5 Types of Advertising Every Start-up Should Know [2020]

The reality is that start-ups usually don’t have access to large amounts of capital to invest in marketing. So, choosing the right advertising strategy becomes very important to make your business grow. There are many different marketing tactics today out there and they seem to change very quickly. Here comes the tricky part. Something that worked great for one start-up might produce little results for another. Or even may become a no-no in the future. This means marketers must constantly experiment and maintain a cutting edge.

Today, using the Internet for advertising and running marketing campaigns already proved itself effective for achieving advertising goals. Many start-ups used online advertising for conquering the market and boosting awareness for their brand. We have plenty of examples of startups that have reached marketing goals with inexpensive advertising approaches.

Yes, brand promotion is crucial for any new business. However, one should keep in mind that it is a multifactorial set of activities, so be ready to invest a good effort into it. Obviously, finding the right promotion strategy which would form a trustworthy reputation is the primary task which any start-up company is striving for.

So, let’s talk about 5 effective marketing strategies that work well online for the successful advertising of start-ups.

#1. Promote your start-up online with creative Content Marketing

Although you might already know this, the success of creative content marketing advertising fully depends on the type of business. In general, content marketing proved itself as a beneficial strategy for promotion online. As long as done right and done efficiently. Yes, content marketing takes time, but it helps to stay linked with your market.

What is content marketing? Actually, there are many forms of this today:

• Writing blog articles
• Creating video tutorials
• Starting a podcast
• Ebooks
• Guides

Figure out your exact target markets’ pain points, issues, questions, hobbies, passions, etc. Then put out high-quality content speaking directly to those things will get you good outcomes. However, instead of doing everything all at once, figure out where your consumers are, and use the same language that they use for effective communication. Is your target group belongs to an older category? Then, in this case, it’s better to offer blog articles and eventual podcasts. If they are younger, then go with fun vids and cool posts on social media platforms. By being entertaining and providing funny but useful information you’ll keep them engaged.

Answer questions, give them awesome free content but expect nothing in return. Do this consistently for some time and, consequently, you’ll build a solid brand that will last far longer than the next new marketing platform or tactic.

Yes, paid advertising is essential to business growth, but it can require a lot of testing before getting it right. Try to layer your foundation with content marketing and branding while slowly experimenting with paid advertising. But the trick is to be patient and expect modest results at least during your first year. If this fact made you cringe, then rethink your business mindset.

Collaborate or hire cool pros who know about online marketing more than you. And who would figure out the best platforms to advertise your start-up on. Make sure you’ll deliver a message that will clearly state your brand’s goals. Start experimenting with smaller investments and then evaluate every single detail. After a while, you’ll find out what works and what doesn’t for your marketing success.

Then, obviously, drop everything that doesn’t work and double down on what does work well for you. Maybe it’s Facebook ads, influence marketing, or AdWords. The actual process will show all goods and bads of online advertising approaches. So, just keep those wheels rolling and analyze along the way.

#2. Promote your start-up online and gain popularity with Social Media Marketing

When you’re at the starting point, it can be tricky to expand your audience. So, don’t shy away from asking friends for help. Ask them and friends of their friends to share your content and make reposts. This costs nothing but it will start building a more stable position for your start-up.

Read more tips that help to advertise:

• The more unique and entertaining marketing content you have, the more folks will be taking a closer look at it. Put some effort to create good images. Try a helpful tool Canva which does a pretty nice job of providing support for creating graphics.
• Make people can go directly to your site by including links to your posts.
• Make posts easy to share between various social media by paying attention to the requirements of different networks.
• Live streams get good views, so think about doing something like that.

Are you brave enough? Then find some social influencers whose content is relevant to your business and ask them to help with the promotion of your start-up. Offer to promote them back as a payback. All this can become tricky, especially if you represent an unknown brand. But surely there are always people out there who would be happy to give you a hand.

As a good benefit, you’ll get access to a much wider audience and tell more people about your specific niche. This will work well, as long as you select the right social media influencer, who will spread the message.

More tips that work for promoting start-ups:

• Run contests with attractive prizes. For example, ask subscribers to post fun pictures of your products on social media. The author of the funniest photo gets a cool prize. No need to spend lots of money on a reward. Your prize doesn’t have to be something huge or pricey. As long as it is something fun and creative, it will do a good job for you helping to achieve positivity during the promotion.
• Create a nice blog, because it is an effective tool for reaching a broader audience and diverse groups of people. Use the Keyword Planner to choose the best wordage.
• Practice guest posting, because people tend to happily publish posts on their websites as free content.

