Digital Marketing for Startups: Getting Leads On a Budget

Momina Ayaz
Momina Ayaz

Last updated on

July 13, 2023

Doesn’t launching a new business venture sound incredibly daunting? There’s so much to do, and so little money to spend. This is why so many people are afraid to dip their toes into entrepreneurship.

Working smart is so important when money is tight. And new businesses need new customers to survive the cut-throat competition in the market. But how do you get the word out on a budget?

The answer you’re looking for is digital marketing.

A lot of aspiring entrepreneurs shy away from digital marketing, thinking it’s a luxury that a young business cannot afford. That’s not true! If you play your cards right, you can market your brand and start getting conversions right off the bat.

So, let’s get right to it! Well… not exactly. Here’s everything you need to chalk out before getting starting with digital marketing:

  • Your target audience: Who are they and what do they need?
  • Channels to target: Where will you find your target audience? Facebook or Google?
  • Marketing goals and the metrics you’ll use to measure them: Will you track leads and conversions both? How many conversions do you need to get a return on your investment?

Once you have this information on you, it’s time to start marketing.

1. Content marketing

Content marketing is one of the most effective and reliable ways to promote your business. This tactic promotes your brand organically, and costs nothing in advertising money.

Many companies publish articles teaching you tips and tricks relevant to their niche. By providing informational content, you can establish trust with your prospects and eventually lead them towards purchase. This blog post is also an example of content marketing.

So, how do you start?

First, understand who your target audience is and what problems can you solve for them. How can you use your expertise to impart knowledge? By answering these questions, you’ll know the topics you should target.

For ecommerce stores, you can also write engaging descriptions for your products and explain how they stand out from others.

Moreover, sharing brand stories and connecting with your audience also works wonders. This humanizes your brand and enables website visitors to feel a more personal connection with you.

Experts also recommend using visual content to breathe life into blank text. If you’re explaining complicated concepts, lean on eye-catching charts or animations to break up big chunks of text. And feel free to mix it up! You can experiment with infographics, engaging videos, tabulated data, charts, and even memes!

2. Social media marketing

Social media has been influencing our lives for nearly two decades. It’s where every internet user is at now.

Modern companies know this, which is why they maintain an active social media presence. This helps promote your brand and stay top of mind.

Before building a social media presence, you need to:
choose the social media channels you want to target, depending on the ones most frequented by your target audience.
define engagement metrics that will reflect success for you, like likes, shares, and comments.

As an example, if you own a shoe business, you’d want to target Instagram and Facebook as both these channels are popular amongst most consumers. Instagram in specific lets you showcase your catalog aesthetically so you should post pictures of your shoes and campaigns. You’ll also want to track likes to see how users enjoy your posts. You can also share blog posts on social media to post traffic to them.

Ensure that the content you share on Facebook and Instagram is eye-catching and attention-grabbing. Instead of wordy paragraphs that explain ten benefits of how your products can help, summarize the points in infographics, share these on your social channels, and add links to your blogs so engaged readers can go to your website to read more. And remember, pages that post regularly and engage with their readers get more visibility on social media.

3. Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing

Nowadays, most consumers use Google searches to seek advice and look for options before making a purchase. Some of these queries often have ads at the top of the search results with an ad label. The route to scoring this kind of visibility is through pay-per-click marketing (PPC).

PPC starts with finding the right keywords. It’s actually doable even if you don’t want to pay a single buck.

  • Search for a broad keyword that’s relevant to your niche on Google.
  • Copy the suggested keywords that appear at the end of the page. The search intent of these keywords should be to buy.
  • Add these to Google Keyword Planner to check their search volume and cost per click.
  • Pick out words that fit in your budget and have sizable impressions and clicks.
  • Edit your website content and insert more keywords into your copy for SEO.

And that’s it! If your website is offering a quality product and an optimized user experience, even a little bit of PPC marketing will help you get conversions on a tight budget.

4. Email marketing

Email is another channel that can help you stay connected with your leads. Email marketing has the most ROI of any marketing strategy so a little investment here will reward you well.

Email marketing campaigns consist of emails sent out to an email list of your leads, nurturing them over time, and gently leading them to purchase. Companies send out seasonal updates or promotions via email and this works as most internet users check their emails every day.

You can use email marketing tools to design emails and send them in bulk. Tools like Mailmunch’s free email marketing plan help you do exactly this but you can also use your email client to send emails in bulk.

To track campaign performance, use metrics like open rates and click-through rates to see how effective your emails are. With advanced tracking, you can understand how many leads and conversions were generated from a specific email campaign. With accurate calculations and factors, it’s easy to estimate your returns on investment.

When crafting your email campaigns, one thing to consider is the kinds of content your potential customers would like to know more about. The tricky part is to give your readers adequate information to read and make them crave for more. Then, with the right calls to action, bring them to your website so they can consume more content, and move down the sales funnel.

5. Customer feedback

Here’s something you didn’t expect! Customer feedback is an absolutely free marketing tool that you need to add to your marketing kit!

Great product reviews ensure that potential buyers find it easy to trust your brand. If other people have had a good experience with your company, they’ll expect the same. Testimonials are great for social proof and make it easier for them to take the leap of faith. In a way, you’re just making other people market for you… without having to pay them.

This is why you need to get feedback from your leads and clients. Being reachable on social media and your website will help you achieve this. With customer feedback and reviews, you’ll also be able to understand why your customers love you or your products, so you can work towards retaining them and building loyalty.

Of course, there will always be that occasional negative review. But that’s where there’s room for product improvement. Just be sure to acknowledge them! From the customer’s angle, getting replies from the company or a representative signifies your concern for them, making you seem more likable.

6. Upcoming trends

The most fascinating thing about the digital world is constant change. Thanks to the internet, keeping up with new trends is much easier now. Being part of an online community and discussing with people in your industry is a great way to stay up to date and get help from others.

Apart from the learning, you can also make good use of free resources online, and learn new digital marketing skills that might help your business and your campaigns. Implement these on your website and track performance. Learn by doing, and do by learning!

Jump-starting digital marketing for your business also means that you have lots of chances to do test-runs and experiments with social media and search engines. Of course, there isn’t a definite model that would work out for all the businesses out there. Don’t be afraid of doing test-runs and trials. WIth A/B testing, you’ll understand what works for your business and what doesn’t.

Conclusion

In this post COVID era, the startup world has already had to struggle to pull through. Digital marketing has not only become a trend, but a necessary survival strategy for budding businesses. Getting the word out is often the difference between thriving and dying.

Kickstart your first digital marketing campaign today! Remember, there is no right or wrong answer. Try out these strategies, measure your ROI, keep testing, and create a strategy tailored for your business. What works for others might not work for you so keep experimenting. We wish you leads!

Author Bio

Momina Ayaz

Momina Ayaz is a Content Marketer at Mailmunch. She loves reading during lunch breaks and witnessing technology reshaping the corporate sphere.

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