Practical Marketing Strategies for Startups

In this article, we will outline the marketing strategies for businesses specifically for startups. Basically, marketing strategy of startups goes through five phases.

5 Phases of Marketing Strategy

1. Target your customers

At the start of the sales process, startups need to define their target consumers. Create the profile of your customers- their preferences, attitude, buying influences, how they act and decide. To make a sales strategy, you must consider the number of salesforce your company have.

Dynamics of Sales Strategy between Big Companies and Startups
In big companies, such as those Fortune 100 companies, they have a dedicated large salesforce. Almost every big company does market research and statistics on the buying attitudes of consumers.

But for startups, you should take advantage of limited manpower and budget for sales. Your advantage over big companies is you can be flexible while making use of limited resources. You may have at least one or two persons focusing on sales and marketing. As the company grows, you need to quickly change or update your sales or marketing strategy when situation calls for it; unlike big companies who have a set marketing strategy and any changes may tax the company.

For startups, with just a small sales manpower, you need to focus more on sales activities rather than planning.When you have already decided on your course to take, just do it and take action. Afterwards, determine the results and implement necessary improvements or Kaizen. Then, you repeat the process, improving as you go along.

2. Determine your Marketing Strategy

Make a list of your potential customers and strategize the best way to reach out to them

2 Types of Marketing Strategy
1. Market-in strategy– Based on the market demand, startups manufacture products and services. This means that research and investigations is done prior to the manufacture and launching of the products and services.
2. Product-Out strategy– This type of strategy is based on the innovative technology and passions. Innovative or new products or services usually comes under this category. This strategy may be risky for startups since it is new to the market and face challenges how the market will take it.
For this one, you need to tap to impulsive buying of some consumers.

To determine the market strategy, you need to consider the profile of your consumers. Think about 5Ws and 2H- who are your customers, what do they like to buy, when do they like to avail of the products and services, why would they want to buy your product or services, where do they usually buy, how do they buy, how much do they spend for this products and services?

Next, we will tackle the steps on how to make a marketing strategy.

3 Steps to Make a Marketing Strategy

2.1. Point out the Problem

Think about the problems your potential customers are willing to pay for solutions. Your product should answer the need or demand of the customers which will make their life better and easier. You need to listen and be attuned to the changing needs of the market.

2.2. Respond to Market Demands

With the ever- changing needs of the market, you need to be sensitive about consumer trends. When making new products or services, you need to educate and let them realize that they need your product

3. Contact and Reach out to Customers

Once you have formulated your sales strategy, the most important part is to take action. That means, contact and reach out to customers. There are various strategies to get customers- word-of-mouth, social media, websites and blogsites, traditional advertising and direct email. You don’t need to make your marketing strategy perfect. You just need to start and do it each and every day.

4. Make the Sale

As the phrase suggest, your marketing strategy should make money for your company. Otherwise, you need to change your strategies.

5. Follow-up your customers

After purchasing your products and services, you need to follow- up about their feedback, comments and suggestions. You need to take their feedback with a grain of salt. May it be a positive or negative comments, you need to be open-minded and realize where they are coming from. If their negative comment is warranted, you should improve on your products and services. Remember that your business caters to people so you need to listen to them. These phases of the marketing strategy are all important. Don’t be focused on one way of thinking. Learn to think how the market and consumers think. Be open to change.

The most important part is to act out your marketing strategy.