Starting a startup is no easy task. It’s one of the hardest undertakings business people will ever do in their careers and one of the riskiest choices they’ll ever make. However, a difficult and risky road can have some of the best rewards, but when taking this road, you’ll need every edge you can get. This article will talk about different affordable marketing strategies for a startup to help you grow your business.
There are many expenses in running a startup. It’s estimated that you’ll be spending an average of $170,000 on overhead costs alone. That leaves you with minimal left for marketing. However, marketing does not need to be expensive. If you have some creativity and a bit of cash left at the side, you can grow your audience and eventually your company through these cheap and easy marketing strategies.
Build a Website
There are about 4.66 billion people who are considered to be active users on the internet. These people use Google and other search engine sites every day. With this in mind, the internet should be your main priority in building your audience, and you can do that by building a website.
Building a website is one of the best and cheapest marketing strategies you’ll ever do in your business career. You can do this yourself if you have enough experience, or you can hire someone else to do it for you. There are tons of companies out there that offer web design services that cater to startups. They know exactly what needs to be put on your website to make it look attractive and alluring to consumers.
Companies that have a website are much easier to find and are more accessible than companies that don’t have a website. Moreover, there is a good chance that your business will stand out if you apply the next marketing strategy on this list: SEO optimization.
SEO Optimization
SEO optimization is the process of placing your website on top of a search engine directory. By utilizing the power of keywords, your company can easily be on the front page of Google when someone searches a particular keyword in your industry. This marketing strategy is considered one of the best right now because of how cheap and effective it is in growing your audience.
Much like building a website, you can do SEO optimization if you have some experience in blogging and writing in general. SEOs are all about utilizing keywords and placing them in your blogs, so your business will pop out whenever consumers search for them. That’s the simple gist of SEO optimization, but nowadays, such a process is more complicated than that.
It might be smarter to hire someone else to do it for you. Their expertise can certainly make a difference, and a couple of hundred dollars is a good investment for gaining organic traffic you might not otherwise have because of it.
Social Media Engagement
Now let’s go to something entirely free: social media. Social media is no longer for consumers. Websites such as Facebook have made that clear. Instead, social media is now made for businesses to make themselves famous.
Increasing your social media presence and engagement is all about posting pictures and blogs once per day. Putting a backlink directly to your site will then increase its organic traffic. Combined with an SEO optimization platform, you have a marketing strategy that’s cheap and effective and works in only a matter of days.
This triad of online marketing strategies is one that many companies tend to forget. However, if you want a more physical presence, try out Guerilla marketing strategies instead.
Guerilla Marketing
Guerilla marketing is all about creating an impact in your audience’s lives in very little time. Most marketing campaigns last for days. This one only needs a day or two.
This type of marketing is all about shock and awe, and there are many ways you can do this. People use flyers, which is the cheapest option. Another free option is through social media. Newly-opened restaurants use that strategy pretty well. If you want to truly shock people, use billboards. You have to follow some regulations, but with enough creativity, you can easily bypass them.
It’s another effective and cheap marketing strategy that can improve the standing of your brand.
All of these marketing strategies work regardless of your knowledge in your sector. However, it should be your main priority as a startup, and because of how cheap it is, you can easily do them in no time. Once you do, you’ll notice an increase of new consumers visiting your business, with an investment of as little as $500.
