16 POWERFUL Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups and Small Businesses

Entrepreneurship is not a journey for the faint hearted. There are not many things as exhilarating as being part of a startup or small business where everything seems to be against you, and your only goal survival.

And that survival often has to occur simultaneously with business growth, which must also occur whilst under financial constraints. If you can find success under such conditions, then there’s nothing you cannot do.

Fortunately, the internet has streamlined the process of starting and growing businesses through a variety of digital marketing strategies. If you have a clear understanding of your buyer persona, then you can create plans which appeal specifically to them.

You can speak in a language that they understand and build products that solve their problems. You’ll also know exactly where to find them online. The internet is extremely vast, and without some form of direction, you are no different from a sailor at sea without a compass. A buyer persona will simply help point you in the right direction.

Take some time to work on your buyer persona, in case you haven’t already done so. It is simply a detailed description of your target audience; the people who your products or services would most appeal to.

Ask yourself who they are, what they do, where they live, how much they earn, and every other factor that might affect their purchase decisions. Note down their description as accurately as possible and make it available to your entire team. This article will go over 16 effective digital marketing strategies for startups and small businesses.

Read on to learn how you can get over $1,000 in free ads credit to run your campaigns on Facebook, YouTube, and several other platforms. Check out this article to learn how to get a free website, domain, hosting, and business emails.

Interesting Digital Marketing Statistics:

Around 1.7 billion people shop online each year. (Source)
Men spend up to 68% more money online than women. (Source)
Asking for phone numbers has the worst impact on conversion rates. (Source)
Companies that prioritize content marketing and have a blog get up to 55% more traffic on their websites. (Source)
81% of people trust the advice of family and friends over businesses. (Source)
Product reviews are 12 times more trusted than product descriptions written by businesses. (Source)
Nearly 70% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase. (Source)
78% of salespeople who use social media outperform their peers. (Source)
55% of buyers use social media to do research. (Source)
60% of millennials make impulsive purchases due to FOMO. (Source)
Social media platforms that contribute most to FOMO are Facebook FOMO (72%), followed by Instagram (14%), and then Twitter (11%). (Source)
65% of consumers compare prices online while in a physical shop. (Source)
Google gets more than 77,000 searches per second, (Source), and 67% of clicks go to the top 5 results. (Source)
Email marketing has an average ROI of 4,400%. (Source)
56% of companies that use emojis in their email subjects have a higher open rate than those that don’t. (Source)

16 Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups and Small Businesses

1. Get an optimized website

Many companies surprisingly don’t have their own websites, despite the fact that 85% of people search for products and services online.

A website is the starting point of your internet domination plan. It is the central hub where your target audience can learn more about your startup. It is where potential investors and partners can reach you. Having one is essential for your digital marketing plan.

Your website should be a digital representation of the company you’re trying to build. It has to follow the same theme and tone of voice as your products. Its user experience has to be superior to all your competitors’ websites.

User experience, or UX, is simply how well designed and organized the site is, how easy it is to navigate, how fast its pages load, etc. Websites that have a positive UX often get rewarded with a high ranking on Google, which often leads to more traffic.

UX is an important part of SEO, which will be discussed shortly. Most modern website builders like Wix allow you to build advanced websites by selecting from templates which have been pre-designed to provide the highest possible user experience. You can also use services such as FreeWebDesign to get professional developers to build your entire site for free.

2. Set up PPC ads

Pay per click, or PPC, is a popular digital marketing strategy whereby ads get shown to users as they browse the internet, however advertisers only get charged for the clicks.

For instance, if you run a Facebook campaign and 100,000 people see your ads, but only 1,000 click them, then you’ll only pay for the 1,000 clicks, despite getting your branding across to 100,000 people.

PPC ads are a great way to start generating leads almost immediately. Most PPC platforms, including Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads have advanced targeting options to help you reach your most ideal clients, your buyer persona.

You can target people based on their age, gender, location, interests, websites they visit, amongst other factors.

A lot of digital marketers prefer to run PPC campaigns on Google Ads, because then they can target people who are searching for specific keywords. For example, if your business deals with golfing equipment, you can target people who Google the phrase “where to buy golfing equipment”.

You can also run display and video ads across the various PPC platforms. Such ads are great for creating awareness and educating the public about your startup business.

Google search ads on the other hand are great for targeting people who already know what they want and are in the process of searching for it.

