Five Ways You Shouldn't Miss Out on Digital Marketing as a Start-up Depending upon the type of consumer base you're targeting and building, this could be a great way to reach new customers.
By Avijit Arya
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Gone are the days when businesses were owned by affluent moguls of the world; it is the age of start-ups and everyone is doing it. As is the case with something that finds existence and operation in excess, only the organisations doing the whole start-up job properly, witness success in their respective markets. With the ultimate ease of access that the age of information provides, anyone can start a venture based upon a well thought out niche. The basic idea behind a start-up flourishing is the way in which it adds or will add value to the lives of its customer base.
The competition is high, the frequency of business operations seeing their first days is huge and everyone knows about the power of digital marketing and social media. However, what they do not understand is that even if everyone is doing it, if you do it just right, if you have that edge over them, their regular efforts will amount to nothing compared to one solid effort on your part as an organisation.
Here are five ways in which you can attract more customers for your start-up by means of employing the right digital marketing strategies.
Studies suggest that marketing has changed over the past couple of years more than in the past few decades. This is probably due to the fast paced growth of the internet and its platforms.
The first thing to decide for you as an up and coming brand is to say YES to digital marketing and its benefits.
Video Content is King: When it comes to digital marketing, nothing is as close to your establishment's best interest as videos. The world has been going crazy, getting influenced by videos on all platforms possible. This includes billboard and in-lobby marketing, social media platforms and ads in cinemas etc. Other than this, the live video feature of numerous social media applications like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, has made interacting with the consumer directly, the easiest feat to accomplish. Working with motion graphics such as gifs, videos, whiteboard animation and static content stitched together with audio etc. are great ways to engage consumers. To do this properly, one needs a great designer and content writer, who understand your niche to its core.
All Social Media Platforms Are Important: Marketing executives and moguls will argue that certain social media platforms hold more relevance to your organisation than others. This is not true. Any kind of visibility on these platforms, albeit it is relevant to your brand identity, is of great importance to creating a level of awareness amongst your consumer base. As is with demographics, your consumer base will not select a platform based on your availability. People are present everywhere. This hold more importance if you want to reach prospective consumers organically. Take for example the new Facebook algorithm; it is imperative that your content is conversation inducing and value adding to the lives of people you're trying to introduce your brand to, for your marketing efforts to gain visibility. It is also important for you to gain prominence via shares, comments and reactions. However, on Instagram, the story is different and rather easy. Stories and posts work on a predetermined algorithm, but the constraints aren't that stringent.
Email Marketing: Depending upon the type of consumer base you're targeting and building, this could be a great way to reach new customers. This type of digital marketing is the veteran that was considered to be of retiring age, but it's still out there returning with positive ROI. One reason why emails are a great way to market your product or brand is that it doesn't take a lot of initial investment to start sending out emailers. However, this is a bit of a slick slope. Not every start-up out there knows the dos and don'ts of email marketing, if done wrong, the result will be disappointing.
Follow these few steps to construct the perfect emailer for your start-up:
Before anything else, know the demographic you're targeting.
The subject line either makes it or breaks it- make it crisp, catchy, engaging and goal/benefit oriented.
Less IS more- there is no need for excessive jargon in the main body copy, make it persuasive and simple.
Readability- use bullets, subheads and paragraph breaks to make it easier for the recipient to read.
Provide scope for enrichment and benefit to the targeted customer.
The Consumer Is The Ultimate Influencer: The consumer is the ultimate influencer; if your customer likes your product and/or content used for marketing, they are sure to talk about it with their near and dear ones. It is also possible that a piece of media or content that you propagated induced a certain emotion in a customer, say for example, then they are bound to mention it at least once during casual conversation. Aim to please, aim to solve a problem and provide benefits to your customer. There shouldn't be a bigger marketing goal for you, as an organisation.
Influencer Marketing: A great way to passively derive benefits and ROIs from your organisation as a brand is by employing influencers that work, write and speak of the same industry as your brand. This is a great way in which OTAs are making sure they gain traction with the help of established travel bloggers and social media influencers. These individual entities generally have a pre-established audience that seeks content and media on a topical basis. This is a way for you to have loyal customers in the long run, by means of proxy advertising and word-of-mouth marketing.
A few key points to remember:
The content of your marketing agenda, should always serve a purpose.
Less is more; try not to use bombastic language or excess content.
The idea is for the masses to understand your brand identity, without being clueless or being left with un-answered questions.
Mobile optimisation is your best friend and this is somewhere you must not shirk upon as most digital world is on mobile, on the go.
All in all, the digital field is a profession in its own aspect, and hence, a great way to gain that necessary traction required for moving from a start-up company to a well-established company or brand with a loyal customer base.
