Nobody knows that your startup exists until you market it. So, it is important to put a lot of effort in it. However, it’s no walk in the park. You will need to put in a lot of financial investment, hard work, and time. Even then, there is still the chance of an ineffective marketing approach. The worst part is, your marketing failure will ultimately result to a startup failure.

It sounds scary and you might be having second thoughts on what to do with your startup. You are not wrong. Every type of business is difficult, not just in the development stage, but mainly how to generate sales.

Your startup is reliant on the decisions you make. Every single one is going to have either short- or long-term effects. It is up to you whether it is going to be positive or negative to your startup.

Don’t just wish for things to end well. While luck and opportunities do play a role, a much bigger contributor is the things you do.

Most businesses and startup marketing strategies fail because of the decisions of their owners and leaders. So, if you want to succeed, stay away from the mistakes that could result to your downfall and learn how prevent startup failure content marketing.

1.     Going Freestyle on Marketing Ends in Startup Failure

It is a common notion that marketing is easy. As a result, people tend to have the confidence to do it by themselves. Not realizing that marketing is more than just setting a social media page and paying for ads.

Regardless of the intention of your marketing, it is always best to leave it to the experts. Hire your own set of marketers or at least have consultants keep an eye on your strategies.

Most importantly, have a marketing plan in place. Don’t just freestyle it. Don’t settle with marketing campaigns here and there only when you feel like it. Contrary to popular belief, it could do your startup a lot of harm, other than wasting the limited budget you have.

Marketing is a systematic approach. It is not just one blogpost here and there when you feel like it. There are several stages to it that slowly brings a potential customer closer to your startup until they make a purchase. One small mistake anywhere in between and you are going to lose the thin line tugging a potential customer in. When that happens, it is almost impossible to hook them back.

You lost your credibility because you did your first marketing sloppily. Now, it is going to take twice the effort to rake in new potential customers or leads. When you are running on a limited marketing budget, you are bound to suffer a startup failure down the road.

So, ask yourself, when to start marketing a startup and what should you be doing?

2.     Concentrating Too Much on Perfection

Remember that what you have is still a startup. You are in a position wherein things are still in development. If that is what is happening in the inside, there is no reason for you to show a perfect façade on the outside.

Don’t spend too much trying to come up with the perfect website or marketing strategy. You end up spending too much on something that is supposed to come after you have made your product. As a result, you are left with lesser resources to grow your startup.

There is no doubt that the perfect website or marketing can do you good, but in the long run, it is when things start to go downhill. It is either you won’t be able to keep up your image or your leads are going to be able to realize that what you show is not what it all seems to be.

At some point, the truth will come out. That your startup is not yet perfect and you are still yet to deliver what you have promised. When this happens, chances are, your audience is going to feel deceived and leave.

So, keep everything simple and in line with the current status of your startup. Instead of achieving perfection immediately, progress at a rate that your startup is growing. This will allow you to get started as soon as possible without having to compromise on the internal workings of your startup.

3.     Startup Failure Can be Attributed to Trying to Appeal to Everyone

Having a startup company can get overwhelming at times. You sometimes think too highly of yourself and believe that you can be the second version of Elon Musk. There is nothing wrong with ambition, it’s the idea that you want to appeal to everyone and solve all their problems.

When creating and developing your product, you should have a target market. Stick to that. Don’t repeatedly change everything in the bid to appeal to a much bigger audience.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to create a product that can be used by everyone. It is always better to have a product that does one thing perfectly, instead of doing everything mediocrely.

You are not just looking at your product, but on your marketing strategies as well. Identify the people that are most likely going to be your customers and market to them. Never create general content and strategies that tries to appeal to everyone. You either attract the most susceptible or have a massive audience that keeps saying “no thanks”. Take your pick.

4.     Failing to Track Progress and Key Metrics

The most common reason for startup marketing failure is not taking it seriously. You either do it or you don’t. There is no in between. So, when you perform any marketing campaign, checking progress and reviewing key metrics are a must.

