Have you been trying to do all you can to get your company’s name out there and not seeing any results?

You aren’t alone. Believe it or not, 50% of small businesses don’t even have a marketing plan at all.

Top 8 Marketing Strategies for Startups

How can you create a marketing strategy if you have no place to start?

If you aren’t getting enough sales for your business, you need to use every advantage marketing has to bring. Below are eight marketing strategies that a startup business can use you get noticed.

1. Buy Paid Ads

If you’re trying out a new concept, the last thing you want to do is wait months to get the first visit to your website. You need to iterate quickly, so you know for sure if your idea is worth pursuing.

That’s where paid ads help. Google provides a platform to bid on positions in its search engine. If you bid high enough, you’ll land on the top of the Google search results.

If you go down this route, you’ll need to make sure you set up your tracking scripts correctly.

You likely won’t make a profit from your ads immediately. You’ll need to gather enough data and optimize your campaigns before you see a profit.

2. Start a Blog

Paid ads aren’t always sustainable for a startup. Doing them can give you a good sample to work with, but you might not want to invest in paid ads all the time to get your customers. That’s where starting a blog can help.

Your goal with a blog is to target keywords in your industry. Head to a keyword research tool like the Google Keyword Planner and enter a few terms related to your industry. You’ll get a list of keywords that people search for on Google.

Look for common questions that people have in your industry and write blog posts that answer those questions. Also, don’t forget about snackable content since users like them the most.

Once you rank on the first page of Google for those keyword phrases, you’ll get free search engine traffic for as long as you hold your rankings.

3. Create a Referral Program

It’s hard to get customers to trust your business if they’ve never worked with you before. There are a lot of options out there for people to buy. Why should they trust you?

There’s not much better than word of mouth for generating buzz around your company. If you want to learn how to increase sales, tell your current customers how they can promote your brand.

Some people will do this on their own simply because they like your company. Others will need a little push to tell people about your business.

A referral program will reward people who promote your company with swag, free merchandise, and other reward types.

4. Get on Social Media

If you want to get in front of your target audience, your business needs to be where they hang out. These days, that place is on social media.

Look through social media sites to figure out where your audience spends most of their time. Business users will spend a lot of their time browsing LinkedIn. You can find regular consumers on Facebook and Instagram.

Once you find your audience, create accounts on each site they are on. Spend time creating great content and building your fanbase on those sites.

If you create content people enjoy, they’ll be more likely to trust your company and buy your products when you show them a deal.

5. Monitor Your Competitors

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when you create a marketing campaign for your small business.

You likely aren’t the only game in town. The chances are good that your competition has a marketing strategy that works.

Try to find out what your competition does to get new business. See if there is any way for you to incorporate their business strategy and make it work for your company.

You don’t have to copy what they do precisely. Try to develop a unique spin on your competitor’s strategy to help your company stand out.

6. Network With Other Business Owners

Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t everyone for themselves in the business world. You might have some direct competitors that will be tough for you to work with. However, people in complementary industries are more than willing to talk and work with you.

Reach out to these people to start forming relationships. Your goal isn’t to see how they can help your business. You want to find win-win situations where both of your companies find success.

After you trust each other, you can begin promoting each other’s businesses. This is free advertising and more valuable than other cold leads your business might receive.

7. Get on Google Maps

Do you run a local business? If so, you can’t afford to be on the map results on Google. Most people start their search for products online, so missing that traffic will cost you a lot of sales.

Luckily, it isn’t hard to get listed. Sign up for a Google My Business account and ask for a PIN code. Google will send a postcard with a code to your business address and activate your account after entering it on the site.

Once your code is active, you can enter your business details and show up on the map results.

8. Build an Email List

Whether you invest in paid ads or find ways to get paid traffic, you don’t want to waste time trying to get the same customer over and over again. It’s a waste of both time and resources.

If you want to avoid this problem, add those people to an email list.

You can build an email list by adding an opt-in to your website and adding email addresses manually. Once you create your list, you can send marketing emails to your list as often as you wish.

There Are More Marketing Strategies Out There

With the popularity of online marketing, there are new marketing strategies created all the time. Some of those are paid, and some of them can provide you free exposure. Ensure you investigate all the marketing tips out there to find the ones that work best for your company.

Are you looking for more marketing tips? Head back to our blog to learn more about getting new customers for your business.

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