9 Sales and Marketing Tips for Startups

Marketing done right can be an incredible boon for your business’s net income.
Done wrong, however, it can feel like throwing money into a raging bonfire.
Because small business owners have to be whatever their small business needs --
all the time -- it can be difficult to master all the nuances that go into sales or
marketing. If you’re not a natural salesperson, it can be even more difficult, but the
following nine marketing tips for startups can help make more sales, market better
and waste less money. I’ll discuss each point briefly and tell you all the
recommendations that specialists have prepared for new to the business.

1. Sell the benefit, not a comparison

How you market yourself is all about highlighting what makes you different. There
are three major ways to do that.
 Cost (you know how to price a product better than the competition)
 Quality (you’re better)
 A combination thereof (you offer the better value)
But how you sell yourself is different than how you market yourself. You can tell
someone that you provide a product or service that is cheaper or more effective
than that of another business, but that doesn’t say how much better you are going
to make the customer’s life. Selling is about the benefit. A comparison may
highlight the features you offer, but you are always selling benefit, just remember
that.

2. Listen to your customer

Sam Walton, WalMart's famed mass retail titan, started his empire in rural
America. This was despite the prevailing business logic saying a mass retailer
anywhere but in a city with a concentrated population would fail. The logic was, if
you wanted to move mass quantities of goods, you needed mass quantities of
people.
But Walton knew his customers because he would frequently listen to them
firsthand. He was aware that people who lived in rural and suburban areas often
bought in larger quantities because they had larger families or needed more goods
to keep their own small businesses stocked and running. Walton listened to his
customers, and the result is the largest, most powerful brick and mortar retailer in
the world. The customers may at times defy logic, but they are always right. Listen
to them.

3. Market your product before it’s ready

Some businesses wait until their product is perfect before they do any marketing or
awareness campaigning. That can be a costly mistake. Many businesses expect to
sell their product as soon as it’s ready. But if no one knows about it, then demand
will start at zero until you undergo a marketing campaign to build brand awareness
for potential customers.
It’s better to do pre-emptive awareness campaigning, even if it’s minimal, to let
potential customers know your product is coming. You can sell the benefit before
the product has arrived. This way, when the product is ready, so are customers!

4. Think outside the box

The marketing landscape has dramatically changed since technologies were
implemented in a daily life of each person. Back then, there were no search
engines or social media platforms. There was no internet as we know it. Now,
startups can utilize a bevy of free, online marketing techniques that are both
creative and effective. For example, you can use online video marketing, social
media, blog influencers, crowdsourcing, competitions, content marketing, thought
leadership and more. To sum up, you could do anything and use everything, there’s
just one requirement – you should be different and creative!

5. Test fast. Fail fast

Marketing that you can’t measure is failed marketing. Sure, you may spend money
to do some advertisement, and you may even see an uptick in sales around the
same time you ran the ads. But how can you be sure what you spent on ads
correlates with sales? Maybe it was something else altogether. Maybe there is a
natural, seasonal uptick for what you sell that will go away in a month.
If you’re going to commit time and money to a marketing campaign, make sure
you can measure the results. Set up ways to track conversions that stem from each
marketing campaign. Also, run multiple types of marketing campaigns in distinct,
small batches. This will allow you to compare marketing channels and see which
perform best. Toss out the ones that don’t work and keep those that do.

6. Advertise from multiple angles

As mentioned above, it’s good to test multiple marketing channels and ideas to see
what works best. Often, it’s not any one thing but a combination of all of the
above. When your customer hears you on the radio, sees you in a search engine
result, and then finds you mentioned in a blog they like (that’s how content
marketing works), they start to accept your brand as a solid, dependable, known
entity. They may not have the need for your product or service immediately, but
when they do, it will be your name that comes to mind instead of a competitor’s.

7. It’s always time for PR

When you do traditional advertising, it’s your marketing material selling your
product. When you do PR, or have a member of the press or a media house that
covers your industry talk about you, it’s brand building and endorsement.
Some people call it landing-page flair or credibility building, but, if your company
is featured in The Wall Street Journal, you’d be silly not to put that paper’s name
on the front of your company's website. Even if your company was only mentioned
by way of a quote from your CEO, you are still “as mentioned in The Wall Street
Journal.” When customers see that publication’s name next to your company’s
name, it builds credibility.
Even little PR wins, like local news or blogs. Good PR can do a lot for your
credibility and brand awareness.

8. Give customers a place to talk to/about you

Good or bad, you want to know what your customers are saying. If you don’t
provide your customers with a place to complain or praise you, it makes it look
like their thoughts and opinions don’t matter. Remember, even if a customer comes
to you and is furious, that’s a great opportunity for you to publicly show how
willing you are to right a wrong, or make a customer feel valued -- which is PR
gold.
By providing a place on your site for this kind of exchange to happen, you can
address the issue and control a portion of that narrative. The alternative is that your
customer goes to a third-party site and complains where you can’t address the issue
nor tailor an edited response.

9. We look forward to seeing you again

Reward loyalty or interest. If you run your own business or just want to, it’s better
to memorize that your customers are your sales department. Word-of-mouth
testimonials and customers who are brand advocates are better than any sales team
you could put together. So, the best decision is to continuously reward customers
with competitive pricing, incredible customer support and other benefits that
you’re able to offer.
All in all, I’d like to point out that there’s a lot that business could gain from
marketing that has been done right, whether it might be difficult while you’re
beginning. The only way to master all the nuances that go into sales or marketing
is anything but practice.
Also, I’ve got a question for the audience: “What do you think is the most
important point in the business marketing strategy for attracting the attention of
customers?” (Either from my presentation or from your own life experience).
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284271