5 Low-Cost Marketing Strategies For Startups
When we hear about marketing, we sometimes think we have to spend a whole lot of money in order to get our goods and services in front of our customers. This might be true in some cases, but there are also low-cost marketing strategies that can help you out as a startup. And, you would be surprised that your customer acquisition costs will be very efficient.
Even if your product is excellent, you need the right marketing strategies to help people know about it. In addition, a great marketing strategy can’t salvage a bad product/service. And so, it is important to have a great product/service matched with a great marketing strategy.
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Here are some low-cost marketing strategies start-ups can try out:
Content Marketing: Content marketing is a process of providing useful, relevant, and shareable content to your audience that would indirectly lead them to sales. It is inexpensive yet, effective. You can create articles, e-books, videos, tutorials, podcasts, etc. in your niche that can be of enormous value to your audience. By doing this, you are indirectly marketing yourself, and your audience is also seeing you as an expert in your field. For instance, according to Nathan Chan of Foundr, in his interview with Forbes, he said that Foundr magazine is packaged with “strong, evergreen content full of value” He also added that, “Making our free content better than people’s paid content creates a lot of reciprocity.”
Partnerships: You should consciously build a network of influencers in your industry. Doing this would always come in handy at different points in time in your business. For instance, you can identify influencers in your industry and go into partnerships with them. They can market your products/services in exchange for some of your products/services, or you can pay for them as well. However, when choosing influencers or collaborators, ensure they have the right audience for your business, and they have an engaged audience. In addition to this, you can launch a referral platform that allows your customers promote your products for you in exchange for discounts or commission. Research shows that “92% of people trust personal recommendations more than all other forms of marketing.”
Viral Marketing: Research shows that companies like Dropbox, Hotmail, Eventbrite, Mailbox, and Snapchat acquired millions of users by building virality into their product. The way to leverage this kind of marketing is by coming up with a product or service that everyone would love to recommend to others. Viral marketing helps you spread your message or ideas faster from one person to a large number of people. Research shows that one of the best viral marketing campaigns of all time is that of – Old Spice “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” Campaign. This campaign was created to advise women to buy Old Spice for their men and to tell men to buy Old Spice indirectly. The video currently has over 55 million views!
Sponsored Advertising: Facebook and Instagram sponsored Ads are very effective. However, you have to do lots of AB Testing to know which one works for your business. In 2015, Facebook reported that “there are more than two million active advertisers on Facebook.”
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): One of the primary reasons why SEO remains effective is because of the search. Always remember that problems precede search; people are looking for answers, hence, the search. And so, if what you are offering your audience solves lots of issues, then lots of people would stumble upon your content provided it is of huge value.
