How can digital marketing help startups?

Talking about startups, the few things that come to your mind while thinking are how to manage to start your own venture, shortage of funds, bigger aim and lots of challenges. The biggest challenge for any startup is to create their unique identity, customers, and prospects. Some of biggest questions come that follow are how to reach masses, how to drive your business sales and how to fulfill the path of your venture under a penny budget? At even country level, startups are reacting to the news a lot. With the unveiling launch of Startup India Campaign by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has brought lots of positive hopes among the new entrepreneurs in India. It is a known fact that India has the third largest number of startups globally. Prime Minister has kicked off the ambitious Startup India Movement in January 2016 with an aim to fill the gaps in the economy for the growth and development of startups. It will aim to boost digital entrepreneurship at the roots which clearly justify that how Digital Marketing can be used effectively to help position your company as well as the brand in a stronger platform.

Today trends of digitization, not in the terms of marketing but all for major activities. Digital Marketing is relentlessly taking over traditional form of marketing as people are more prone to the internet these days. It has turned out to be very beneficial for emerging startups that are usually short of funds and always prefer cheaper and modern ways marketing as well as advertising. Digital Marketing has advanced a great deal over the years, not only it constitutes social media; it also includes various other aspects such as Email Marketing, SEO, Campaigns, etc.

The importance of Digital Marketing is not only welcomed by Startups, also acknowledged by established players in the market. The main discussion of this post is why so startups need marketing? Here I have listed few points that would justify the statement in an affirmative way:

RIP Traditional Marketing: The traditional marketing has low entry barrier and scale, it need a large amount of money to promote any business. However, in digital marketing, there are organic ways to grow customer base without any large amount of investment. A lot can be done with less and sharp targeting leading to less wastage.

It helps to build brand awareness and position of your company. It builds a consistent flow of traffic, get the first few users. This form of marketing helps to drive leads and online sales.

Social Media Marketing: Social Media Marketing is a very cost effective medium to build your voice platform. You can choose the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter etc as per you business requirement. It helps to interact with existing as well as new customers, involves true engagement with the followers and provides a better connect with the customers. Engagement with audience or customers is must for better results.

Email Marketing: This is the simplest, cost-effective, personal, customizable, and measurable tool. Through E-mail marketing, you can communicate with an audience of any size. It builds credibility, provides knowledge, improves communication and boosts sales.

Content Marketing: Content marketing plays a major role in startup success. Content is called as the “King of Marketing”. It’s the basic medium to convey the brand message. This generates real traffic and leads. Be consistent in publishing a great and relevant content to build a relationship with current and prospective clients and brand awareness.

Publish great and relevant content on a regular basis. Formulate unique selling proposition. Set up a blog, tell stories, and work with other publishers to post your content/write-ups. Also, communicate user stories.

SEO– It stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is most cost-effective with measurable, long-term benefits. It increases the visibility and organic traffic to the website. Using this, there is free branding and it builds trust and credibility. A big advantage is that it opens your business 24X7. Make your website is mobile friendly and secure, especially if is an e-commerce website. Do ensure all pages are working properly; use appropriate tags/headers/descriptions. Optimize for faster page load times, create good content on the site, and focus on online PR – get users to talk about your site.

Growth Hacking: It is a very cost effective method to implement business strategies with the main focus on building, engaging, converting and retaining user base of business. Offer something for free, set up a referral program, and go with exclusivity.

PPC Advertising: Startups want to stay lean or have not been funded yet usually have a limited budget with every penny to be counted especially when it comes to marketing and advertising. New businesses need to find creative ways to acquire customers and PPC can be very effective channel if it’s done right. It is important that marketers learn to work under PPC budgets to get the highest return on their investment. One of the secrets to running a successful Google AdWords campaign is getting your ads in front of the RIGHT customers.