In their early stages, startups and small businesses face many existential challenges. So much so that only one in two new companies will survive after the 5th operating year. Digital Marketing mistakes are the most significant killers, causing 56% of recent business failures*. How can you avoid this?
Why is Digital Marketing Vital for Startups and Small Businesses?
You may have a great business idea, appropriately designed products or services, and great value for money, but without reaching the right target, all that makes little sense. Therefore, paying attention to marketing strategy is vital for startups and small businesses. However, how can they build brand awareness and ensure their market fit with limited resources?
There is no question that Marketing requires extra effort in planning and sorting. Still, the good news is that digital marketing is highly accessible to companies of all shapes and sizes, no matter your budget size. Digital marketing is highly scalable!
Let’s examine what digital marketing can do for startups and small businesses and the different steps to crafting and implementing an efficient digital marketing strategy.
Digital marketing for startups and small businesses: what to expect?
Do you clearly envision your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and your target?
- Yes => Then digital marketing agencies can do wonders to help scale up your business today!
- Not yet. If that’s the case, you’ll need to develop the relevant personas for your business. Your agency will assist you in doing this work upstream and defining those crucial elements.
What are the primary outcomes of a relevant digital marketing strategy?
- Understand Your Customers
- Improve Your Brand Visibility
- Enable Targeted Marketing
- Drive More Sales
Understanding your audience is one of the essential contributions of digital marketing. It helps you track, monitor, and analyze your target audience’s purchasing behavior and interests. You can see if your product or marketing mix (like promotional strategies, pricing, marketing channels) can attract their attention. Indeed, driving web traffic to your website and landing pages is essential. You will develop ads and campaigns to attract customers during the buying phase.
Quality web traffic is more than quantity!
But not all web traffic is equivalent. Suppose your digital campaign brings you the wrong audience, i.e., lots of traffic but no conversions. You need to raise a red flag as soon as possible! You are not selling, and that traffic is costing you money.
In terms of digital marketing for startups, more than for any business, quality is more important than quantity. Go back to your persona: what a typical day looks like for them? In what context will they likely buy your product? Identify the best touchpoints and verify if your campaign adapts to their funnel stage.
How to craft and implement a digital marketing strategy?
As a startup, you need to focus on the following digital marketing steps:
-
Build a fantastic brand that matches your target audience
-
Create a website that showcases your products/services and brand
-
Optimize your site for Search engines (SEO)
-
Engage with your target audiences through:
- Remarkable content (blog, copywriting, video)
- Email marketing and automation
- Social media marketing
-
Lead potential customers to your service with a click:
- Pay-per-click campaigns and retargeting ads
- Affiliate Marketing and influencer campaigns
-
Track, analyze, and improve!
Conclusion
Digital marketing can be compelling if adequately leveraged. Ultimately, it’s all about nailing the product-market fit and connecting with the right audience.
As a trusted digital marketing and advertising agency, NAOS Digital can help your startup or small company succeed. Do you have a specific project, like building a new website or revamping and optimizing your existing one? Or do you need a broader marketing approach to develop and run effective online marketing campaigns? Contact us.
* Startup Failure Rate: How Many Startups Fail and Why? Failory.com
