In a world where any new business feels pressure from all sides, a startup is either a clear success due to the unique value of the idea, or a clear failure, most often, due to the inability to build adequate marketing around the business. Just think, 30% of startups at the beginning of the journey do not have a marketing strategy or a banal plan. If you still decide to promote your project, you should consider factors that will increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaign.
The budget goes first
There is no universal formula for calculating the size of a startup’s marketing budget. Just from experience: 11-20% of the operating budget should be allocated to promotion. This figure is unchanged until the business wins (organizes its market share), and then the available indicator is 7-8%. In practice, only 1 out of 10 startups allocate a fifth of the finances for the development of the project, while most are ready to spend only 1-5% initially. But it is not so much the share of the total budget that plays a role, but the amount. Understanding how much money you have provides the foundation for distributing it across promotion channels and activities.
Each product must have a clearly limited target audience
And that’s just about the audience. Earlier in the market there was a concept of “product for the audience”, now it is “audience for product”. That is, first startups are created, only then they look for ways to reach customers.
If you went the classic route and created a product based on the needs of the audience – cool, now you need to find where this audience lives and talk about the product. If you have a product, but you do not know the audience – do not pour funds into advertising, send them to discover it (right away you will find out where it lives, how it prefers to learn about new products on the market, and how it makes decisions about purchase).
The brand is you
If no one has heard anything about the startup before, then they might have heard of you. A striking example of the success of a startup due to the name of the founder: the women’s dating application Bumble, which was founded by the former co-founder and CEO of Tinder, and is now a member of the Forbes “30 under 30” list, Whitney Wolfe Hurd. The past success and popularity of the name in narrow niches gave an impetus to the rapid development of the new project: even the name of the startup is not as “sound” as the name.
KPIs are indicators of the achievement of sprint goals
How can you tell if you’re reaching your goal if you don’t track the performance of the intermediate steps? In marketing, this is very significant: publish 10 press releases per month, which should be read by 2 thousand people or more, 10% of which should get to the site, and 3% should make a purchase, for example.
At least you should consider the sales cycle, the cost of attracting a customer, the time of the first response and the conversion from potential to actual customers.
It is better to give a person a fishing rod than to feed him a fish. But remember: you lay the marketing budget and activities in the business plan, especially if you attract investments in your startup. These should be effective actions and an adequate budget. It is even better to immediately transfer marketing management to experienced hands.
SMART goals are the basis of a clear and understandable path for a startup not only in marketing
SMART goals are goals that meet 5 characteristics at the same time: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.
SMART goals are the determination of the most significant events for the business in a certain period. For a business that is just entering the market, the goal will be quite objective: to get 120 customers with an acquisition cost of $3.6 each in the first 3 months of business. The goal is based on how many customers we need to pay off the business in the specified period, the budget is based on the available (calculated) for marketing. In our practice, we use SMART goals not only for startups but also for working with already mature businesses.