You can get started with PPC with a relatively small budget, starting from just around $5 per day on Facebook. It’s a very cost effective digital marketing strategy with a very high ROI.

3. Set up retargeting ads

Retargeting is also another popular digital marketing strategy where ads get displayed to people who previously visited a website or app.

In most cases, people who visit your site are likely to be interested in something you offer. They may have seen your PPC ads and got curious about your products, or simply found your site through a Google Search.

Retargeting helps you isolate them, since they are likely to be leads, and show them ads that are designed to drive action. For instance, you can offer limited time discounts that are not available to other people.

Studies show that people who have been retargeted have a 70% higher conversion rate than people seeing ads for the first time. The most popular retargeting platforms are Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Social media platforms are especially great for retargeting campaigns because that’s where the average consumers go spend their free time.

4. Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of increasing a website’s authority and ranking on search engines like Google and Bing. It’s one of the best digital marketing strategies for organic growth (along with content marketing).

Most internet users only visit the sites that they see on the first page of the search results. Therefore you should aim to rank your site among the top results for all phrases which are related to your business.

For example, if you sell golfing equipment, then you’d want your site to have a good ranking on Google for queries such as:

“Cheap golfing equipment”
“Where to buy golfing equipment”
“Golf clubs for sale”

Although SEO can be a long and painstaking process, investing in it can eventually eliminate the need to spend money on PPC ads once the site starts getting organic traffic.

SEO has two main parts. The first is on-site SEO, which mainly involves optimizing individual pages on the site to make them more user friendly and search engine friendly.

Some ways to optimize a page include increasing its loading speed and making it mobile responsive, such that it loads seamlessly on every device. Every image should have an alt-tag, which is an html attribute that tells search engines what the image is about.

If you built your site using a Wix template, then you won’t have to worry about on-site SEO since all the pages will be optimized by default.

The second part is off-site SEO, which mainly entails the process of link building. Every time another site links to your site, Google considers it a referral, which is a sign of authority. Authoritative websites often get rewarded with a higher ranking because they are more likely to contain valuable information.

The most common ways of getting backlinks include publishing guest posts on other blogs, submitting directory listings, and doing cross promotions, which will be discussed shortly.

5. Get reviews and testimonials

Did you know that 67% of people are influenced by online reviews?

Reviews have become a defense mechanism that modern consumers often rely on when judging products that they see online. They want to first see other people testifying that something works before they can be sold.

The internet is full of products that promise the world, however don’t even come close to delivering. Such phony products are often accompanied by the most persuasive digital marketing ads designed to drive people into making impulsive decisions.

Reviews can help you stand out by giving your startup business credibility and social proof, which in turn gives your prospective customers confidence in your legitimacy.

You can start following up with your customers via email to ask for an honest review. Make it part of your digital marketing strategy. Make sure to have them in abundance on all your platforms, including your website and social media pages.

The more positive reviews you have, the more people are likely to believe in your products, even if they’ve never tried them before.

One of the best ways of constantly getting positive reviews is by providing exceptional customer support. A lot of people have a tendency of thinking more highly of a business if they were given VIP treatment and had all their concerns addressed in a timely fashion.

6. Completely dominate social media

If there’s one area on the internet that can determine your success as a startup, then it’s social media. Social platforms are home to all the people who are likely to be interested in your products. It’s one of the most cost effective mediums to reach your target customers.

You can create pages on the mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If your startup targets a more professional clientele then you can create a page on LinkedIn. If you’re targeting the younger generations then you can focus on platforms like TikTok and Snapchat.

The goal for your social media marketing strategy will be to increase awareness for your business and grow a following consisting of people who are genuinely interested in it.

Be careful not to develop an obsession with your number of page followers, like many marketers tend to, because then it becomes a vanity metric that diverts your attention from what really matters.

You’d rather have 500 followers who are actually interested in your business and engage with your posts, than 10,000 who couldn’t care less.

You can grow your following organically by simply publishing regularly and manually sending out invitations. If you have a marketing budget then you can run a small campaign to help grow your followers.

Every post you publish on your pages should have a singular goal: to encourage engagement through likes, follows, and shares.

Another advantage of having social pages is that they often get a priority ranking on Google. Therefore whenever people are searching for products or services similar to what you offer, your pages could also appear in the search results, in addition to your optimized website.

The more times people encounter your name while researching products online, the more familiarized they get with it. Social media marketing is a key component in any successful digital marketing strategy.

