What type of digital marketing strategies should we implement for a startup?

So my thought is.. Why sell eggs at the bottom of your driveway, hoping people will drive by, want eggs, and come buy from you, when you can go sell them at the flea market in the middle of town, with 100s of passer buyers, actively shopping.

In other words, my strategy would be to go where your target market is already hanging out versus busting your butt to get them to come to where you are from the jump (your website).

So what I'd do, is go join groups on Facebook and other social sites that match your demographic. Start interacting. When you or others ask target market specific questions, I'd friend and connect with the people who interact with the posts (only people who interact).

If you start building a concentric internal audience based off of your target audience, going after people who specifically INTERACT and ENGAGE - you will quickly build an audience of the right people.

From there- create your OWN group, and put out a post, inviting all of your connects interested in the target market or are looking for cures to specific pain points you solve.

From there, go hard with your group, putting up content 2-3x a day (bulk schedule a week at a time on FB) and ask your members to invite people who are the RIGHT fit.

You then can start pushing group members to your website, by adding links to the group via posting.

I'd concentrate on building SOCIAL communities where your audience is already hanging out on FB, and depending on your business, YouTube second. YouTube is a longer play, but you can build an incredible community and drive a ton of leads/sales. I've built a channel to 1.3m subs, and get hundreds of thousands of free leads every year for example. YouTube also archives the content, so you have videos being found on YouTube, watched, and people visiting your site on automation.

I don't disagree with those saying SEO is good - I just don't think expecting the audience to come find you when we already know where they are hanging out - let's go find them.

Search engine optimisation would suit you the best.... do you have a website?

SEO strategy:

Competitor analysis: Use some tools like - semrush to find keywords for your potential products/services.
Keyword analysis: Find at least 100 keywords to start with.
Content: Collect product data. If it is services then you just need to create write-ups. Create 1500+ writeups on each product/service. If the product doesn't have much content, then use images and video to enhance page quality.
Website: Simple design - find a free WordPress template and implement. Make homepage and most important product or inner pages.
Content optimization: Now, optimize the content - keyword density should be 1% and you should use semantic keywords/phrases.

Make the site live with at least 50+ pages including the homepage. Setup Google webmaster & analytics. Create XML sitemap and upload on the root. Submit to webmaster.

1st Month: Now start promoting the website on different sites - yellow pages, quality directories, press releases.

2nd Month Onwards: SEO - Start building anchor links on keywords: guest posts, article marketing, forums, etc.

3rd Month: Continue the 2nd-month work.

4th Month: Check the keywords rank, SEO typically starts showing results in the 3rd month if things are implemented seriously on time. You should receive a good amount of traffic by the 4th month. Keep monitoring the growth through google analytics and webmaster and keep doing the link building activity.

Precautions: Do not copy content from other websites and do not make bad quality links to your site. Bad quality means from thin sites, check the site DA on Moz tool - the DA should be at least 30.

All good, for more info you can search on Google - "SEO guides"

Thanks.

Jenny,

Congrats on the new business. Being a business I see the world differently, my question is how long you want this to take to see results. If you have time then digital marketing is the best bet, like SEO, SMM, blogs and social media as you know this method will take three to six months.

If you want to be a little aggressive, I would get a sales team hiring rock stars and depends on your sales cycle pay them a straight commission. Then I would use email marketing and get a call center at a good rate. This way you can see money coming back in ASAP... and you can focus on the low hanging fruit. Then you can put the money in the digital marketing strategies.

Remember there is more than one way to skin a cat...

What seeds are you planting in your business...

There are many ways to promote your business. But some ways fit or not depend on your business type. If you run a local business in Canada, you can advertise your business using Yelp. The Yelpers usually search for local businesses such as restaurants, hotels, car repair stores, dentists through Yelp. On Yelp, people can get helped thanks to the review system. Actually, you can advertise your local business on Yelp for free. But if you want your Yelp business page get more customers, try its paid ads plan. Besides, there are also some proven ways to advertise your business for free here: http://skillonpage.com/advertise-a-business-online-for-free/

Hi Jenny Petula,

I suggest you to follow inbound marketing strategies like SEO, SMO, SMM, and content marketing.
Before that your website should be crawl-able by different search engines....

