As a tech startup founder or marketer, you likely know the importance of marketing to grow your business. The tech industry is getting saturated as different startups spring up by the day. While building a startup is no piece of the cake, knowing the right marketing strategy that will stand you out amidst the competition is critical.
This article will cover the top marketing strategies your tech startup needs and how you can apply them to grow your business.
- Why is marketing necessary for a startup?
- How is Tech Startup Marketing different?
- Types of Marketing strategies for a tech startup
- How to apply marketing strategies for your tech startup
Why is marketing necessary for a tech startup?
Marketing is essential for any business, especially for startups.
Tech startups have the highest business failure rate of any industry. Although some reasons include finance, operations and legal issues, lack of effective marketing also stands as a significant challenge.
As a startup, you have more work to build brand awareness and trust from the launch day. But, it would be best if you also created a distinction amid the competition in the crowded tech space.
Here are the benefits of marketing to a tech startup:
Build Brand Awareness
With marketing, you can turn an obscure brand into a notable brand in the market. Marketing helps communicate your business's whys and what, helping you connect with your ideal customers and build the trust necessary for conversion.
Lead generation
Leveraging marketing tools such as content marketing helps gather prospective customers who you can nurture to convert. Marketing builds the persuasion your customers need to purchase a product or service.
Drive sales
The end goal of marketing is to drive sales or lead profitable action, and it all starts with building awareness. However, no marketing is complete until you've seen the customer through that journey. With strategies such as email marketing or ad retargeting, you can get your customer to leave the consideration stage to become a buying customer.
With the right marketing strategy, tech startups can find their foot in the industry.
How is Tech Startup Marketing different?
Marketing for a startup comes with a different package, much more marketing for a tech startup. As a startup, your budget can be smaller than that of other established brands, so you have to maximise your little resources strategically.
Also, marketing for a tech startup requires creativity, first because of the smaller budget and the nature of the industry. Second, Tech products and services don't come simple to the customer. Some can be boring, but a creative marketing strategy will find the simplest ways to explain the product's or service's complexities and benefits to the customer.
Another difference is that startups evolve rapidly. As a new business, certain aspects may begin to change course. For example, you can have a new product or target market or need a change in mission or positioning statement to drive sales. It means that the marketing strategy has to be agile to adapt to the evolving trends of a tech business.
And finally, a tech startup will likely have smaller teams for a start. Therefore, a more significant chunk of the marketing job will lie on one or a few persons. As a result, running marketing campaigns for a tech startup will demand a blend of marketing skills to make it a success.
Check out this article on Top 7 latest Technology Trends in 2023
Types of Marketing Strategies for a Tech Startup
Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing is the conventional type of marketing done offline. Methods like advertising, PR, physical events, and direct mail are parts of conventional marketing.
Although traditional marketing has been influential in the past years, it may not be the best for most tech startups as people spend more time online. Also, it is not cost-effective and lacks precise analytics to track performance, so it can be harder to measure the ROI. Therefore, if you have a smaller marketing budget, it may be harder to justify because it may be more challenging to determine whether it contributed to sales.
Digital Marketing
Employing digital marketing for a tech startup is a no-brainer. Unlike traditional marketing, you can target your audience precisely, maximising your budget. Digital marketing refers to any marketing done online. Think about methods like SEO, PPC, paid social, content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing.
You probably have most of your target audience online for a tech company, so why not take the market where the customers are?
Also, working on methods like SEO will help boost your credibility since both customers and B2B buyers research online before engaging with any company. An effective SEO strategy will help increase your ranking in search engines and display your company to the relevant audience. Let's look at some of the digital marketing strategies to employ:
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) entails making your website search engine friendly. SEO entails optimising your website's content, architecture, and coding to show higher search results on Google or Bing. And by doing this, you'll be able to increase website traffic and lead generation.
However, you must understand that SEO is a longer-term strategy for marketing to startups. It won't produce immediate outcomes for you.
Content Marketing
Content marketing can't be overlooked when it comes to marketing for a tech startup.
Interestingly, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads.
The main goal of content marketing is to provide high-quality content that satisfies the needs of your prospects and consumers while guiding them toward a point of purchase.
With content marketing, you can support your sales teams to drive sales by equipping prospective customers with all the information they need.
Paid Advertising
Paying for ad placements on Google, Facebook, and other platforms, helps you capture existing market demand.
Although paid advertising can effectively reach your target audience and generate leads, it can also be an expensive marketing strategy, so you need to consider your budget.
You'll need to find the best channels to reach your target audience to utilise your resources effectively. For a B2B tech startup, you will likely find your audience on platforms like LinkedIn. But most B2C tech startups can leverage platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and the most recent one, Tiktok.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is perfect for nurturing leads and providing a sense of personalisation to a prospective customer or client.
With the aid of content marketing, you could use content to get a prospective customer's contact information, then use email marketing to nurture them and eventually sell them your product.
While also retaining existing customers by keeping them updated on your latest services and products.
How to Apply Your Marketing Strategies
Create Awareness With PR
Using PR is one of the finest strategies to spread awareness of your tech startup. You can reach a larger audience and spark interest in your product by being featured in magazines like TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and Forbes.
One way to begin is to list publications that cover your industry to approach with story ideas. You can also contact a PR Agency to help you get coverage.
Utilise Social Media To Reach Your Ideal Audience
Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are excellent for connecting with new customers. Try tips like sharing your most recent blog entries, articles, and infographics on social media. Additionally, you can use the platform to respond to client inquiries, present products, and promote exclusive offers.
But you can also use social media to increase sales. You may, for instance, put links in your posts to your website or product. Or you might use paid advertisements to reach your ideal client.
Leverage Content Marketing to Educate Your Target Audience
Educate your audience with informative content such as blogs, articles, eBooks, and infographics. Blogs are excellent for boosting organic traffic and building brands. Optimise your blog for a long-tail keyword phrase because this will help your website get targeted traffic—people who are unquestionably interested in what you have to offer.
One other way to position yourself as an authority is to leverage Podcasting. Either create your podcast or appear on other podcasts you know your target audience consumes. Then repurpose your podcasts for social media snippets, videos on Youtube or Tiktok, email newsletters or even run a marketing campaign with it.
Conclusion
Marketing is crucial to growing any tech startup. No one will know about your business if you don't get the word out. With the right marketing mix, you can grow your customers, drive sales and achieve your business goals.
So, if you want to stand out in the tech space, apply the marketing strategies mentioned above. And if you're looking for tech and marketing experts for your startup, check out Tedbree to get started.