A startup must market itself and make as many sales as possible or else it will be nipped in the bud. However, it may be a challenge for a startup to convince people that it has a product to sell. There is no enough capital to fund more feasible marketing strategies, and people are yet to know about the business. It is tricky but manageable. Here are sales and marketing tips for startups
Practice face-to-face marketing
As noted above, being a startup, you may not have the money to pay for expensive marketing techniques like paid ads. That should not mean that you cannot market your business and sell your goods. Roll up your sleeves and be ready to market your business by all means. Move from door to door and interact with people from all walks of life through word of mouth communication. Have several samples of your product as you walk around.
Make everyone a marketer
Everyone is a marketer. Or should I say everyone should be a marketer? A startup may not have a well-established marketing department. That should mean that everyone should be a marketer because the startup must market itself or die. Therefore, everyone from the lowest paid groundsman to the CEO should engage in aggressive marketing strategies to ensure that the business is on its feet first. A marketing department can be established later (or reinforced if it existed) when the business stabilizes.
Come up with unique marketing techniques
As a startup, you need a marketing strategy that will identify you uniquely in the business world. When people go to the market, they are looking for a purple cow. They have had enough of black and brown cows. Therefore, provide this purple cow and people will be looking for you wherever you are. This will help you leap from the startup stage to the growth and maturity stages. Coming up with a unique marketing technique is the way to becoming indispensable in the market even after the startup stage.
It is ok to lie as a marketer
Whichever marketing strategies you are using, you are allowed to lie as long as you don’t get yourself into a legal tussle. Marketers will always be liars. That, however, does not mean that you can say something that is outright wrong about your product. You are only allowed to exaggerate the positive side and downplay the negative side.
Leverage the unique features of the social media
Social media is a cheap way of advertising a startup business. All you need to do is to open an official page for the startup and have people to like it. Interact with your fans on a one-on-one basis and know when to introduce your products to them. Notice that people are not looking for goods and services on social media. They are there to interact with their friends and relatives. Therefore, talk about yourself more than you talk about your product. Your fans will slowly start getting interested in the goods that you sell.