Startups are catering to the new world order of Gen Y entrepreneurship, both in India and abroad. There is so much promise in this culture, that a lot of it is hidden by the sidelines. Digital marketing is, and always will be a focal point in the startup culture, given its deep penetration in various social media platforms. There are many ways of crafting a digital marketing campaign, which are poles apart from each other in strategy and implementation, and this is a good breeding ground for innovation and a healthy competition among peers. Let’s have a look at these tricks startups generally prefer in setting up a digital marketing campaign.
“I use social media as an idea generator, trend mapper and strategic compass for all of our online business ventures.”
– Paul Barron
1) Objectives, People personas and Strategy
One of the most obvious questions to address at the beginning is what exactly your objective is. The think-tank must have valid answers for:
• Who is our target audience?
• How many CTAs are we looking at per hour?
• How many website views are we hitting per day?
• What are our plans for the forthcoming quarter on customer acquisition?
This is just one among the many goals that need to be set before thinking to implement at least one.
Once these goals are set, startups must focus their digital marketing strategies on buyer personas, i.e, the ideal consumer that they would base their digital marketing strategy on. This needs a deep understanding of their needs, demographics to offer personalized products for each segment. Addressing their pain points and building a strategy around it helps you score brownie points.
71% of B2B marketers use content marketing to generate leads. ( MarketingProfs )
2) Captivating Content and Vivacious Visuals
Visually stimulating content, with appealing imagery and minimal words score a lot when it comes to websites. However that cannot diminish the power of captivating words, and they are as good as the pictures. Some tips to make your digital marketing strategy effective are as follows:
• Let the visual be the showstopper in your website, homepage preferably.
• Have a background video explaining the pros and cons of the product.
• Integrate the social media widgets, Facebook live feed and tweets.
• Engage in social conversations through hashtags.
• Pictures and infographics that make you visit the website and deliver information.
This is clearly easier said than done, and one should also tap the mobile consumers with mobile friendly websites and apps, because that population is also promising for startups.
96% of social media managers measure number of fans and followers, 89% measure traffic, 84% measure mentions, 55% track share of voice, and 51% track sentiment. ( Awareness, Inc. )
3) Multi channel strategy
A digital marketing strategy should always be multi channeled in nature, to track and analyze every channel. It helps in covering every possible segment of your target audience. Blogs give interest and opinion for viewers, hence helping them choose between alternatives. YouTube podcasts help consumers by informing them about the products. Facebook and Twitter conversations spread the benefits of the product through word of mouth and social engagement. Apps help penetrate through the smartphone and tablet population and gives an instant CTA to know more about offerings.
• Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing. ( HubSpot )
• Companies that acquired customers from Facebook: B2C is 77% and B2B is 43%. ( State of Inbound Marketing, 2012 )
The statistics are not lying, the time is now for startups to have a robust digital marketing strategy!
