7 ways to Market your Start-up company
Marketing, as always, has been the prime focus of any business entity irrespective of their size. So, having a marketing plan always helps to set targets with clarity and focus. Measuring the progress and plugging the gaps would save time and effort which in turn reduces the cost to the company.
To start with, first and foremost, prepare a marketing plan !! Then..
1. Know your competitors
Prepare a list of players, major and minor, pertaining to your industry. Analyse their strengths and go to market strategies. Try to learn from their past strategies and don't commit the same mistakes. Evaluate your product or service with your competitors'. Compare and contrast.
2. Define your audience
Before you start selling a product or a service, you should know to whom it is going to be sold to. Do your homework on market segmentation and collect information about similar products and their positioning strategy.
3. Buff-up your product / service to stand the competition
List out the strengths and USP's you could offer as against the competition. Let your company follow the best practices available. Prepare marketing collateral based on the USP.
4. Start networking
Make use of the Social Media and Networking sites like facebook and Linkedin etc. Be careful not to waste your valuable time. Add only those contacts that looks promising. Join groups and be active in discussions.
5. Create a website and a blog
Website, a virtual entity, speaks on behalf of the company 24/7 online. Having a good but a simple website is essential to any business. It should be tuned to deliver your marketing messages straight to the prospective customers.
Maintain an active blog. Post articles of interest. Perform Search Engine Optimization to drive more traffic to your website and the blog.
6. Create marketing tools
Apart from the website and blog, prepare corporate brochures, case studies & presentations keeping in view the audience profile.
7. Research
Keep your eyes and ears open. Look for opportunities, change in strategies of competitors, new products and services in the market place. Innovation and creativity in designing and delivering marketing communications goes a long way in converting the target audience into prospective customers
Marketing, as always, has been the prime focus of any business entity irrespective of their size. So, having a marketing plan always helps to set targets with clarity and focus. Measuring the progress and plugging the gaps would save time and effort which in turn reduces the cost to the company.
To start with, first and foremost, prepare a marketing plan !! Then..
1. Know your competitors
Prepare a list of players, major and minor, pertaining to your industry. Analyse their strengths and go to market strategies. Try to learn from their past strategies and don't commit the same mistakes. Evaluate your product or service with your competitors'. Compare and contrast.
2. Define your audience
Before you start selling a product or a service, you should know to whom it is going to be sold to. Do your homework on market segmentation and collect information about similar products and their positioning strategy.
3. Buff-up your product / service to stand the competition
List out the strengths and USP's you could offer as against the competition. Let your company follow the best practices available. Prepare marketing collateral based on the USP.
4. Start networking
Make use of the Social Media and Networking sites like facebook and Linkedin etc. Be careful not to waste your valuable time. Add only those contacts that looks promising. Join groups and be active in discussions.
5. Create a website and a blog
Website, a virtual entity, speaks on behalf of the company 24/7 online. Having a good but a simple website is essential to any business. It should be tuned to deliver your marketing messages straight to the prospective customers.
Maintain an active blog. Post articles of interest. Perform Search Engine Optimization to drive more traffic to your website and the blog.
6. Create marketing tools
Apart from the website and blog, prepare corporate brochures, case studies & presentations keeping in view the audience profile.
7. Research
Keep your eyes and ears open. Look for opportunities, change in strategies of competitors, new products and services in the market place. Innovation and creativity in designing and delivering marketing communications goes a long way in converting the target audience into prospective customers