As a startup, your budget is limited when it comes to marketing. So, everything that you do should be worth the investment. When a campaign is not effective, it should immediately be cancelled. Otherwise, you are exhausting your resources but not seeing anything in exchange.

Analytics is everything. It tells you what to keep doing and abandon. No matter how great of a marketer you are, there is no accurate way for you to anticipate the market. The only thing sure are the numbers you get from tracking progress and key metrics.

5.     Lack of Engaging Content Leads to Startup Failure

It is understandable that you still don’t know what type of content you should highlight in your marketing strategies. However, that doesn’t make you immune to the repercussions of creating dull and boring ones.

As a startup, your biggest marketing asset is content. You don’t have much to show for the product itself, so you create interactive materials that hold value that customers cannot resist.

Those who came to your website in pursuit of answers end up getting to know your brand. The longer they stay and the fonder they get with what you have to offer, the more likely they will be coming back for more. So, by the time you release your product, a lot of eyes are already pointed at you.

Create dull ones and people are just going to scroll through your website, never to come back again. So, add pictures, create videos, add real personal accounts, and so much more.

In conclusion

If you create a list of all the marketing failures every company has committed in the past, you won’t be finished until the end of the year. That is how many possible things could go wrong. From the simplest mistakes to the most complicated, there is something that can result to your downfall.

However, that doesn’t mean you are bound to fail. A startup failure doesn’t happen in a split second. Instead, it builds up through days and weeks of bad decisions. Therefore, before irreversible consequences happen, you get a lot of opportunities to do the right thing. So, just keep an eye on your startup marketing budget, key metrics, and understand your situation, and you are bound to progress forward.

If you think you don’t have what it takes to evade the landmines in startup marketing, then seek the help of the best digital marketing agency. Contact us today for a free strategy consultation.

The problem with startups is that a lot of things are still in progress. The product itself is not yet finalized as well as the overall business structure. In most cases, a startup is just the foundation of a concept. With so many unfinished things, as an owner, you ask yourself, when to start marketing a startup?

Marketing too early could result to failure to deliver the final product on time. Doing it too late could lead to low market awareness, leaving you with products waiting to be sold. Either way, you are at a loss. You want to be in the middle, but how do you do that?

Most people would think that the answer is to know when to start marketing a startup. However, it really isn’t. Startup marketing should begin as soon as you establish your company. Instead, it is the type of marketing that you do during certain growth stages that is going to matter.

When to Start Marketing a Startup: The Early Stage

So, you have an idea. You gathered a team, established your company, and started developing your product. Even at this early stage, it is already the right time when to start marketing a startup.

You don’t necessarily have to disclose the product you have in store. That would be too inconsistent to do at this point. Instead, you bring attention to your company or brand, so that by the time you unveil your product, you already have eyes looking at it.

What marketing approach would be suitable for this stage? You are looking at content marketing.

Why Content Marketing?

Content marketing entails an approach that revolves around useful content. It doesn’t have to be your product nor your service. As long as it is in the same industry or field, any type of content is enough.

Your content provides answers to people scouring the internet. When they reach your website in their bid to find useful content, they are introduced to your brand. It then only takes a few articles to get them interested and hooked.

It doesn’t end there. How do you make sure that they get informed when your final product is available to the market? This is where email marketing gets in the picture.

The Role of Email Marketing

You should not limit your content marketing with posting articles on your website. Instead, use this as leverage to get the contact information of your visitors. For example, they can have access to limited content offers such as comprehensive e-books and digital guides in exchange for their email address.

Once you get your hands on their contact information, you now have a way to inform them of your product when it is finally ready.

However, it doesn’t mean that your product isn’t available just yet, you can’t make use of email marketing. While content marketing is great, it would be better to send emails to your contacts about new content and other types of limited content offers. It is what will get them hooked and leave them anticipating for your emails.

When to Start Marketing a Startup: The Middle Stage

At this point, things start to look clearer. You have made headway on your overall business structure, from the product to logistics. However, there are still things that needs to be finalized. In addition, you are not ready to start production or hit the shelves.

