-commerce website ranks each week.
The aforementioned keywords are considered evergreen. Seasonal keywords could include “fast payment in Africa” or “Safe transact” in response to COVID-19 protocols.
Sponsored social media Ads are big components of paid marketing campaigns and the good news is that as a startup, you do not need a large budget to start getting visibility through them.
It is quite understandable if you do not have the provisions for this in your lean budget as a startup but free social media business accounts also go a long way in gaining traction when properly and consistently managed to connect emotionally with the right market segment.
Startups stand a great chance to grow in traction this way and also increase their marketing spend. Intentional marketing is not rocket science but requires the knowledge of the right strategy combination.
Have you ever wondered how important it is to segment your targets by location? If your answer is NO, just note that intentional Startups have to wake up to fully internalize these in order to weather the competition of the coming year.
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