Digital Marketing Strategies and Ideas for Startups in 2024

Digital Marketing Strategies and Ideas for Startups in 2024

2024 may have been the year that startup companies finally began to embrace digitization but so far, real changes—the kind that results in growth— have yet to take effect. The problem is simple: the kind of transformation most companies have so far been able to bring about is only the first step. It’s merely paving the way for growth.

The exciting news is now that lots of software and startup companies have made initial efforts to modernize their infrastructures, they’re poised for real growth. If that’s you — if you’ve recently adopted cloud-based CMS and CRM solutions, it’s time to put them to work and start growing your business.

 

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Here are six digital marketing strategies and ideas for startups to help you graduate to that next level of digitization in the year ahead.

 

1. Content Marketing

To make growth happen in 2024, startup companies need to build on their initial efforts and begin focusing their digital marketing strategies on broader horizons.

And right now, there’s no horizon more promising and full of potential than the customer experience (CX).

Companies who embrace the CX credo — buyers are customers who expect to be delighted — will win in 2024. And what better way to ingratiate your company with purchasing managers than to offer helpful resources that make their job easier. Do this through content marketing.

More than three-quarters of startup companies already have a blog. However, there’s a big difference between simply having a blog and putting it to work as part of a content marketing strategy for your startup company. What you need is a data-driven blog.

Begin by finding out what your buyers need. There are several tools at your disposal for this. First, you can use keyword tools to find what’s trending in your industry. These same tools will let you know which topics actually have search traffic and which are in demand so you’re not wasting time producing and promoting content that nobody wants to read.

Secondly, need is driven by pain, so think deeply about your B2B and B2C customers and what they lack, what causes them to ‘suffer’. Then, supply the kind of content that relieves those pain points. Almost half of the buyers consume online content (3-5 pieces) before reaching out to a sales rep. It should be your content they’re consuming. It should also be well-informed since almost all B2B buyers want the content they consume to include input from industry leaders.

Some examples of buyer pain points that you can help alleviate with helpful content:

 

2. Inbound Marketing/SEO

Inbound Marketing/SEO

A solid base of helpful content can also be the cornerstone of a successful inbound digital marketing for startups. You’ve done the research and produced great content for your buyers for your content marketing campaign. Now make it do double duty by earning some SEO credit.

You’ll need to do some deeper research, however: keyword research that goes deeper and shows you where you could focus your efforts and try to rank. Consider long-tail keywords if your industry is competitive, and write data-driven content that helps your SEO efforts.

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Check all SEO statistics.

The trick is to balance SEO content techniques with user experience. SEO content, which employs strategic placement of keywords throughout the content, can come off as awkward. You want good, relevant, resourceful and helpful content that reads well, so keep that balance in mind with all your content. The idea, after all, is to try and get people to create backlinks to your startup website. This can happen in any number of ways, including organically, through guest posting, and via social media promotion. You can check the startup SEO services page to download my SEO growth program that outlines the most common link building and SEO strategies.

 

3. Social Media Marketing

Because of its rich targeting potential and wide reach, Facebook marketing funnels remains one of the most effective ways to generate leads in B2B and B2C world and should be a part of your startup digital marketing strategy. It’s also the least expensive among the other social networks like Linkedin and Twitter. Over 60 percent of startup marketers plan to increase their Facebook Advertising efforts, according to a 2024 report.

You’ll need to identify your target persona and the companies you are going after and then create that profile on Facebook Ad Manager.  You can also set up a remarketing pixel and target your website visitors and lookalike audiences to make the profile targeted and relevant. That way, you’ll maximize ROI and, depending on your marketing objectives, you can create campaigns that:

  1. generate leads
  2. drive traffic
  3. increase engagement
  4. develop brand awareness
  5. install apps
  6. increase sales
  7. get video views

Other options that are available on Ad Manager dashboard include:

  • type of ad (photo ads, video ads, slideshow ads, collection ads, etc)
  • campaign objective
  • type of audience targeting (Facebook connections, Custom Audiences, Lookalike Audiences)
  • budget
  • scheduling

 

4. Responsive Web Design, HTTPS, AMP

Faced with more buyers who expect a better customer experience, B2B players now need to take their cues from B2C and look for ways to delight their buyers wherever they are in the buyer’s journey.

The best place to start is with the company website.

Even a quick spin through the startup galaxy of websites, and you’ll immediately know there’s a lot of room for improvement in the Customer Experience (CX). Here are three ways you can consider adding to your startup digital marketing strategy planning:

  1. Responsive Web Design. More and more, buyers are using mobile devices on the job. If your site wasn’t designed to be usable on multiple devices (PC, tablet, phone) then you’re making a bad impression on potential customers (especially Millennials). Don’t be like 94% of startup companies, who have no mobile strategy in place.
  2. HTTPS. If you’re not sure why you should have an ‘S’ on your ‘HTTP’, then you should know that HTTPS is a search engine ranking signal now.  Not only will it help your website appear higher in search results and drive more organic traffic, it will also add the green secure lock icon to the browser. Major browsers will start showing a “not secure” warning to all website visitors in the near future if you don’t have SSL installed, so make sure you configure it soon to avoid a higher bounce rate and lower rankings.
  3. AMP. Buyers are busy and as a result, necessarily impatient. If your website isn’t loading fast enough, they’re likely to strike your company off their vendor shortlist. AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Presence and if your site doesn’t adhere to AMP best practices, you’re not exactly making the customer journey delightful or easy. Aim for more engagement and a smoother experience with a sound AMP strategy. That means fast-loading pages, quick performing scripts, and form submissions that go through faster than you can say ‘jack rabbit’.