To say the least, there are still a lot of unsure things. However, you are ready to make the next steps to your startup marketing.

Don’t look at what is left unfinished, but rather on what progress have been made. Since you now have more, you can start to disclose certain details of your product or service.

Tease Your Audience

You see it happening all the time and are even done by major brands. Months or even a year prior to the release of a product, they start to disclose small details. The goal is to tease their audience and get conversations going. Ultimately, it leaves a lot in anticipation.

What happens is that people end up holding on to their money. Those who were already ready to make a purchase from a different brand are left having second thoughts. As a result, companies who tease their products end up gaining massive sales on their release dates.

Your startup is no different. If major companies are doing it, why shouldn’t you? If it is that widespread of a marketing strategy, then it surely is worth implementing on your startup.

When to Start Marketing a Startup: The Final Stage

Everything is laid out. Your product is in its final form and your business logistics is smoothened out. With everything settled, you basically have all the startup marketing freedom you can get.

It is during this stage that all forms of marketing approaches take form. You can now market your product in social media, email marketing, and everything else. Even traditional marketing options such as paid ads become an economical and viable choice at this point.

Most people think that this is the only time to do startup marketing. However, it clearly isn’t. It holds the most options, but the success of which are all dependent on what you do during the first two stages.

The attention you bring to your company with content marketing and the hype you gained from product teasing, pave the way for effective final stage marketing strategies.

At this point, the goal is to convert leads to customers. To transform interest to intent to make a purchase.

Should You Be Asking When to Start Marketing a Startup?

While most people wait for something to materialize in their startup before doing marketing, the right way should be to do it immediately. There is no time to spare when marketing is involved. Instead, it is all about the right type of approach based on the situation that you are in. So, asking when to start marketing a startup is the wrong question.

With this said, startup marketing is a constant journey of making crucial decisions. It can either be a hit or miss, and that can be a huge risk for some. To increase the rate of success, you are going to want to delegate the task to people who know what they are doing. So, what you need is the best digital marketing agency. Contact us today for a free strategy consultation.

Marketing a startup can get tricky, because there is one big constraint: budget. Unlike marketing a well-established business, a startup still is in the stages of limited revenue. So, there isn’t much to work with for creative and expansive marketing approaches. As a result, it begs the question, if a startup can’t spend all that much, how much should a startup marketing budget be?

Related: SaaS Marketing: The Challenges and Their Solutions

There is no accurate way to determine a marketing budget. It is affected by a lot of factors including type of business, how old your company is, and revenue you are making, among others.

However, that doesn’t mean that you should guess. It also doesn’t mean that you can pull out the company credit card and keep on spending on everything you see fit.

Spend too much and you are looking at a company loss. On the other hand, spending too little could mean negligible and ineffective marketing approaches. The middle ground here is the maximum budget you can allot without compromising the business.

In order to do that, there are two factors you should consider to know how much money to allocate for startup marketing budget.

1.     Annual Revenue (Estimated/Gross)

Your marketing expense is an operational cost and you don’t want that going above the money that your company is making. Otherwise, you are at a lost. It would then be a matter of time before you go bankrupt.

If your startup is in the later stages, you can accurately come up with the gross annual income. It would be then easier and less risky to come up with your startup marketing budget.

In the event that you are still not making any sales, you are going to have to settle with an estimation. Consider the product you have and your potential market. How much do you think would be your annual sales for the year?

2.     Company Age

The older the company, the more opportunity it has gotten having its name known. On the other hand, new ones tend to require more investment to get a jumpstart on their brand awareness.

Older companies would only have to market to convert leads to actually paying customers. As opposed to newer startups that first need to invest in audience reach.

How Much Should Your Startup Marketing Budget Be?

Putting the two factors together, it is estimated that companies aged 1-5 years old should spend 12-20% of gross revenue on marketing. The value goes down to 6-12% for older companies.

