A saying in startup world is, “If it were easy, everyone could do it.” Pretty much many start ups mess up royally. Even at 2Bees Marketing, our team of Directors and Investors have had their trials and tribulations over the last 10 to 15 years with businesses, but each of us learned quickly (and the hard way) that this can actually work with a couple of simple principles.
Let’s turn this around and look at some basic premises that work for every startup, every business, and even individual situations.
Everyone wants to push quickly for results, that’s fine but then build a foundation first.
These action points are key, and will aid you in defining what is your Startups purpose and what you are trying to do:
- Outline your “why” — what makes you different
- Define your client
- Articulate the benefit your product/service provides
- Know your weaknesses in addition to your strengths and then have solutions for those weakness
- Write relevant content (not just lots of it)
- Research should define your strategy, not hunches
- Segment your audience into groups
- Understand your competition’s strengths
Buying your leads – let’s be rational about this
You can buy yourself leads, through the traditional pay-per-click route or releasing ads into the social media space all directing traffic to your website. Naturally, this comes at a cost, as a Startup you have a pot of money to dip into (investors, family or friends, savings, loans – whatever it maybe) you don’t want to invest money into something which is just burning cash in the first instance.
Buying yourself into revenue, has as a minimum two issues:
only a small fraction of those visitors convert into clients while the others remain anonymous visitors; and,
the second you stop paying for your PPC or social ads, that very moment your visitor stream stops.
Unless you are digital advertising masterminds (you maybe!), starting from scratch and learning in the paid advertisement world is VERY expensive and doesn’t really add to your business foundation for growth in the startup stage. However, if this is something you do push ahead with and you do generate a stream of visitors coming to your website, make sure to have a maximum amount of landing pages to help SEO and to have good quality content to get leads.
Disciplined and relevant content generation
Content, often generated through blogs, lets search engines index your site and improve its ranking. When done right, it educates your visitors about typical issues your business solves for your clients, and inspires your prospects to reach out to you for potential solutions. This is basic “inbound marketing.”
Not only does good content generation answer questions your prospects might be searching for and, as such, attract them to your site, but it also provides a great opportunity to demonstrate competence in your areas of strength.
Furthermore, visitor traffic coming from organic search, triggered by disciplined content generation, is compounding, as it returns interest over time.
While content marketing is essential it can take a few weeks or even months for organic traffic to significantly pick up. Knowing how to write well and be able to reuse content for campaigns, blogs, email campaigns, sales collateral, socials etc is essential as it helps to accelerate the long term benefits. Eventually the results will outweigh the initial investment by a long shot, and you will never look back.
Ask for advice, even if you don’t need it (you might be surprised).
Yes, good advice can be expensive. If it is truly good, though, it will be more than just an expense. It will provide you with a tangible return on investment – more traffic, more referrals, more opportunities to convert traffic into leads, and leads into clients. Network with individuals and companies who have lived through the whole cycle of building successful and growing companies, ones who have failed to do so but have succeeded more often.
In addition to working with great partners (and paying for it, for a return), surround yourself with great mentors. Mentors who have nothing else in mind than seeing you succeed. Mentors who listen rather than talk, mentors who coach rather than instruct. Most great (business) leaders will cite their mentor network for their success.
Be proactive in building and maintaining a small network of mentors. Even and especially when you think you don’t need them. The world’s best athletes surround themselves with great trainers, even though they are at high performance already. It works for us as well.
Establish and utilse the right marketing channels.
We can understand the need in thinking we have to be everywhere to get that first client: lets be on ALL the social media channels, lets hire sales people, get digital ads going, do we need a reseller, lets spend £1000’s on our website, lets buy buy buy and spend, spend, spend. STOP – honestly you don’t need to.
At the start of the blog there were 8 key points which you should have answers to. Those key points with their answers will guide you into knowing what marketing channels you need to utilise, as this is where your ideal client sits. Be specific about what you do, marketing can be scientific and can really hone in on your client base if you do it right.
Your Brand.
Your brand is the face of the business, it’s what the public sees when they look at your company and it’s incredibly important. Your business’ brand identity serves as a clear definition of what your organisation stands for.
You need to make the most out of your brand. For a brand identity to serve a business well, there are a few best practices that should be adhered to. These tips are fundamental when trying to create and maintain your brand identity to maximise its effectiveness:
- Tell a story: A clear narrative makes your brand more relatable. Explain to prospective customers who you are, where you come from and what you stand for.
- Differentiate yourself: Stand out from the pack by utilising unique colour schemes, logo designs, and messaging. Your brand should be recognizable whether it’s found online or seen on the streets.
- Be consistent: Develop branding guidelines that help to maintain continuity among all of your content. Utilising consistent fonts, shapes, colours and tone will help your brand deliver a more consistent message across channels.
That’s a lot of information.
Looks like a like to do, and these are the basics. At 2Bees Marketing and Consultancy our teams have clear roles and responsibilities in ensuring we deliver the best marketing and expert advice to our clients. Our bees approach is to ensure we are highly organised, committed and efficient in our delivery so that our clients obtain the best service levels.
All of the above mentioned marketing fundamentals can be managed internally at 2Bees Marketing and Consultancy, if you need any advice or would like to discuss your current marketing strategy give us a call on 07831628777 or email info@2beesmarketing.co.uk to book in a 30 minute brand review.
2Bees Marketing & Consultancy, are a Sales Driven Marketing Agency and Advisory.
Specialists in:
Strategic Planning, Strategic Branding, Consultancy & Advisory, Sales Automation, Content marketing, Email marketing, Training & Workshops, Search engine optimization (SEO), Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Social media management and social media advertising, Website design and development, Website maintenance, Inbound Marketing, Lead Generation, B2B Marketing, Start up marketing and more
