Yes, you are running ads and posting on social media, but what if we told you marketing has not yet started?! In the early stages, several founders think marketing is all about having websites, social media pages, and running ads, but marketing is more than that. While the aforementioned are important, they are just tools. As a founder, you need to understand marketing with strategy because it is a major growth driver.
How Important Is Marketing with Strategy?
The early stage of your startup is a foundational phase you should be deliberate about. The margin of error is quite slim because whatever is done at this phase affects the future of your startup. Organizations that haven’t mastered marketing with strategy make mistakes like:
- Launching products that have no market value
- Overspending on the wrong channels
- Chasing vanity metrics over customer value
Strategic marketing planning ensures you communicate the right message in a clear and focused way. It also ensures that you attract the right users for the product. With the right marketing strategy, your social media pages and websites will be helpful tools that help make progress and track growth.
The Ultimate Marketing with Blueprint Strategy Your Startup Needs
1. Clarify Your Position
“Who are we serving? What problems are we solving? What location are we targeting?” Your positioning should be clear before running any promotion. You need to know where you stand and what your ideal customer looks like.
Your picture of the ideal customer should not be locked up in your mind. Write it out and communicate it to your team. Ensure the document contains details of the customer’s profile, your unique value proposition, and core differentiators that set your service apart from competitors.
2. Have a Lean Agile Marketing Plan
Hit the ground running, but take breaks to reflect. The early stages of your startup are not just about working fast. It’s about doing the right things at a fast pace, then iterating. One of the ways to ensure this is by having an agile marketing plan.
Therefore, your marketing plan should capture details about your early adopters. These early adopters can also be described as your first target. After identifying them, write down how to reach them and the best ways to get revenue for the product or service.
It is better for your marketing plan to start as a lean plan. A bogus marketing plan could cause you to gain a lot of traffic without traction. You might also waste money on bloated campaigns your startup doesn’t need.
3. Don’t Just Sound Smart, Let Your Messages Resonate
It’s cool to sound smart, but it’s better to create messages that resonate with your audience. Several start-ups overcomplicate their messages in an attempt to sound smart and innovative. While such messages are good, focus on what you intend to achieve with the communication. As a startup, always be conscious that your goal is customer buy-in.
When they come across your messages, you want their response to be “Yes, that’s what I need!” With this in mind, ensure that all communications are:
- Simple – An eighth-grade student should be able to understand it.
- Relevant – Ensure it addresses a pain point.
- Emotional – Let it trigger them to take immediate action.
- Specific – Don’t end with the emotions, leave a prompt on the actions they are expected to take.
4. Choose The Right Channels
One of the wisdoms of marketing with strategy is understanding that your startup cannot afford to be everywhere at the beginning. Due to this, your marketing channel should be strategically chosen. Start with research of the best channels where your ideal customers hang out. After identifying the most prevalent, choose 1 or 2, master how to use it, and ensure you are always in their faces.
5. Build Trust Before Asking Them to Commit
It’s difficult for customers to stake their money on a product they don’t trust. The early phases of your start-up should be spent earning the trust of your ideal customers. One of the ways to earn their trust is by being authentic. People prefer to partner with brands that look original and real.
You could start out by sharing the founders’ journey. Let it be as raw, unfiltered, but convincing. Also, make use of testimonials, case studies, and product demos. At this phase, the need for credit alerts could be pressing, but spend more time educating instead of pushing products.
6. Pay Attention to The Metrics That Matter
Marketing with strategy involves a lot of data-driven marketing and attention to metrics. But not all metrics matter. When starting, metrics like followers, reach, and pageviews are less important than customer acquisition strategy and retention rate. Come to think of it, what’s the point of having many followers who aren’t buying your products or subscribing to your services? It’s a waste!
Instead of vanity metrics, focus on metrics like conversion rate, referrals, and activation rate. Also, pay attention to the numbers across weeks and months. This helps you spot mistakes you are making and fix them fast.
7. Document Your Processes and Scale What Works
The beginning phase is a time for lots of experimentation. Do not be scared of experimenting and making mistakes. However, when you make mistakes, own them, correct them, and learn the lessons. Treat them as a learning curve and move forward. Similarly, watch out for what works and scale it up.
Conclusion
Marketing with strategy is a culmination of several brand positioning techniques and marketing goal alignment. Therefore, you shouldn’t make moves because it looks popular or prevalent. You should ask yourself questions like “What are my goals? Who are we serving? What problem are we solving?
In this guide, we explored the Importance of strategic marketing and a marketing execution roadmap that will help your startup. SimplVest has lots of helpful resources to help you scale your startup. Ensure to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media for more helpful tips that help your business.