However, according to a survey, startup companies average at around 11.4%.

How much you decide to allot as your startup marketing budget is all up to you. These numbers only serve as a guide so you know where to start. It provides a basis that will allow you to act on your marketing campaigns without having to worry about compromising overall business revenue and status.

Startup Marketing Budget Expenses

Now that you know how much should your available budget be, where should you spend it? This is where things get a little trickier.

Marketing is composed of different approaches. There is an inexhaustive list of marketing campaigns and avenues that you can utilize. You are going to want one over the other, but in certain situations, there is the need for a little bit of everything.

With that said, it is quite easy to go overbudget then wondering where all the money went. So, take a look at the three main categories of startup marketing budget expenses. When you know each one well enough, it is easier to divide and allot the right amount.

1.     Staff Salaries

Marketers, graphic designers, researchers, specialists, and everybody else that comprise your marketing team needs to be paid. Other than their skills, you are also looking at the resources they need such as an office, computer, and software.

2.     Consider Marketing Subscriptions in Startup Marketing Budget

To accomplish effective marketing, you are going to need services specific for the role. You just can’t make use of conventional software. What you want are social media management tools, marketing automation, email marketing services, and so much more.

3.     Campaign Costs

Once you start implementing your campaigns, you are going to need more budget. For example, Google Ads are going to cost you. Printing your posters, business cards, and everything else needs to be financed. Then there are opportunities you cannot miss like partnerships and collaborations.

Remember that every campaign is going to cost you. Even if you have a team and the necessary resources to have them working.

How to Maximize Startup Marketing Budget

Your startup marketing budget is limited and with so many things to spend on, what you want is to make the most out of it. Even if you don’t dwell into every marketing campaign, you can still get significant results. The only thing you need to do is to put your money where it matters the most.

The question is, how do you do that?

1.     Choose Your Startup Marketing Budget Expenses

Always evaluate everything in front of you. Only if it is either urgent or extremely necessary do they get prioritized. Otherwise, rank which expense is more important than the other. In reality, there are campaigns that are more effective and it is better to invest on that first when your budget is limited.

2.     Embrace Analytics

Nothing can beat what the numbers say. So, listen to campaign analytics. If something isn’t performing well, divert the budget to something else. No use spending on programs that are ineffective when the budget can be better used somewhere else.

3.     Have Contacts

Knowing the right type of people can help alleviate the burden on your startup marketing budget. There are ones that can lend a helping hand to get you the resources you need. You can get discounts. Better yet, knowing influential people can give your company the publicity it needs without having to spend anything.

4.     Keep Your Budget Updated

If you know how much budget you have left, the more accurately you can spend it. Having an indefinite idea of how much is left of your finances can easily cause you to go over your budget.

How to Create Your Startup Marketing Budget

With so many campaigns you can invest on and considerations to keep in mind, where do you begin to make your startup marketing budget?

Beginning to make your plan can get confusing. When you don’t have a guide to follow, you end up finding yourself at the start all over again.

If you are lost, follow this startup marketing budget guide.

1.     Understand Your Business Plan

What are you selling? How long can you deliver the product? How expansive is your market?

Understanding your business is the most crucial step in creating your budget. If you know how fast your company can potentially grow and create revenue, the easier it is to know what should be marketing spend for startup.

If you are looking at a fast turnaround time, then you have the potential to put your budget at the upper limit. On the other hand, if you are dealing with complex machines and niche products, you need to be more conservative.

2.     Estimate Your Sales

Knowing that your products have fast or slow turnaround time is not enough. You need to get your calculator and start solving for your potential sales.

The calculation you will come up with will set the baseline for your estimated revenue. When you have that, it is fairly easy to determine what part of that goes to your startup marketing budget.

3.     Plan Your Marketing Campaigns

There is no way to know for sure if you have enough budget until you get a picture of what you intend to spend on. So, plan your marketing campaigns and lay out how much each is going to cost.

You either try to fit your marketing campaigns with your budget or you adjust to cater to your plans.

