8 Ways to Promote Your Tech Startup

A surprisingly large number of people believe that tech giants such as Microsoft or Instagram came out of the garage and conquered the world with the sheer power of their genius. While this sounds romantic and encouraging for beginner-level startups, serious entrepreneurs know that it takes much more than a good idea to get the business going.

A great product is only the first step in this process. The second step is to conduct a marketing strategy and convince people that your products or services are somehow way better than competitors. This is the only way to get your foot in the door surrounded by dozens or even hundreds of similar startups.

Luckily enough, there are numerous ways to design a captivating marketing campaign and promote your project. You just need to focus and follow the right guidelines, so here come 8 tips to promote your tech startup.

Display Advertising

Some marketers consider display advertising to be obsolete, but it still generates a lot of leads and conversions. Modern ads are a mix of multimedia content, including text, images, video, and audio. They also come in different shapes and formats across industries.

Thanks to big data, it is now possible to precisely target your audience and increase conversion rates. At the same time, it is possible to re-target bounced visitors and convince them to complete the purchase using discounts, promo coupons, or some other perk. But don’t forget to measure the effect of display advertising.

You should know which channels produce the best results and which ones to avoid. Sometimes you will concentrate only on one medium of communication, while some other time you will do cross-platform promotion. In each case, a post-campaign analysis will give you valuable insights and show the right direction.

 

Paid Search

Relevance is the strongest feature of paid search advertising. Only users who really look for the keyword or phrases related to your products or niche will actually see those ads, which means that they intend to take concrete action.

Paid search ensures consistent website traffic, increasing the number of leads and the overall conversion potential. Your ads will be shown among top search results on all platforms and provide extra visibility for your startup even if users don’t click your link.

This is particularly good for startup owners who have just created the website and cannot count on organic searches. Unlike traditional advertising, paid search campaigns are easy to set up, so you can count on traffic boost very soon.

 

Social Media Marketing

Paid advertising is inevitable, but you can’t count on the long-term success of your company if you don’t grow organically. Social media are the most productive channels for organic outreach as they offer you a variety of possibilities.

We don’t suggest you create accounts on all network because it would take you too much time and you wouldn’t be able to focus on real work. Instead, try to find 2 or 3 channels that gather the majority of your target audience.

For example, LinkedIn is mandatory for B2B companies that want to build online authority. Almost 60% of Twitter users earn more than $50 thousand annually, so this might be a good option for your startup if you are trying to grab the attention of users with solid purchasing power.

Regardless of the network you choose, you need to keep a few factors in mind:

• Post relevant content: Nobody wants to see low-quality and irrelevant content.
• Don’t be too pushy: Establish good relations with followers before you begin selling. Even then, you should follow the 80/20 principle and publish 80% of informative posts and only 20% of sales posts.
• Engage: Users want to see that there is a real person speaking on behalf of your company, so you have to engage, answer comments, and discuss industry-related topics with followers.

 

On-Site Optimization

As a tech guru, you must know that on-site optimization is incredibly important for your company. If you want to land a lot of visitors to your webpage, you need to make sure to:

• Use the right keywords: Everybody knows that keywords are an anchor of SEO, so take your time to find the best options.
• Optimize load speed: No one will wait for more than just a few seconds to access your website.
• Adapt for mobile: In the world with more than 5 billion smartphone owners, you have to optimize the website for mobile.
• Mind the URL structure: Metadata and page link is also important, so don’t forget to optimize these features as well.

 

Content Creation

Digital marketers often say that “content is king”. While this may sound pretentious, it’s not so far away from the truth. After all, who would want to visit your website if you don’t offer quality content? You need to share in-depth product analysis, make clever comments about industry trends, and use different content types. Go beyond blogs and publish multimedia content such as videos, audio podcasts, opinion polls and quizzes, infographics, etc.

 

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the oldest online promotion mechanisms, but it definitely didn’t lose the battle against younger opponents. As the matter of fact, nearly 60% of B2B marketers say email is their most effective channel in terms of revenue generation.

It’s a highly profitable marketing channel for tech startups as well, but you need to know how to write outreach emails. Here are a few hints:

• Appealing headline: Don’t be boring and generic or your message will end up deleted.
• Style: Your writing must be direct, concise, and easy to read.
• Keep it short: You can reveal everything in several paragraphs.
• Include CTA: Don’t leave receivers wondering what to do after reading, so include calls to action in every email.

 

Organize Events

The world is going increasingly digital, but it’s still important to organize an occasional face-to-face meeting with clients, partners, and colleagues. You could use events to present new products or launch special campaigns.

It’s also the opportunity to strengthen relations with industry leaders and grow the network of professional acquaintances. After all, it’s people who run the business and not machines.

 

PR Campaigns

Internet, information technology, and hi-tech gadgets have become a trendy topic in the last decade. Rosa Hood, a digital marketing specialist at ResumesPlanet, explained it briefly: “You should ride the wave of IT popularity and plan PR campaigns to promote your startup along with its products or services. Make a list of niche-related media outlets and send them a press release to announce your campaigns or events. Try to meet journalists who create public opinion and explain the details of your business”.

If this is too much work for you, you could let professionals do the job on your behalf. This way, you’ll be able to focus on your own work and still make sure that you’ll get the most of the PR campaign.

 

CONCLUSION

Launching a startup is always an exciting project. With a little bit of creativity and a lot of hard work, you can build a tech giant rather quickly. However, keep in mind the “hard work” part.

In order to succeed, you must design a great product and develop the corresponding marketing strategy. In this post, we showed you 8 ways to promote your tech startup.

What tactic do you consider most important for your business? Do you have other interesting proposals to share with our readers? Feel free to leave a comment – we’d love to discuss this topic with you!

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Author bio: Warren is a marketing enthusiast and a blogger at ResumesPlanet.com, who loves music. If he doesn’t have a guitar in his hands, he’s probably embracing new technologies and marketing techniques online! You can meet him on Twitter and Facebook.

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