Since these days people look for any solutions online, then offer them free tutorials, reviews, or well-written descriptions. That way you can get more people joining you because they find your content useful. This is a good way to promote a start-up.

#3. Try Bulk SMS Service for advertising

The harsh reality is that today’s market scenario is highly competitive. Reaching out to customers and generating leads became even more challenging. Start-up businesses are no exception. Yes, marketers still tend to stick to traditional marketing tools like TV advertising, print advertising, email marketing. But none of these tools can provide a direct connection with the target audience. Here comes the challenge of building a deeper bond with clients which can boost sales and earn more.  What you can do in this case? Many businesses (including smaller companies) use the Bulk SMS Service.

Why is it effective? Bulk SMS Service is an innovative and powerful tool for advertising a brand or service. As it’s necessary for a small business owner to retain clients and attract potential customers on a regular basis, implementing Bulk SMS can be a fruitful choice. It not only helps to establish a personalized connection with the target clients but the reasonable costs offered by Bulk SMS Service make it an ideal tool for every industry.

Key benefits of Bulk SMS Service for strat-ups:

• Connecting with a wide range of buyers.
• One of the simplest ways of building a personalized bond with customers.
• Because SMS gets delivered in seconds, it enables businesses to advertise and publicize in a fast and efficient manner.
• An affordable tool.
• Offers the highest readability than any other tool, as it gets delivered on a personal device like a mobile phone.
• Easy to implement and integrate.
• A secure tool to deliver confidential information.
• Messages get delivered directly in the mobiles of the recipients without any spam filters.

As people are getting addicted to their mobile phones, communicating offers, festive deals, coupons via SMS is much easier and reliable now. So, you can build the presence of your brand with the Bulk SMS Service without investing a huge expenditure. Sounds awesome, especially if you’re on a tight budget.

#4. Promote your start-up online with Paid Search Marketing

According to WordLead, PPC traffic converts 50% more compared to organic. But what PPC stands for?

Paid search, also referred to as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – a model used in marketing for driving traffic to websites fast. You’ve definitely seen examples of how it works on Google search. With this strategy, you bid on certain keywords for which your ad appears high up on search results. Every time someone clicks on the ad, you’re charged in return for having users drawn to your website.

For many start-ups, paid search marketing is almost required to build up a web presence and get traction early on. Gaining organic traffic through SEO takes time, especially if you are trying to grow and expand in a crowded industry. Basically, paid search is one of the most efficient strategies for bringing interested users.

If you sell super niche products/services, paid search can become a great way to attract buyers who couldn’t find something they’ve been looking for locally. But it depends on what type of industry you launch your start-up in. Otherwise, this particular approach is capable of delivering a huge increase in customers’ lifetime value.

Another reason why it is a good idea to utilize paid search is if your products or services are pricey. Before you dive headfirst into paid search marketing, take a closer look at what you offer and the location where you offer it. Review your pricing and browse around to learn whether the organic search competition is high over there.

#5.  Promote your start-up online with a strong referral program

Referrals are a good way to advertise a start-up because referrals can bring more clients. Good referrals can generate more clients from those clients that you already have won. Referrals can grow business and provide a good overview of your customers’ satisfaction with the products or services you offer. So, gain more clients with a strong referral program. 

Referral programs work amazingly well because people tend to trust companies and brands they’ve been referred to. If their friends already tried and liked your brand, then why shouldn’t they try to see if they like it too? By rewarding customers for bringing clients, encourage them to talk more about your company or a start-up. Giving out rewards is one effective strategy for start-up businesses.

For instance, you can reward your customers by giving a discount on their next purchase, if they referred your start-up to others. The discount can be either in a dollar amount or in a certain percentage. Try to turn it into a small game where the more customers they refer, the bigger the discount they get. Everybody likes games and everybody likes discounts, so let them play and save money at the same time! You’ll get happy customers and more new customers coming in.

Have your sharing buttons on the product or service page working. This is important since it is one of the best ways to share their reviews of your business. Sharing is caring!

Conclusion

Online advertising doesn’t have to be too expensive when you just started.  Just find the best strategy that will do nearly everything for your start-up promotion. And, of course, it is better to have everything almost for nothing. Eventually, as a marketer, you’ll face challenges once and a while. But the thing is that sometimes having challenges and failures on the way to your success is essential. So, don’t be afraid of experimenting consistently!

Be a smart cookie and start selling your own online courses on the Grinfer learning platform! This can become your first step to earning big money by sharing your knowledge or experience with others. Start today and join an awesome teaching community on Grinfer!