Initiating a business and maintaining requires a great deal of effort, and making your presence known is a significant part of this challenge. This is what a startup company always tackles.
If you aim to thrive in a marketplace where many startups fail, every step you take should be well-planned and carefully implemented.
The most challenging task for early-stage startup companies is to make their services and products known regardless of how successful they are. The traditional marketing strategies do not always work for startup marketing.
Startup companies need a well-functioning marketing strategy that will suit their specific goals. This kind of strategy includes knowing what works and what does not, what to prioritize to gain a competitive edge.
What is early-stage startup? Here we will provide some information about early-stage startups, talk about some essential phases of a solid marketing strategy, and give some tactics for developing such a strategy that will help your startup grow.
What is an Early-Stage Startup?
The early stage is a term used for the early days of a startup trying to develop and market its product or service. Early-stage startups are concerned about establishing a customer base and seeking an adequate cash flow.
Early-stage startups might change their features, pricing, or brand positioning quickly. A go-to-market strategy for startups that are having their early days is among the most useful things to do.
What is a Go-to-Market Strategy?
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is the actions taken while bringing a product to the market or introducing it to a new type of customer. This action plan guides and supports companies through this new process. The strategy generally contains a business and sales plan based on the target audience and market situation.
A go-to-market strategy has a narrower scope that closely focuses on the initial product. As an early stage startup owner who needs to be flexible to adjust yourself according to the market, your go-to-market strategy needs to be agile enough to be updated. But it also must be comprehensive enough to give you better results in the long run.
Developing a go-to-market strategy to build your brand might sound hard, but it is not always the case. If you recognize that each product and market are different, you can come up with a well-thought marketing strategy that uses your resources to successfully maintain your product.
Research the Market for Your Target Audience
Market research for startup companies is essential to determine whether the intended enterprise is feasible or not.
Market research is a strong aspect of your go-to-market strategy when it is carried out with honesty and realism. If the answer to the feasibility question is no, it would be the best to halt the plans even though it is hard to face it. But if the answer is yes, you can confidently go on.
Your second question then becomes how to value early-stage startup to sustain production. Your answerers are your investors. You need a plan of action to present to investors and get them involved.
At this phase you can think about what problem your enterprise exactly solves and what impact you will have on your target audience. Then you can convince your investors.
Identify and Segment Your Customers
To have a strong impact on your target audience, you first need to identify them. If you segment your customers, you can describe all the main types of individuals who possibly demand your product in that market.
You should develop a handful of different personas according to different segments so you can send to-the-point messages to your potential clients. Segment your customers considering various criteria such as demographics, location, job position, and the devices they use.
You should think about your customer segments’ main goals, pain points, values, budget levels.
Eventually, you can figure out how they can engage with your product or service in the most ideal way.
Getting valuable feedback is a significant part of early-stage startup marketing. You can engage in direct customer interviews to have direct useful insights.
Anonymous surveys can also help you reach a diverse audience and get to know their pain points. Even though they might not always be directly applicable to your product, you should also closely follow the industry reports.
Think About Your Branding
You are trying to catch your audience’s attention and give a reliable first impression to grow, so how you express your brand is extremely important. Branding deserves priority especially if you are going into a new market.
For successful startup branding, you should consider your desired image compared to the other startups in your market.
For example, if you are trying to reach young and innovative firms in a B2B environment, it is better if your branding is compatible with this goal. You should position your brand as young, innovative, and exciting.
Depending on your team’s scope of work, you can get help from a branding agency for your go-to-market strategy. Even though working with an agency seems too much for an early-stage startup, agencies do not always ruin your budget, instead, they have the potential to pay off what you spend. One of the best branding agencies for startups can get you rewarding results.
Plan Your Marketing Strategy
Another tactic is to work on a clear marketing and sales strategy that will fit your business goals and target customers. If you support your market research with relevant industry data, you can identify which marketing methods will help your early-stage startup grow.
There are some common and useful digital marketing strategies that you can use. Content and SEO marketing can help you turn your cold audiences into hot leads and increase your sales. Paid advertisement campaigns through Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn can boost your content and help you reach new customers.
Email marketing is another easy and profitable method through which you can provide your subscribers with relevant information and build trust with them.
You do not need to utilize every strategy that seems efficient. As a part of your go-to-market strategy, you can focus on what you can afford initially.
You can turn to a digital marketing agency to assist you with the implementation of suitable marketing strategies. Remember that measuring your success is also important as it allows you to foresee your next step.
You can have a look at KPIs for startup marketing. By looking at some key metrics, you can track what is not working so your business can adapt and evolve.
Moreover, a good local lead generation strategy will help your business get major customers. You might consider this for your marketing strategy too. If you’re wondering how to do local lead generation, John Lincoln, CEO at Ignite Visibility agency explains in his article.