7. Run contests

This is one of the best digital marketing strategies for encouraging your target audience to take a certain action that you propose.

For example, you can run a social media contest where people share your posts and use your hashtags to enter the draw to win something. Be generous with your rewards to actually get them to participate.

If just 10 people with around 1,000 friends/followers share a post containing your branding and marketing message, it would be seen by up to 10,000 people. That gives you tremendous credibility and social proof. A lot of people make purchase decisions based on recommendations they see on social media.

8. Publish blog posts

Publishing blog posts is a great way to dominate the internet with content originating from your site. It’s the perfect branding opportunity to familiarize people with your name.

Hubspot use this digital marketing strategy to a great effect. The company deals with automation software that helps businesses streamline their sales and marketing operations, however the majority of their traffic comes from their blog. Whenever you search online for anything related to marketing, you’re likely to come across a post from Hubspot covering it in-depth.

People are more likely to buy products from brands that they have encountered numerous times and have developed some familiarity with.

You can publish posts covering a wide range of topics, even if they’re not directly related to your products. For example, if your business deals with golfing equipment, you can publish posts such as “10 ways to improve your golf swing” and “golf tips for seniors”.

The goal is simply to get your name out there, as much as possible, and drive relevant traffic to your site. When you have traffic, then you can easily upsell your products.

The key to a successful blog is keyword research; that is the process of identifying phrases that get searched frequently on search engines. When you know what they are, then you can write posts addressing them with confidence that they will get traffic. There are several digital marketing tools you can use to plan your content marketing campaigns, including Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and SEMrush.

SEMrush is perhaps the most popular keyword research tool used by bloggers around the world to find high-traffic, low-competition keywords to write about. You can use it to find content ideas for your blog. Content marketing is one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies.

9. Email marketing

Contrary to what many people believe, email marketing is not dead. In fact, it still has one of the highest conversion rates. Email campaigns have an average open rate of 21.3%, which is higher than the click through rates than most other digital marketing strategies, including PPC.

With a proper email marketing strategy, you can improve your brand recognition, generate more traffic to your website, and boost your sales in the long run. It also allows you to retain customers by keeping them informed.

On the other hand, reaching out to your customers has also become much easier with an effective email marketing campaign. It allows you to tailor your email content to your target audience.

So, if you want to take advantage of email marketing’s benefits, now is the perfect time to do that. For instance, you can easily start collecting emails by integrating an opt-in form on your website asking users to enter their email to get a discount coupon, or to sign up for your newsletter.

Publishing newsletters is a great way to keep people on the loop with the latest news, product developments, limited time offers, upcoming contests, etc. You can even repurpose some of your blog posts for your newsletters. Many businesses attribute their success to email marketing.

However, if your email marketing needs a boost, messaging software can help. Along with your tailored emails, you can also use the software to send messages and encourage your existing and potential customers to take action with your business.

For example, you can invest in WhatsApp marketing software to support your email marketing efforts. It allows you to send promotional and transactional messages to many retargets. Additionally, WhatsApp marketing tools permit you to send real-time alerts and reminders to your prospects. Some common examples include cart abandonment reminders and other relevant business alerts, which help increase customer engagement and lead conversions.

10. Influencer marketing

Many people trust the opinions of popular personalities that they follow on social media. If you can get such influencers to talk about your products, then you’re likely to also win over their fans.

Beats by Dre gained its popularity by leveraging popular musicians as their influencers, and having the headphones featured in music videos. Within a short time, everyone wanted a pair, despite them costing significantly higher than competing headphones.

According to Forbes, influencer marketing is currently growing faster than all other digital marketing strategies. Most influencers would be happy to review your product if you just give them a free sample, however some may require a payment.

Make sure to only work with influencers whose followings mainly consist of people who would actually see the value in your products. If you’re in tech, then find tech influencers. It would make no sense asking a fashion influencer to recommend your computer software to their followers.

Remember, working with influencers as part of your digital marketing strategy can benefit your business. For example, they can help establish brand awareness and social proof. They can drive purchases and help you generate and share authentic content more humanely too.

For these reasons, start investing in influencer marketing to make a massive difference in your overall marketing efforts.

11. Get featured on popular publications

This is another fantastic way to build credibility and promote your startup to a new target audience. When a well know magazine, blog or news platform writes about you, you immediately look like the real deal. There’ll be no questioning your legitimacy.

