How to Come up with Digital Marketing Strategy for Startups

Your Guide to Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups in India

I attended the first digital marketing for startups webinar a few months back. There were a lot of interesting things to cover – from the branding and design essentials to the nuts and bolts of actually creating a digital marketing strategy for startups.

But what impressed me the most was the panel of experts who were actually active members on social media and forums and are leading digital marketing trainers in India right now. These people had real experience in the field, and what’s more – they had done it all before. They were refreshingly candid about the challenges and hurdles involved and offered concrete tips on how digital marketing for startups can help you achieve the goals you have in mind.

There was an enthusiasm among these digital marketing for startups pioneers to share their lessons learned. I learned that building a community on Facebook or Twitter is not a good way to build your brand because no one knows who you are and you have no direct relationship with them. On the contrary, the Twitter users who “follow” you are not necessarily interested parties.

Another thing I learned was that content needs to be delivered with the utmost simplicity and clarity. That’s why digital marketing for startups is all about content. If the content does not tie-up with the business, no-one will read it. A tweet may get a million retweets, but if the delivery is flawed, it will not get those numbers back to you. So always deliver crisp and clear digital marketing for startups content by using the best video production services India has to offer.

Another thing that is important for a digital marketing for startups strategy is to look beyond traditional methods of marketing. There is a new breed of digital marketing experts who understand the value of social media marketing for startups like never before. While these experts use Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and other platforms to deliver their content organically, they also combine the potential of paid ads into it. That’s what makes their strategy so different from what the average website owner or twitter user is used to.

The best digital marketing strategies for startups in India would need to make sure that they are reaching out to as many people as possible, using an integrated digital marketing approach. The problem with traditional methods of marketing is that you tend to only reach to those within the target circle of your demographic. This means that you won’t reach everyone. There is still a limit to how much you can do.

However, this is where digital marketing for startups differs. It reaches everyone because they are not within the circle of your demographic. In India, there are millions of users. That is a huge audience to which you can market your digital marketing strategy successfully.

Before jumping into creating a digital marketing strategy for startups, you should have a first-hand knowledge about why digital marketing is important for startups and how digital marketing helps startups. These following are key factors to consider while coming up with a digital marketing strategy for startups:

1) Create Your Buyer Persona

You should have a clear idea of your audience, their nature, and how they would align with your business. It is best to draw up a customer avatar for understanding your ideal customer. This would include a customer name (even if fictitious), age group, education, income and other demographics. This way, you could market to your target audience better.

2) Choose the Ideal Platforms

Do some research to know where your audience is hanging out the most – the platforms, forums, etc. To get a better working knowledge of a platform, you can read their case studies that they have published on their sites. While millennials prefer Instagram more, professional customers would more ideally be on LinkedIn.

3) Optimize Your Content

It is very essential to have all your content optimized for the search engines, because that is where your customers would find you when they post a query related to their requirement. Content Optimization is an asset that yields compounded returns over the years. Neil Patel suggests these top 10 SEO tips for your startup to get loved by Google. If you run a local business, you should optimize your content for local search. Ensure your brand voice reflects in all the pieces of content you market.

4) Email Marketing

The wise decision would be to invest in an email marketing provider who could do automated emails for you. About 60% of the businesses struggle to personalize their email marketing efforts real-time. Ask your customers simple questions in your emails, like “What are you looking for?”, “What are you planning for?”, etc. and try to come up with solutions based on their reply, in your subsequent emails.

5) Social Media Marketing

According to 2020 Social Media Marketing Report by Social Media Examiner, 86% of the marketers have indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses.

More than half of the marketers who’ve been using social media for more than 12 months report it has helped them improve sales. This proves that consistent social media marketing efforts fetch good results over time. Advertise your blog content on social media to get the social media traffic back to your blog.

6) Paid Advertisements

Paid advertisement is a great strategy to fetch traffic to your website. Before starting with paid ads, you should have a basic understanding of how keywords work. Investing in Google Ads and Facebook Ads in addition to your organic marketing efforts will give results manifold. A good idea would be to invest a part of your profits back into your ad spends. Making diligent use of ad spends is an essential part of digital marketing strategy for startups.

These are some of the key areas where you should exercise more diligence while charting your digital marketing strategy for startups in India. By using the right digital marketing strategies, you could move your startup uphill amidst the competition and set it up for success, while ensuring a greater return on investment.