Startups operate under extremely tight budgets, which makes it almost impossible for them to set aside a marketing budget. With their tight budgets, they have to pay employees and rent, buy raw materials and cater to their huge overhead costs. Ignoring marketing and advertising becomes an easier option for them.<br><br> But then, without vigorous marketing strategies, startups do not stand any chance of growth or even staying afloat in today’s extremely competitive market. If you don’t market your products or services, you might not even have any revenue to budget for in a few short months to come. Advertising is more of a mandatory investment for the success of your startup than it is superfluous. That is why as a startup entrepreneur, you must come up with effective marketing strategies that give you 100 percent value for every coin you put into marketing, if not more.<br><br> As you will learn from this post, you don’t need to spend a fortune to market effectively. Here are five low-budget marketing strategies that will bring unbelievable visibility and consistency to your startup.<br><br> <b>1. Content marketing</b><br> Content marketing requires very little investment and gives unbelievable returns when done right. Note that this form of marketing has many sides and approaches, so you shouldn’t restrict yourself to only one approach. For a start, you can establish a company website where you share with the world everything about your business. You can add a blog section in the website where you add new content as regularly as possible, both to educate and entertain your audience. <br><br> It will be helpful if you can present your content in easy-to-consume bits, e.g. in the form of videos, infographics, pictures and podcasts. Another approach would be to guest blog for high-traffic websites and then add outbound links to your website. If your website has compelling content, your brand reputation will greatly improve through inbound and outbound marketing. And if you want to reach a wider clientele, it will be wise to hire trusted professional translation services to localise your online content.<br><br> <b>2. Social media marketing</b><br> Social media marketing is big these days, particularly with billions of people from all over the world using smartphones. If you can package your content well for social media consumption, you can be sure that it will go viral and shine the limelight on your business. Your new startup needs to come out as a reliable, reputable brand online if it is to become popular and attract its target clientele. <br><br> For a start, you can create a Facebook page and use it to interact with your potential clients. Facebook pages are free to create. Other platforms that will help you appeal to your target audience include Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. As your revenue collection grows, you can opt to pay for premium social media services such as Facebook Business and Facebook Ads.<br><br> Note that a skilled social media manager will help you grow your social media profile by posting the right, relevant and engaging content.<br><br> Remember that posting compelling content is just a small part of the social media marketing puzzle. You must follow that up with providing the best services possible for your customers and making genuine efforts to attend to their online questions and concerns. A happy and satisfied customer will always be your startup’s unpaid brand ambassador. Negative comments from unhappy customers, on the other hand, can greatly harm your brand reputation.<br><br> <b>3. Guerrilla marketing</b><br> Even with social media and the internet taking over the world, there still are many guerrilla marketing methods that will work for you. These marketing strategies involve creating a buzz around your products and services offline as a way of winning the target market’s attention. It involves creating entertaining and informative messages and then passing it to your local target market through the word of mouth. When people keep talking about the positives of your products, you get a better shot at new business opportunities.<br><br> <b>4. Email marketing</b><br> Email marketing might be traditional, but it's not entirely outdated. The key to nailing email marketing is creating an organic list of customers as opposed to buying a falsified, non-organic list. Ensure that your outgoing email blasts only go to people who are actually interested in your products or in reading your content. <br><br> <b>5. Smartphone apps</b><br> As we mentioned, everyone is using smartphones today. That should tell you that there is immeasurable potential in smartphone ecommerce apps. These apps are inexpensive to create yet they can appeal to millions of customers in one go. Just ensure that your app has the best UX so that clients can easily use it to place their orders and to access customer support.<br><br> <b>Big marketing results don't depend on big budgets</b><br> With these five low-budget marketing strategies, you will easily realise the power of the entrepreneur, regardless of how small your startup is. The key here is to speak about your ideas and to share your expert opinions with the people. Be different and shake up your niche. If one strategy fails, try another. You will surely get a breakthrough in the end.

