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Giving Your Startup a Boost: How to Establish Your Brand Name

The first months of a business’s life usually determine whether it is going to stay around or join 90 percent of startups that fail within the first year of operation. Over that period, you typically either get sufficient momentum to get you through the initial resistance of the market or enter a downward spiral one is usually unable to leave. This means that whatever you do over this period, both good and bad, carries enormous weight when it comes to determining your success. One of the most critical assets a startup has to work on is its brand name and reputation – so what exactly should you try in this respect? Let’s find out!

1. Email marketing

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Some people see email marketing as a bit of anachronism for the coming year 2024 – after all, isn’t everybody using messengers and social media these days? However, in reality, it remains just as effective (if not more so) as it was ten or twenty years ago. Even better, it allows you to attract new customers and maintain the existing ones at little or no cost, depending on the tools you choose to use. Create a newsletter signup form while motivating potential clients to share their addresses (e.g., with freebies from your business or extra useful exclusive content like guides or infographics) and make sure you intersperse promotional letters with the ones bearing genuinely useful content for the subscribers.

2. Content marketing

When it comes to promotion, startups cannot compete with large and established companies by the same means they use – that is, applying traditional advertising. However, the field of Internet marketing is entirely open to you, and it is still a relatively level field because Google gives every content creator a fair chance. Produce top-notch content in your field, make your name and the name of your brand known among those interested in your niche, and you can achieve significant results without wasting thousands of dollars on doubtful advertising campaigns. According to http://luckyposting.com, today, content marketing plays a leading role in all types of industries, from cryptocurrencies to retail.

3. Social media

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According to statistics, there are more than 2.5 billion social media users right now, with an average user spending on them almost 2.5 hours every day. This means that if you do not use social media as a part of your marketing strategy (and not as a token effort, but as a full-fledged element of your every campaign), you ignore one of the most powerful forces in the modern world. Whatever business you are in, the chances are that your potential clients hang out on this or that social media platform. Do a bit of research, choose platforms that are most relevant for you based on their audience, and establish a stable presence on them.

4. Webinars

Webinars may be considered a part of content marketing, but in today’s online landscape, they are significant enough to be covered independently. They give you an excellent opportunity both to tell the listeners more about your business, your mission and vision and to regularly offer your audience vast chunks of valuable, unique content. Besides, webinars have a certain aura of naturalness about them – you interact directly with the people interested in a specific topic, teach them and answer their questions. It is a level of interactivity unachievable with most other forms of content. Remember about the people’s preference for video content and spontaneity, and you will see that webinars are one of the best ways of generating leads, showing your product in action and building up interest to your offer both before and after launch.

5. Influencers

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94 percent of marketers who tried using influencers in their strategies report that they generate up to 11 times greater ROI than traditional forms of marketing. The best thing about it is its flexibility, because these days, influencers are not limited to celebrities with millions of subscribers. The recent years saw a significant rise in so-called micro-influencers – bloggers and social media personalities with up to 10,000 subscribers or followers. They may not have the same outreach as PewDiePie or David Beckham. Still, they possess what celebrities usually do not have – the air of genuineness and close relationships with their relatively small yet loyal audiences. In other words, their subscribers tend to take whatever they say seriously. Also, micro-influencers tend to operate in very narrow niches, which makes for some very targeted marketing.

Of course, a startup, no matter how innovative and groundbreaking, cannot compete with well-established big companies using traditional advertising methods. However, the good thing about the time we live in is that it does not have to – there are plenty of other, cheaper and often more effective ways to achieve the same results. The examples here are just the tip of an iceberg – apply a little ingenuity, and you will find a way to bring your offer to your audience!

About Suzan Vega