Managing Startups: Best Blog Posts

Chapter 20. The Ultimate Guide to Startup Marketing

Renee Warren

Starting a business is exhilarating. Unfortunately, the “build it and they will come” theory doesn’t hold much weight, and those overnight success stories you hear about are often the result of (behind the scenes) years of hard work. Simply put, startup marketing is often a unique challenge because of limited resources, whether it’s time, money, or talent.

You have to be sure every effort, no matter how small, is well planned and flawlessly executed. And to make it even more difficult, the traditional marketing strategies don’t always work.

Startup marketing is a whole different science. How so? The secret is properly combining the right channels: content marketing and PR.

So, starting from the beginning, here’s the complete Startup Marketing Manual.

Foundation

Before you start laying bricks, you need a solid foundation. A successful startup marketing strategy follows that same principle. Before you jump into marketing your startup, make sure you have the following bases covered.

1. Choosing a Market

It’s easy for startup founders to believe the whole world will love their products. After all, founders eat, sleep, and breathe their products. The reality is that only a small portion of the population is interested in your product.

If you try to market your startup to everyone, you waste both time and money. The key is to identify ...