Marketing Tips To Help New Business Owners Survive In Today’s Commercial Landscape

Starting a business has never been easier, thanks to the growth of online commerce. But as you may well know, most startups don’t make it, with 42 percent of new businesses failing because they misunderstand market demands, according to CB Insights. Marketing is an ever-changing beast, but there are a few overarching trends that tend to define the kind of practice that makes for long-term success. Marketing effectively is just as essential as good employee training to ensure that you survive the first vital year of your operations. Keep these tips in mind so you can do just that.

Figure Out Your Unique Selling Point

While market demand has reached precipitous heights in the recent months, there’s also an overabundance of businesses clamoring to meet it in some way. If it’s not megacorporations taking the lion’s share of your customer base, it’s your legions and legions of other competitors. Hence, it’s vital that you find out what sets you apart from them all, and bank heavily on that.
This is called the unique selling proposition, or USP. You’ve probably already come across it, in the form of a company guarantee expressed in a tagline such as “if it’s not there in 30 minutes, it’s free” or “melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” Your own USP can be a mixture of guarantees and perks that will make customers think of your service as better quality than the rest. The best way to do this is to attune yourself to the needs of your client base. For example, Warby Parker, an exclusively online retailer of prescription glasses, made their mail-in “try 5 frames at home for free” service even more convenient by making it virtual, removing the extra hassle of receiving and sending back the trial package.

Invest Heavily in Earned Media

The value of influencer marketing can no longer be ignored in modern business. But it is also not a tool to wield haphazardly. What most businesses usually do is to simply sponsor an influencer to endorse their product. While this is simpler and easier, your audience is going to be more skeptical of your product since they know that the influencer was simply paid to say all those nice things.
A more difficult but more rewarding way to leverage influencer marketing is through what social media marketing experts call “earned media”. If you generate buzz in such a way that gets lots of people talking about your products or your company, eventually influencers will start to cover your business in some fashion all of their own accord. This also increases the likelihood that you’ll get more than a few e-celebrities talking about you, whereas as a startup you would probably only be able to afford to sponsor a handful of personalities. Just as with your USP, you can be as creative as you want with this tactic, as long as it gets people talking. Some businesses try their hand at marketing stunts, others at appealing to young people’s tastes. You can also generate buzz by being an all-around good employer. Being hands-on but not restrictive or imposing, investing in excellent small business insurance and worker’s comp packages to protect your employees, and other wholesome business practices can get appreciative employees talking positively about your company.

Update Yourself on SEO

With the new algorithms Google and other tech giants are rolling out, the world of SEO will be forever changed. Some of the resources available online, and indeed even some SEO experts, may be slow on the uptake with this development. Make sure you’re up-to-date on the current state of SEO. Keywords are no longer king. Right now, ensuring each of your web pages has quality content will be key to securing a decent ranking. Google’s new SMITH algorithm is shaping up to be smart enough to distinguish between poorly researched articles, misinformation, spam, fluff, and actual valuable info. Other algorithms favor direct answers to queries, conversational marketing, and site visitor satisfaction.
These three tips aren’t the end-all means to marketing success, but they can help you form a solid idea of what it is you need to do to excel in that aspect. Weave them tightly into your strategies, and with a little luck, they should help you punch through the filter that culls the vast majority of all startups.