4.     Compare Revenue and Marketing Costs

At this point, you already have a rough outline of your budget and your expenses. However, you aren’t completely done just yet. Compare the costs to your revenue and evaluate whether or not there is much left for you to go around. What you do in this stage is perform final adjustments by seeing the bigger picture

In Conclusion

It can be a struggle to come up with the right startup marketing budget for your company. Even startup marketing itself is no walk in the park.

Nevertheless, it is not impossible to have the right figures laid out. It only takes some planning and the right decisions.

Most people can get it right, but there are some who can’t. If you don’t want to take the risk, delegate startup marketing to the people who know how. What you need is the assistance of the best digital marketing agency. So, contact us today for a free strategy consultation.

Getting the name of your brand or product in front of an audience is difficult. Even more so if it is still a startup with no prior exposure whatsoever. You are going to start from the very bottom, announcing your startup in every platform, to every person, in every opportunity you get. Startup marketing is definitely not easy. You will be constantly questioning the path where your efforts are bringing you. However, this guide will guarantee you that you will be reaching an end goal which you desire.

Understanding the Challenges of Startup Marketing

It is important to understand that startup marketing is not like any other forms of marketing. It is different from restaurant marketing, brand marketing, or even startup marketing. There are a number of challenges including financial limits and audience niche. The sooner you understand the problems that surround your situation, the faster you are able to make necessary steps that will bring you closer to success.

Financial Limits

Remember that marketing is always under operational expenses. You shouldn’t be spending more than what you expect to make. In startup marketing, it is much more complicated because you still don’t expect anything in return. Your goal is making your startup known, instead of gaining revenue from a service or product you provide. What this means is that the goal is always to keep expenses to a minimum. Only spend on what is necessary.

Audience Niche

Depending on your startup, you are going to either find it easy or difficult to find an audience. If you are providing a service that a lot of people want then great, but otherwise, things are going to be hard. The problem with startups is that you are still testing the waters. Most of the time, you don’t know how an audience will react or who your audience are. It is possible that the first few startup marketing campaigns will reach people who are not susceptible to what you have to offer.

Skepticism

If you are a startup, then you don’t have any form of track record. You have no way of guarantying your audience on your performance. With history proving that startups fail more often than not, it is likely that the mass population will be skeptical on how long you will last in the market. In this regard, your campaigns should also concentrate on guarantying your customers of long-term quality service.

Starting Your Startup Marketing Campaign

You hear about marketing all the time. The problem is, you never hear a complete guide. You never know where to start and how to progress from one step to another. Herein lies the issue, marketing is a systematic approach. A series of steps must be followed in the correct order to gradually buildup your presence in the market. Otherwise, it is going to be back and forth between progress and drawbacks.

Establish Online Presence

The very first step to startup marketing, or marketing in general, is to exhaust all available and affordable avenues. The online community is readily accessible plus, you can always start for free. With how marketing in general is becoming more dependent on social media, start from there. Create social media pages for your startup in different platforms to reach as many audiences as you can. One person becoming a follower can set off a series of domino effects.

If you can expand beyond social media, then why not? Create a website, make a YouTube channel, or guest post on prominent websites. The list of things you can do to expound your online presence is limitless. With almost every person being on the internet all the time, it is the most viable place to conduct your startup marketing. Remember, there is no such thing as overdoing it. If you are not, then you are doing it wrong.

Create A Community 

Your online presence is only as strong as how people get involved with it. What this means is that simply showing what you have to offer is not going to be enough. You need to create a community of people who are eager to know more and talk about your startup. The question is, how do you do this?

There is a number of ways to get your audience to start talking and you have a huge role in it. Introduce as much details as you can regarding your startup. The more they know, the more they are going to question and engage in a conversation with other interested people. You can also throw questions and ask for suggestions. It doesn’t matter if they are substantial to your startup. As long as it drives a conversation and keeps the community alive, you are growing your brand awareness.

