One of a startup’s top priorities is exposure. Yes, a successful startup needs strong leadership, a standout team, and a stellar product, but none of those will stay around for long without marketing that reaches the target audience, that group of people who are most likely to buy your product.
The temptation to pour money into today’s most common marketing strategies is a strong one. Marketing directors will quickly point to the opportunities on Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, and email marketing as low-cost, high-win strategies. In some industries, a startup may even find it appropriate to explore direct mail, billboards, or even TV ads, depending on the audience you’re trying to reach.
Here’s the problem: Every single one of these avenues costs money. Even worse, you’ll need weeks or even months of dedicated testing to really hone in on your strategy and start seeing a return on your investments.
For some startups, that’s the right move.
Others, however, may want to explore additional options for reaching their target audience.
Here are a few strategies you can use to reach your audience without blowing your budget:
1. Try those overlooked social media platforms.
The most recent algorithmic changes to Facebook, Instagram, and other major platforms mean the ROI for most organic (unpaid) social media efforts is almost zero. Yes, it’s good to keep the social media engine to remain top of mind, but it’s now harder than ever to grow your business on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn without a well-planned strategy.
Other platforms still hold promise, however, depending on who you’re trying to reach. Reddit, for example, has already done all of the heavy lifting for you. The website is split into forums (called subreddits) that categorize content by topic. You can get in front of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of potential fans by joining in these conversations.
Platforms like Tumblr, Imgur, and others all have their own ecosystems that could prove more beneficial to your startup than the usual social media platforms every other company flocks to.
2. Go where your already people are.
Instead of pouring your advertising budget into a single campaign, consider the other ways you can make your first impression.
Industry conferences and conventions are the perfect opportunity for you to connect with the actual consumers you’re trying to reach.
But don’t head to a conference with a simple booth and a demo of your product. Come up with a way to deliver an experience. Find a way for attendees to use your product on-site, even if it means modifying the product to fit into a 15’x15’ booth.
3. How can you make your fans talk about you?
The best marketing is when the act of using your product is a form of marketing. The classic example of this is Hotmail. Hotmail launched in a time when email was a paid service. Hotmail went against the grain by offering its service for free. The only tweak it made: At the bottom of every email, it add this message: “Get your free email at Hotmail”
It worked. In two years, Hotmail acquired 12 million users while spending only $500,000. Eventually, Microsoft bought the company for $400 million.
If you can find a way of getting users to market for you, you can significantly reduce your marketing budget.
Another approach in this vein is to think about talk triggers. A talk trigger is an experience within your product or service that gets people talking about you. DoubleTree has the famous DoubleTree cookies available when you check in, and people rave about the cookies all over social media.
Skip’s Kitchen, a small restaurant in Carmichael, California, regularly has a line out its door for two reasons: 1.) It has a great product. 2.) There’s always a chance you can eat for free.
After you put in your order, a staff member lets you draw from a deck of cards. Pull a joker, the meal is comped for your entire party. It doesn’t matter if you come by yourself or your five best friends—everyone eats for free.
That excitement gets people coming back over and over again.
Tap into that, and your fans will rave about you.
Depending on how lean your company runs, tapping into these relatively inexpensive marketing methods may be enough to get your company running. Over time, you’ll see that wonderful snowball effect that draws more and more customers to your company.
If not, you’ll have something almost as valuable: Customer data. After acquiring customers for free and getting to understand them and others like them through social media, conferences, and other events, you’ll have excellent data sets to inform your paid advertising efforts moving forward.