You’ll also be able to build your back link profile by adding links to your website, which will help boost your SEO score and drive referral traffic to your site.

Many business publications have segments that highlight up and coming entrepreneurs and startups. All you need to do is reach out and ask if you could be featured. You can also offer to write the article yourself and format it to their standards, if it makes things easier for them.

Another way of getting featured on news publications is by seeking interview opportunities on platforms like Help a Reporter Out. Doing interviews can help you establish yourself as an authority in your field.

12. Start a referral program

Referral marketing, or affiliate marketing, is a digital strategy that involves offering commissions to people who refer paying customers to you.

Marketing can get very complicated, expensive and overwhelming, especially if you have a small team. Referral programs allow you to achieve your sales objectives by getting other people to work for you, while only compensating them for the business they generate.

You can get affiliates to sign up to your program by offering very competitive commission rates, and then advertising it aggressively on all your channels, including social media and email. You can also run a paid ads campaign specifically for onboarding affiliates to your program.

Many SaaS companies including Shopify, Bluehost and ClickFunnels rely on affiliates for a significant amount of their sales. It’s undoubtedbly one of the best digital marketing strategies.

13. Create directory listings

A lot of people still use directories such as Yellow Pages to find business contacts online.

You can create a listing on the various directory platforms, just to cater to the people who use them. You’ll also be able to add your website URL in the listings, which will go a long way in helping increase your backlink profile and boosting your SEO score.

14. Offer free gifts

One of the biggest challenges that startups and small businesses face is getting people to buy their products, when nobody knows who they are.

Offering gifts is simply a way to overcome that barrier and help win over your first customers. The gifts could be things such as Amazon gift cards, coupons, t-shirts, or even cash back rewards.

This strategy often raises eyebrows because many people don’t understand how it would be beneficial to spend money to reward people for buying products.

Your first set of customers are probably the most important for your startup business. They are the foundation upon which your startup will grow.

Their initial reviews will give you credibility and social proof, which will help convert more customers. Their word of mouth will help generate publicity and awareness for your products at a time when you need it the most.

You absolutely need them to help get the ball rolling, and it is worth spending extra just to get them on your side. The free gifts are simply a marketing cost that will be recouped later on once the business gains momentum.

15. Cross promotion

Cross promotion is a marketing strategy where two or more companies that are in a similar industry, but not directly competing with each other, refer each other to their respective audiences.

In this case, you can partner up with other companies that have access to the consumers you’re targeting.

For example, if you deal with golfing equipment, you can partner with golf resorts and tournament organizers, and then actively promote them on your social media pages and blog. As per the agreement, they’ll also reciprocate by promoting you on their platforms.

It’s a win-win marketing strategy that does not involve any money or extensive labor. You can specifically target companies that are in a similar position as you, since they are more likely to be interested in the proposal.

Cross promotion is also a great way to boost your SEO score by getting backlinks from other platforms.

16. Reach out to users of competing products

This is a very direct approach that works like magic. As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest challenges that startups often face is getting people to buy their products when they don’t yet have any credibility.

To help win over your first set of buyers and get the ball rolling for your business, you can approach users of a competing product to introduce your products.

Such people can easily be found commenting on the competitor’s social media pages and writing reviews. You can even specifically target people who write negative reviews, and recommend your product as a better solution.

When Airbnb was just starting out, they directly approached people who had posted their homes on Craigslist to let them know of the new services. That simple tactic opened the floodgates and kick started Airbnb’s dominance in the rental space.

Resources

Use the links below to get free advertising credit to run your digital marketing campaigns:

$100 on LinkedIn – https://bit.ly/linkedinadscredit
$375 on Snapchat Ads – https://bit.ly/snapchatadscredit
$100 for Facebook Remarketing – https://bit.ly/perfectaudiencecredit
$100 for YouTube Ads – https://bit.ly/youtubeadscredit
$50 for Amazon Ads – https://bit.ly/amazonadscredit
$100 for Apple Search – https://bit.ly/searchappleads
$150 for Google Ads (US) – https://bit.ly/creditgoogleads
$300 for Yelp Ads – https://bit.ly/yelpadscredit

Some useful tools:

Build a professional website using Wix – http://bit.ly/2vA9doX
Build an e-commerce store using Shopify – Shopify Free Trial
Perform keyword research for your blog and PPC campaigns using SEMrush – https://bit.ly/2OtnIYg
Automate your sales and marketing using Hubspot – Hubspot get started