BEST MARKETING PRACTICES FOR STARTUPS (2020)

Best Marketing Practices for Startups (2020) – Today finding quality information about Saas and good marketing practices is extremely difficult. Internet might be overloaded with marketing automation tools, but generally in most cases this is not exactly what you need. Based on my knowledge I decided to share some of the Best Marketing Practices, which I found interesting and would like to share the same. I hope it will be useful for my readers also. Keep in mind your startup launch is the first day you will show your “baby” to the public world. Let the public have a hand at your stuff. A good launch can cut marketing and sales expenditure drastically. It can bring amazing things to your brand and build enough momentum. Remember how big companies like Sony and Apple launch their products through marketing automation software, you may not go that far. But still you could generate a lot of Buzz without spending too much by following some of these social Marketing examples below.

Six Months before Launch – The Best Marketing Practices would be to start posting contents related to your field and build reputation. Set up your blog and post interesting content related to your product and broad issues faced. Then you can start on Twitter, connect with all the influencers in your local area. Participate in hackernews India discussions and earn Karma points. Be active on forums, Quora on topics related to your product. You can answer questions being a Good Samaritan. Display the human side of your through media like photos of your team, office and videos of fun events. Start learning tips for Business blogging through social marketing theory.

Finally register for a good brand name for your site. Create a splash page with a signup form. By this time you have already created a small network, get a few target users to sign up for the alpha/beta. Your goal should be to work on right product idea that excites your beta customers.

Three Months before Launch – Design a smart business card that stands out. May be you can use the back of the card with a 3 point pitch about your startup. Develop relationship with bloggers and media persons in your field. Remember if you’re able to get bloggers like Robert Scoble to get interested, the idea could spread like wildfire. Trust me this would be one of the best marketing practices for your startup bringing bloggers together. Start attending events, keep building networks and exchange business cards to make your brand KNOWN. List your startup in Angel List. Here your goal should be to build a kick-ass product that people will love. 

One Week before Launch – You should build a great landing page that has a clear call to action with clear visible options like signup/phone number to contact/buy the product etc. With some basic SEO skills optimize your site well, as new customers might not be too patient for the site to load. Bring customers through search for your site. People don’t give a second chance so test your product well. You can use services to find out critical bugs and scalability issues. You can monitor your site on daily basis through Google analytics and Track visits, bounce rates, traffic sources and time spent on site etc. You can learn using Social marketing automation tools to track your brand across the social media. 

A good press release can do wonders. It should have a strong content for media to use directly for their story. It should be written in third person and talks about your product, team and advantages of your products. Here are some social marketing tips to write for your press release. Setup your Facebook page and invite your friends and contacts to join it. You can use Facebook ads to kick-start the fan building process. A Viral content is a must with emotive stories, videos and pictures that people can share in social media easily. These is also one of the best marketing practices. Create interesting info graphics and slides related to your product to post in your blog. Start teasing your twitter followers with tweets giving them preview of your product in fun and entertaining way. Just reveal enough to keep it interesting without exposing everything. Throw away a few freebies with some fun contests for your Twitter and Facebook fans. 

Keep in mind bloggers like to write interesting content to make your story a powerful one. So get in touch personally with them and give a compelling story to write. Request them not to be leak till your launch day. Make a list of all email contacts you and your team knows, keep in a single CSV file. Record interviews with your team and your initial customers with a video demo of your product and post them on your YouTube channel, keep it short and fun. A presentation of your product covering the problem, your solution and benefits to be posted on your blog. You can share it with other bloggers also who are interested in your product. Now the goal is to choose a right launch date, it should not be in-between other major product launches. 

Finally Launch day – The golden day, post all the photos, presentation, videos and any testimonials you receive from your beta users in your blog. Your blog should contain with everything related to your product. Schedule 2 dozen tweets to go every hour, covering a facet of your product with an appropriate URL in your site. Emails to all your contacts and track them, if you are a internet startup post your site in killerstartups. News to be submitted in hackersnews India. Get your team tuned to the social media to receive feedback and monitor your site metrics. Make sure to respond to email queries as fast as possible. Main aim to focus here should be keep listening and responding to feedback and tracking results. 

Post Launch – Thanks all the bloggers who have covered the event. Being active on social media and engaging customers who mention your product and collect their feedback. One of the best marketing practices would be, Without being defensive taking negative feedback. Start working on fixing bugs on future requests if they make sense. To use your features better mention tutorials to help your customers. Finally keep looking out for events to promote or demo your product. Don’t forget to mention your domain name with all relevant communication like business cards, email signature and presentations. BEST OF LUCK