Recently, I noticed an article in The Startup Donut which stressed the importance of market research. Arguably, this is true for any company, but especially in the case of a small business in the early stages of life.
However, it’s often the case that we can’t do precisely what we want, or even what we are certain is best. Life is unfair! There are dozens of limiting factors for any startup, some of the most common including restricted financial budgets and stressful time constraints.
Don’t worry, we have a bright idea. By involving outside help in your startup marketing strategy, you can work around these pressures and survive the early stage challenges.
Know your market
To be successful, startups need to know the ins and outs of the market they're operating in. You need insights into how your audience thinks, acts and shops. You need information on current market trends and future predictions, as well as broader economic shifts and influences affecting your target demographic.
All of this information helps to form your market research, and enables you to build engaging marketing campaigns that reach and truly resonate with your audience. It’s not a shock, though, that this can take a lot of time and effort figuring out these intricacies.
By working with a startup marketing agency that has prior experience in your sector, you can enjoy expert support when it comes to choosing marketing channels, creating messaging and targeting your audience.
Know your competitors
Market research doesn’t just help you to get to know your audience. You can also learn all kinds of useful things about your competitors.
Again, look for a knowledgeable marketing agency with experience in your sector. They should be able to offer advice on where your competition market their products or services, how they address their audience and whether it works.
By comparing your business with others in your sector, you can analyse your business strategy and track your progress. You could even identify a gap in the market, and exploit this to become a leader in your sector.
Launch successful campaigns
Unfortunately, most startups face big pressures to get a lot done in very little time, with a very limited budgets. How are you going to transform your ‘eureka!’ moment into a viable business proposition with these kind of pressures?
Any startup marketing agency worth its salt should have a set formula for getting a new client up and running. This should include an introductory meeting, briefing session and schedule of actions leading up to launch.
Working for the man
By having these processes in place, it also means you’ll be able to report on set timeframes, and reassure any investors.
Whether you’re answering to the bank, to a startup accelerator, to your mum… if someone is helping to fund your startup, they’ll want updates on where their money is going. By having a solid startup marketing strategy, compiled with the help of a marketing agency, you’ll be able to prove you have a clue and your investors will rest a little easier.
Improve decision-making
When you know your market, your audience, your competitors and your products, you can make decisions with a greater degree of confidence and minimise the risk of failure.
For this reason, research should always be an ongoing element of your business, and a key feature in your startup marketing strategy. Don’t get me wrong, celebrations are deserved once your startup is successfully launched – but that shouldn’t be where the developments stop.
Optimise your communications
Once you have all the basics covered, you can move ahead to analysing and optimising your campaigns. After they’ve been running for a short time, it should be possible to look at what has worked best – and what needs some tweaking.
Optimise your startup marketing strategy and maximise your return on investment. This can include testing different messaging, experimenting with new marketing channels and focusing different pains, needs, and aspirations experienced by your customer base.
The times are changing, outbound is outdated and in some cases, can be potentially dangerous for your brand financially and in a reputational sense. Big fines are being handed out to serial data offenders. With inbound you can avoid this and get the best from your leads so read our blog “How to create Inbound Strategy Masterclass” for more information.”
