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The Art of Startup
Marketing
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Article 9: 15 Quick Marketing Tips
These proven strategies will work for any
startup.
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Build a media contact for sending news
releases. Create a press packet to include with
mailings.
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Never assume your market is unchanged.
Keep
tabs on preferences and composition to tailor
your approach to your market’s changing
appetites.
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Be consistent and persistent.
Don’t market
only when business is brisk or only when it’s
slow. The low-cost technique is to market at an
even keel. Otherwise, you’ll waste money
panicking in economic downturns. Spread it out
evenly.
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Set reasonable marketing goals and measurable
standards to know whether you attain them. The
most expensive marketing is that which doesn’t
work. How can you know whether it worked if you
can’t measure it?
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Develop an opt-in e-mail list. Give customers
and prospects the opportunity to be contacted by
e-mail and to be removed from the list later.
Promise never to share their e-mail addresses.
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Place your e-mail address on everything—every
page of your Web site, every piece of your
marketing collateral, product packaging,
shipping material, invoices. Make it easy to
contact you, which is precisely what you want
customers to do.
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Standardize your complaint, refund and
guarantee policies, and publish them on all your
marketing material, Web site and sales
literature. It’s an assurance that you treat
customers even-handedly with no surprises.
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Solicit testimonials.
Nothing sells like a
satisfied customer. As soon as you get one,
convert him to a marketing tool.
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Get listed in every appropriate business
directory. Basic listings often are free.
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Hold contests and conduct sponsorships.
As
high-profile tactics go, these cost little and
generate much exposure. Best of all, you can
limit costs to your budget.
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Appear on radio and TV talk shows.
Yes, you.
There are millions of minutes of radio time to
be filled across the nation and producers are
starved for “experts” to fill them. If you’re an
expert, get on the air.
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Free samples and ad specialties are
commonplace for one reason: They work.
The
return on investment is still good for giveaway
pens inscribed with your company name and sample
sizes of products to introduce new customers to
the benefits of your product.
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Create a “swipe file,” a collection of ideas
and concepts you’ve found effective or
intriguing. Don’t plagiarize or infringe on
copyrighted material. But ideas are not
copyrightable. It’s perfectly permissible to be
inspired by your “swipe file.” Every ad agency
has one.
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Apply sales techniques to your marketing.
Always ask for the sale, respond quickly when
contacted and be believable.
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Offer discounts and make “free” offers
often. Although it’s unwise to try to be the
lowest price, it’s strategically effective to
periodically offer higher priced goods and
services for less, conveying value as well as a
bargain.
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