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5. Marketing Automation

B2B customers typically use six different channels in their buying journey. Almost two-thirds of them will be frustrated by their experiences.

Since you’re now in the business of ‘delighting’ your customers, you’ll want to upgrade your methods wherever you have a point of contact with your customers and leads. Marketing automation should be a part of your digital making strategy for your startup.

Wherever someone may be along the buyer’s journey, you’ll want to help, coax, encourage, and respond to any actions they’re taking in relation to your business. In fact, a major pain point for 40 percent of surveyed buyers is a slow response time from sales reps. Other frustrations included a sluggish reordering process, which troubled almost a third of survey respondents. Automation can help solve those problems and more by spurring communications, offering helpful links, and tying in customized past ordering data for individual customers.

In essence, what you’re doing is transforming your business into one that’s customer-focused. B2B buyers want the following:

  • easier communications
  • hassle-free reordering process
  • help with product comparison

The added benefit of automating your marketing processes is that it helps with consistent messaging across all your platforms: email, digital ads, and other channels where you interact with your leads and customers.

 

6. Email Marketing

Another natural outgrowth of a strong startup digital marketing strategy is email marketing: exciting and useful new content is a great excuse for an email newsletter. Email marketing magnifies the power of your content marketing efforts when you use carefully selected content aimed at segmented buyers at specific points along the buying decision timeline.

Plus, to get more out of your content budget, you can reuse content in lots of different ways. For example, you can redirect leads back to your website through your carefully planned email campaigns that include snippets from blog posts on your website that pertain to the moment.

 

Conclusion

It’s no secret that startup companies are still playing catch-up to B2B and B2C companies in the process of digital transformation and marketing strategy. Having embraced the notion that digitization can lead to growth, startup players who’ve transformed their back-end processes and IT infrastructures should now work with a startup marketing agency on implementing marketing strategies for startups outlined in this post. That’s how they’ll begin to capture and delight their prospects who expect a stellar customer experience, just like what they get in the B2C world. Good luck in 2024!

 


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I'm a growth marketing consultant who helps B2B, SaaS, IT, technology and software companies generate more leads, sales and grow revenue online. I offer expert advice on marketing your company the right way through performance-based SEO, digital marketing, social media, search engine marketing and many other online practices. Connect with me on LinkedIn and schedule a free marketing strategy session!

Comments

  1. The information on your blog is really useful.
    Something that I strongly believe is that new businesses/startups should mandatorily frame a Multi-Stage Content Marketing strategy.
    In this manner, they would be able to engage their viewers at every stage of the decision making journey.
    For example
    Brand Awareness- Light and non-detailed content just to raise awareness and drive leads.
    Lead Generation- Detailed and high-value content to address the consumer’s pain points.
    Lead Conversion- Content that can facilitate the consumer to make decisions.
    After-Sales- Follow-up e-mails offering coupons and discount

  2. blank Jacob Goodwin : January 18, 2020 at 7:01 pm

    Hello there Mike,

    Great post! Thanks for all these strategies you’ve shared in the article, I found them really helpful and inspiring.

    If I may add, most of these tactics you’ve shared above are mainly about inbound marketing. So, do you think it’s now unnecessary to invest in advertising and other “outbound” channels?

    Thanks again, and best regards,

    Jacob

    • Hi there Jacob,

      Thanks for your visit, and thanks for the kind words.

      To answer your question, yes, the effectiveness of outbound marketing channels has declined rapidly in recent years, and so the cost of getting results from these outbound channels are now (extremely) expensive.

      I did, however, discuss a bit about social media advertising, which can still be effective depending on your niche/industry.

      In my opinion, however, the issue with outbound marketing nowadays is no longer solely about cost, but with the fast-paced digital marketing space nowadays, it’s impossible for outbound marketing tactics to be relevant to all needs and challenges faced by various audiences since the message must be very general to be appropriate for the largest possible number of people.

      That is, it’s very hard to personalize outbound marketing efforts, lowering their effectiveness based on today’s demands. There are still advertising channels that can be effective, but we have to be careful in targeting, personalizing, and managing costs.

      Hope this is clear enough, let me know!

      Thanks and best regards,

      Mike

  3. blank Jacob Goodwin : January 18, 2020 at 7:04 pm

    Hello again Mike,

    Thanks for your answer, it’s pretty clear. I guess I got the idea.

    Keep up the good work,

    Jacob

  4. Thanks for this, Mike, I’ve learned a lot from this post, and this has helped me a lot in planning a marketing strategy for my company.

    If I may ask, since you discussed a bit about social media marketing, which platforms/networks should I focus on in my marketing campaign (my company is B2C)

    Thanks in advance, and again, good job,

    Della Harmon

    • Hi there Della,

      Thanks for your time in reading this post, and glad I can help. Thanks for the kind words!

      To answer your question,

      Facebook (it might be a surprise considering the recent reputation) is still the number one platform to focus your social media marketing—especially advertising—in 2020, because of its large audience (more than 2 billion daily active users). Instagram is also an obvious pick in the B2C environment, as well as Twitter and YouTube (for ads).

      For organic social media marketing (and influencer marketing), you should mainly focus on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube (for video marketing)

      Hope it’s clear, and best regards,

      Mike

Comments are closed.