Thank you

Hi Jenny,

Glad to hear you planning to start your business.

Having been involved and advised clients on a start-up digital marketing strategy may I suggest the following techniques:

- Blog on stories your business, opinions on latest developments in the industry (using WordPress.com, plus you can build a website on this platform)

- Social Media profile on Twitter and Facebook with content on your business start-up journey, latest trends in your industry, promoting your blog plus don't forget Instagram to show any images. LinkedIn is good if you are targeting a B2B audience.

- Email: this technique will be useful with targeting clients/customer but have links to your blog posts and social media channels.

- SEO: develop profiles on Google My Business and Bing, from which will help enhance your presence in organic search.

All of these would form part of your inbound marketing strategy and the costs to implement this will be low.

As for a website, I would suggest using WordPress.com https://wordpress.com/learn-more/?v=site to build a site. If in doubt look on Udemy.com for courses.

Hope my advice is useful and good luck with your start-up business venture.

Hi Jenny,

Start with SEO to make your website more user and search engine friendly.

Get some quality backlinks from your theme relevant high authority websites. It will help to improve your website presence on Google search results.

Make some social presence through pages likes, followers, and reviews. It will help to build trust and a reputation in the eyes of your customers about your business. That will convert in your future conversions and improve your sales.
Make some quality and unique posts on your website and share them with the help of social media sites.


All this will helpful for a new startup...

Blog marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote goods and services on the internet today. Commonly referred to as business blogs, these sites are able to capitalize on their versatility and ability to interact with visitors to the site. Whether you’re involved in affiliate marketing or are promoting your own products or cause blogs have proven to be very effective online marketing platforms.

If you are looking to start you own business or perhaps already have one you may want to consider using a blog as your primary business site.

Let’s look at 5 reasons why blogs are so effective as online marketing platforms>.

Feedback

One of the most valuable aspects of blogging is the feedback you can get from your readers who leave comments. This form of market research is gold to any online business looking to succeed and grow. By simply posting questions and asking for comments the site owner can gain valuable insight that can be used to improve both the blog and the business.

Search Engine Ranking

Due to the freshness of the content most blogs offer search engines visit more frequently as do the readers. This results in a higher ranking for the blog with the search engines. This increase in ranking will then bring more visitors and this cycle will serve to again further boost the sites ranking.

Give and Take

The give and take nature of a blog leads to a learning experience for both the readers and the site owner. The exchange of ideas and information benefits everybody who participates by expanding their current knowledge base of the topic being discussed.

No Time Sensitivity

Both posts and comments are timeless from the standpoint that they can be read and responded to over a delayed period of time. The need for ‘real time’ responses is neither expected nor required allowing all participants to engage when it is most convenient for them.

Site Adaptability

Due to the give and take nature blogs offer between the site owner and the reader it is easy to adjust or adapt to the whim of the readers. If posts are intriguing readers will let that be known and encourage more of the same. If however information or comments are not well received or unpopular the feedback will allow for adjustments to be made accordingly.

After reviewing the 5 reasons above it is easy to see why blog marketing is both effective and popular. Whether your primary focus is affiliate marketing or perhaps offering your own goods and services business blogs can effectively accommodate your needs. So if you want to start your own business online you would do well to consider using a blog as your primary business site. The ease of use and the flexibility a blog can offer will likely make your online business experience more pleasurable and financially rewarding..

Recommended tool for SEO: Semrush.com

You will need Semrush only for first three months and you can easily do the keyword and competitor research for the blog posts your team will publish for the next one year.

For a startup, you want to pay utmost attention to branding. You want to make sure you know how to express your company directives with the right image and slogan. Next, you want to create a website that speaks volumes about who you are. Getting on Google map would be the next step to get immediate traffic. For some businesses, it may not apply.

There are two types of Digital Marketing techniques

Free
Paid

You can reach the audience with the following free very important Digital Marketing Techniques:


Search Engine Optimization
we will reach the audience from organic search results. You can learn to implement this technique for absolutely free www.everestvision.com

Social Media Optimization:
In this technique we are going to target the audience using social media networks such as Facebook, YouTube, PinInterest,Instagram, Google Plus, twitter and so on.


Email Marketing
In this digital marketing technique, we are going to target the audience using Email to send advertisement.