Finding ways to differentiate your products may require some additional market research and tinkering with your product development and advertising. Here are four ways to do it.<br><br> As nice as it would be to come up with something that is truly one of a kind, the simple truth is that the majority of "new" products and services already have several competitors in their niche. While you can certainly use your unique life experiences to help establish a competitive edge, the true key to success lies in how you differentiate your products.<br><br> The more crowded the marketplace, the more important differentiation becomes. Especially during economically turbulent times, your ability to stand out in positive ways will be key to your startup's continued growth.<br><br> <b>Dive deep into a more specialised niche.</b><br> Each product is already a niche in and of itself. Whether you sell sunglasses, backpacks or baby clothing, you are already engaging in some form of niche marketing. However, you can find even greater success when you dig down into even more specialised sub-niches within your primary marketplace.<br><br> After all, there is a big difference between the backpack a wilderness hiker needs and the one that would be used in a business setting. Focusing on a specific market group may shrink the potential size of your customer base, but it makes it much easier to reach and appeal to the individuals within that group.<br><br> Niche specialisation strengthens your brand authority and authenticity. It allows for more focused and cost-effective marketing. It also narrows the competition and gives you a price-setting advantage by focusing on the needs and interests of a potentially underserved market.<br><br> <b>Offer value-added features.</b><br> One way to create added value for your products is to provide helpful features that the competition may have overlooked. This became especially clear during a recent conversation I had with Natalie Cox, founder of Māden.<br><br> Cox's company produces tote bags for women--a crowded niche. To differentiate their products, they came up with a design that featured top pleats and a half-dome shape, complemented by several interior and exterior pockets. The end result was a tote bag that made it easier for users to find what they were looking for simply by opening the purse and glancing inside.<br><br> The key to this and other successful added features is that they provide actual value to the customer. You don't have to dramatically reinvent the product. Even something as basic as offering "slim" or "extra large" sizing options that aren't available from the competition could make a difference for certain customers.<br><br> <b>Differentiate with a meaningful cause.</b><br> Engagement in a social or environmental issue is a great way for your brand to make a meaningful difference in society, as well as make a positive impression with potential customers. A study conducted by Wunderman found that 89 percent of customers report being loyal to brands they feel share their values. Supporting a cause is a great way to show potential customers how your values align.<br><br> Just remember to follow Robbie Abed's advice when it comes to picking a cause: make sure it's one that logically aligns with your company. Choose a cause that you are genuinely invested in, rather than something that happens to be trending at the moment.<br><br> Finally, make sure you back up your support for a cause with meaningful action, whether that's through product or financial donations, special fundraising events, or something else entirely. Today's customers are remarkably perceptive and have little patience for lip service.<br><br> <b>Provide consistent, quality customer service.</b><br> Your products are only one half of the equation in making your brand stand out. Strong customer support and valuable services will also make a significant difference in whether someone makes that initial purchase from you--and whether they choose to buy from you again in the future.<br><br> As just one example, surveys have found 45 percent of customers will immediately exclude products that come with additional shipping fees during an initial product search. Other areas that matter include warranty coverage, fast shipping, and hassle-free returns. Even a robust FAQ or online customer chat system can help alleviate concerns that might otherwise keep someone from buying.<br><br> Your goal should be to provide a consistently high-quality experience beginning from the moment a customer places their order. Even simple things like communicating shipping updates or ensuring a fast turnaround on support inquiries will help create a positive impression of your brand and its products.<br><br> Finding ways to differentiate your products may require some additional market research and tinkering with your product development and advertising. But as you successfully emphasise your uniqueness, you will be far more likely to find the customers who are most likely to become impassioned followers of your brand.

