6 Digital Marketing Tips For Startups

Digital marketing is a complicated beast, especially if you’re just getting into it. What’s more, digital marketing tactics change on an almost monthly or even weekly basis, given how often search engines change their SEO requirements and backend workings.

Still, the broader strategies and know-hows tend to stay the same, and it’s just their details and exact execution that change. So, if you’re thinking of launching a startup and you’re not sure what to prioritize and what to ignore –

Here are our top 6 digital marketing tips for startups.

1. Audit your own website

When search engines list their results, they don’t do so solely on a page-by-page basis – they factor in the “quality” of the entire website each page is in. In other words, even if you create the perfect blog post or landing page – perfect in any way, including SEO – but the rest of your website isn’t up to the standards of Google’s web crawlers, then chances are that your “perfect” page won’t rank too highly in the end.

To fix that, it’s a good idea to periodically – and especially in the beginning – audit your own website yourself. There are various tools, such as Ahrefs that can help you do that. Such tools will show you what’s ok with your website and what needs improving.

2. Consider using both paid and free tools for organic traffic

Paying for traffic can sound frustrating, especially for a small startup. Paid search marketing or “pay per click (PPC)” is something small and new business want to avoid. However, it is a huge part of most effective digital marketing strategies.

The good news here is that many PPC tools have either a free version or a short free trial period. This usually isn’t enough in and of itself for a long and holistic digital marketing campaign, however, if you’re smart and strategic enough, you can combined the free features and trial versions of multiple otherwise paid PPC tools for a prolonged and free “paid” organic traffic-boosting strategy.

3. Keyword research is key

Yes, it’s pretty much in the name – proper keyword research is an absolutely key part of any SEO strategy. Many people think they can just hire someone to draft up a quick text and it will probably feature most of the important keywords, as they are relevant to the topic anyway. Sure, if you’re starting a new dating app, for example, any text you write about it will probably include “find a partner” anyway, why bother with keyword research?

However, the difference between “feature most of the relevant keywords” and “feature all relevant keywords while excluding all negative keywords) is huge – Google’s web crawlers pay extreme attention to this stuff and, suffice it to say, that there is plenty of competition online. And, yes, there is such a thing as “negative keywords” – terms you really don’t want in your web content as it will ruin your SEO. So – prioritize keyword research as soon as possible.

4. Email marketing is still one of the top drivers of digital marketing success

Many people today look over newsletters and email marketing as “a thing of the past.” It’s certainly not for every startup, however, you’d be surprised how huge of a percentage of businesses do (or would) greatly benefit from a great email marketing campaign. If this is something you were thinking of ignoring, we’d certainly urge you to reconsider.

5. Do some audience research before you initiate your social media strategy

Audience research can be done in many way – in your physical store, via email, at the point of sale, and so on. And one of the key things to include in it is your audience’s preferred social media. Most startups just go with the 2-3 social media channels that sound intuitive to them, but that’s a hit or miss “strategy” that often wastes them a lot of time, effort, and opportunity. The much smarter way to go about this is to ask your own audience where they would usually look for the products or services you provide, and then go there yourself.

6. User-generated content is one of the easiest, most affordable, and most effective tools in your marketing arsenal

User-generated content or UGC is one of the easiest ways to boost your own site’s and business’ presence online. Stuff such as customer surveys, product reviews, contests with branded hashtags, gifting free products to loyal customers, creating a customer referral incentive, and so on, can all be a great way to prompt your customers to create more relevant content around your brand for you.