Impart Your Story in Your Startup Marketing

If you want your audience to trust your startup, you are going to want to give them your story. What urged you to start? This creates an intimate connection with your brand and it could ultimately lead to loyalty and unwavering trust. People are more susceptible to the cause and ideology of a brand more than anything else.

Engage with Your Audience

Don’t forget to keep your audience continuously interested with your startup. Remember, you don’t have anything much to show just yet, so it doesn’t help to keep them in the dark. Any form of progress or improvement you are gearing to must be imparted to them as well.

Though, that is not the only engagement you can make. You can venture into email campaigns, answering questions, and creating forums. What makes an audience loyal is the fact that they are part of something bigger. The rule of thumb is, don’t let their experience end with what you have to offer, instead make them a part of it every step of the way.

Be Versatile

There is no one startup marketing strategy for everybody. There are different industries and various products which have different audience response tendencies. You can only apply as many great practices but ultimately, learn to know where you stand. Identify what your industry is more susceptible to and what your audience are likely going to be influenced. Don’t be too firm on your strategies, be ready to adapt and change as the need arises.

Achieving Long-Term Startup Marketing Success

You can only do the first stages of startup marketing for so long. Dwelling too much in it will ultimately result in stagnation. Along the way, you need to up your game if you want to progress further forward.

Be Consistent in Your Startup Marketing

Most startup marketing fails because they are only enthusiastic in the beginning. They undertake all the essential key points in getting started, but don’t make the effort to keep it going. For example, after establishing online presence, engagement gradually decreases until the community dies out. Never fall into this downward spiral, always be consistent with your efforts because if you don’t progress forward, at least you are not taking a step backward. Maintaining your position is still better than losing it.

Keep Leveling Up Your Startup Marketing

Always find a way to improve your startup marketing campaign. It doesn’t mean that everything is going great, you should not opt to do more. If there are things that you haven’t done or ventured into but has potential, do it. Always remember to evaluate your decisions. This is not just about doing something, but performing something that is logically right.

Unless you further improve your approaches and stick to whatever you have always used to, you are not bound to progress forward. Look into your competition and see what they are doing. Keep a close eye on other marketing programs and see how it could work with yours. There is always something new to do, you just have to keep an open and strategic mind.

Stay True to Your Purpose

A lot of startups upon reaching the middle of their venture, sway to something else. What once was a messaging app eventually ended up becoming a mobile game. So many examples exist. Startups that forgot why they began in the first place and provided something different from what they promised.

What happens is that the audience who were once attracted by the earlier promise loses trust on the startup. They were invited by the promise of something different, so now they can’t trust it even the slightest. So, always stay true to your purpose. The end goal should always be what it was when the startup began.

Prioritize Startup Marketing Quality Over Quantity

When startups begin getting momentum in the market, they later get a little bit too carried away. Spending on more marketing campaigns instead of thinking more on what to do next. The result? Mediocre advertisements which not only waste finances but is detrimental to what the brand has already achieved. Imagine your audience getting discouraged after seeing something that is not in line with your purpose.

Regardless of the advancement and achievements of the startup, always prioritize the quality of your startup marketing than quantity. Spend more on how to improve the engagement experience instead of paying more for paid ads.

Be One Step Ahead

It doesn’t matter what your startup is. Whether it is the first of its kind or the market is huge, you are most likely going to enter a world of business. With that being said, you are going to want to be ahead of the game at all times. In order to do this, always take a look at what others are doing. If they are doing something right, copy it. Otherwise, learn not to replicate it. If you understand the mistakes of others, you are bound not to repeat it and overtake their progress.

Final Words

As we’ve said in the beginning, startup marketing is not easy. The challenges are numerous, limitless in fact. However, the opportunities are also wide. It is going to be a constant decision-making challenge, but choosing the right ones will ensure a smooth path to success.

If you think this is just too much to handle and you are not up to it, then you are going to want the assistance of the best online marketing agencies. From start to finish, we can take care of all of it. Contact us today for a free strategy consultation.