Digital is an essential channel in any business’s performance – now more than ever before – and within these unprecedented times we’re all facing at present, every business should consider their capabilities when it comes to a digital strategy.<br><br> A digital strategy is an approach with direction, with an in-depth understanding of audiences, of growth opportunities and the ability to leverage an online presence to tactically support and drive a business forward. It’s an impactful digital direction that’s based upon informed information and decisions, not built upon assumption or ignorance of consumer needs or desired experience. Though, no-one-size-fits-all when it comes to digital strategy, as every business has its own set of obstacles, competitors and audiences with specific personas to engage.<br><br> We only have to look at the way we’re all currently communicating to see how fundamental digital is when it comes to connection, and when it comes to community, too. Where many businesses might have thought they had time for a digital transformation, we are seeing many brands – especially those reliant on the high street – fall at the wayside in a colossal charge to ecommerce and its offering. That’s not just been a recent change, either. We’ve seen the steady decline of high street shoppers and the steep incline in shopping online for years: for convenience and for the deals that it offers, too.<br><br> It’s a big statement and provocative thought to consider how the world will continue to market, to sell, to communicate and develop brand awareness and engage with audiences in the coming months, let alone the coming years. Will things be different? Will there be a huge shift? Will more of us find ourselves working from home and placing less attention – less loyalty – in the high street, as much as the independents as the big brands, if they’re not captivating us digitally and building relationships online, too.<br><br> Consider a brand and high street retailer such as Primark, with the BBC reporting that they’ve gone from £650m sales a month to nothing, after their stores were closed across Europe and the US during coronavirus – and with the business not having the support of a converting ecommerce website – they’re relying on community from their social following to maintain the awareness of its stores until they can reopen.<br><br> So, it’s time to step away from simply “bolting on” a digital strategy alongside any existing business models and considering digital as its own approach to effective marketing, selling and awareness.<br><br> Still not convinced you need a digital strategy?<br><br> Here are five reasons why you do.<br><br> <b>1. There’s no direction, no integration</b><br> Those without direction use digital marketing and channels to reactive market and advertise when the time calls for it. Whilst reactive marketing works in some instances, most consumers are savvy when it comes to digital – with #Ads, Facebook Advertisements, Google Ad Words, etc. becoming less and less effective – as more authenticity is called for amongst communities and audiences. They want to place trust in brands and have a loyalty to those that aren’t pressing for an impulse decision or purchase from their customers.<br><br> A digital strategy defines goals, objectives and identifies the channels and audiences to achieve them. It sets a clear plan of activities to grow upon, learn from and inform future iterations of marketing strategies online.<br><br> <b>2. Competitors have a bigger market share</b><br> If you’re ignoring a digital strategy or simply making an effort to use it as and when necessary – your competitors with one – they’re going to be taking the lion’s share of the market with a fully formed digital strategy to direct their marketing efforts toward clear goals. Consumers are inherently programmed these days to go online – whether for research, to buy or to look up a brand or product through word of mouth – and if there’s no digital presence, brands will find themselves forgotten.<br><br> Digital strategies look ahead and stay ahead of the competition, too – with clear strategies and tactics to keep a brand at the forefront of people’s thoughts and continually provide reminders whilst not being disruptive – through the likes of social media, email marketing, considered content found within the SERPs, etc.<br><br> <b>3. You don’t know your audience and what they’re doing online</b><br> It’s one thing to assume who customers are, what they want, what they do online and how they want to experience a brand – it’s another thing entirely to actually know. So many businesses fall short of thoroughly understanding their audiences (as small or as large as they may be) and without that fundamental knowledge, then it’s impossible to truly know exactly how – and where – to reach them.<br><br> That’s the case digitally especially and with so many consumers falling within different demographics, not everyone can be reached through email or Facebook and not every age group will be found on Instagram, engage with Google Ads or find the information they want on the first page of Google, either. There’s a wealth of information in individual audience groups and it’s different for every business, every product offering, so it’s essential that audiences are understood to effectively reach and market to them. Otherwise it’s more likely for a competitor with the awareness and insight to gain that market share, too.<br><br> <b>4. You don’t have an online value proposition</b><br> Much the same as knowing your audience, an online value proposition will differ for each persona a brand or business wishes to appeal, too – it’s the difference between messaging that appeals to one generation as opposed to another. If your online value proposition doesn’t differ from that of your offline one, where it may encourage existing customers, it’s hardly a steer toward new customers and opportunities within new markets, too.<br><br> By creating an online value proposition, it’s possible to reach new audiences – those that spend more time browsing and shopping digitally – as opposed to those that are fundamentally high street shoppers and prefer the physicality of stores.<br><br> <b>5. You don’t have the resource and you’re not optimising</b><br> Not having the resource is something that many of us are facing right now – both big and small businesses – and with many employees furloughed it’s even harder to ensure the stability of marketing and keeping consumers engaged. As unfortunately, in many cases, marketing teams have been one of the first to down tools, so to speak during quarantine.<br><br> That’s why ensuring a digital strategy and optimising for it, based upon analytics (such as Google Analytics) can be a real game changer during this time. To stake stock, to review activity through analytics, where support is needed and how to best optimise a website or the channels most traffic is coming through, the journey they take and at what stage they convert or exit the website altogether. It’s the time to really examine any digital presence currently to build a strategy around it, so that your business’s online presence works much harder.<br><br> In most instances, even if your business isn’t ecommerce, it’s likely to have some form of digital presence – from a website to social media profiles – so it’s important to review how hard it’s currently working to drive leads, brand awareness and community for your brand and business. Define goals and objectives, understand the audiences you’re appealing to and identify the best plan of action and digital channels to reach and engage with them.<br><br>