6 marketing essentials for a new startup

Every entrepreneur knows that startup marketing is one of the most valuable focuses of building a new company. Many new businesses don’t have the resources to purchase ad campaigns or third-party marketing help, so it’s often up to the founders of the startup to build a brand and market it effectively. This initial marketing strategy could make the difference between a company that becomes a leader in its industry and one that fails to differentiate itself from all of the competition. If you’re building a business, take a look at these six must-have marketing tools for new startups:

1. Physical marketing materials
Don’t underestimate the value of small items like custom-designed business cards, personalized stationery with a business letterhead and other physical marketing tools. These items will be used to correspond with potential and current clients and customers, so you’ll want to make sure they’re well-designed to thoughtfully differentiate your business from other vendors your clients will do business with.

2. A great logo
One way to design great business cards and other physical marketing materials is to make sure you have a meaningful logo you can use. For any business, a logo should be ubiquitous across many formats, including physical marketing tools as well as social media and other online content. But for new businesses, the logo will be less widely known and should be used to introduce the general public to your company and what it does. This means everything connected to the business should feature both your logo and your business’s name so that the two start becoming synonymous. Then, in a few years, people will be able to see your logo and instantly think of your brand.

3. A defined brand
Your brand should be the first thing you define as the entrepreneur of a startup. Your brand is what will be defined by your logo and will be built upon by the rest of your marketing strategies. This means denoting a clear objective, a target audience and how your company is different from other businesses in the industry. What do you have to offer that other businesses don’t? Everything you do – online and in person – should drive that point home to potential clients.

4. A social media presence
These days, a social media presence is one of the most important ways for businesses to market themselves for free. Any business should have a constant presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and some businesses may also benefit from sites like Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and even Snapchat. These sites should be updated daily, ideally building a network on each that will allow any content you post to reach as many people as possible.

5. A website
Another important aspect of building an online presence is creating a website – but not just any webpage will do. Your website should be easy to navigate, dynamic and contain as much information as possible in a well-organized way. Think of your website as the foundation of your online presence – this is where prospective clients will go to see who you are and what you stand for, and they should be able to get a feel for your brand instantly upon searching for you on Google.

6. Valuable content
The building blocks of both your website and your social media will be the content that lives there. This content should be meaningful to your target audience, and encourage people to click through and generate leads for your company. This means you should likely build a blog, as well as sharing both your original blog content and other relevant content from other businesses throughout your social media pages.