What Every Startup Founder Needs to Know About Digital Marketing Before Spending Their Hard-Earned Dollars

You sit in front of your computer, and you have three tabs open showing you three completely different things. One tab tells you that you need ads. Another tab tells you that you need SEO. And yet, another tab tells you that as a startup owner, you should post on each of your company’s social media accounts daily. All of this advice sounds great, and all of it costs money, either directly through advertising dollars, indirectly through hiring someone to manage your online presence, or both.

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In many cases, when you are first starting out as a business owner, digital marketing can seem like the quickest way to be noticed. In some instances, it truly is. However, until you understand your offer, your customer base, and your financials, throwing money at digital marketing strategies is simply burning through cash while trying to learn.

Take Your Time and Get Serious About Making Decisions Around Budgeting Before You Put Any Money Behind Anything

If you plan on spending money to attract people to your business, then you absolutely need to know how easily people can identify what your business does and what problems your business solves. Your offer needs to be so easy to comprehend by a complete stranger that they don’t need to have your entire pitch explained to them. What do you do? Who is your target market? What problem does your solution solve? Why should anyone care right now?

Newer founders tend to jump into marketing too early. They may have a website, their logo is done, they have set up all their social media platforms, etc., however, they still haven’t figured out their messaging. When this occurs, it creates wasted time. Customers may visit your site, view the offerings available on your site, and then leave your site immediately once they determine that they are unsure of exactly what action to take.

Simple language wins against complex, creative wordplay. If your customer has limited time available, is confused about the products/services offered by multiple businesses similar to yours, and/or is researching options, clarity is going to win.

Close the Basic Trust Gaps First

Digital marketing will likely fail to deliver results if the foundation of the basic elements of your brand is unpolished.

Prior to investing any money into digital marketing strategies, ensure the simple stuff is working correctly. Can users navigate to other pages from your home page without waiting an eternity? Are your contact details visible/accessible? Do your web pages clearly define what services/products you provide? Is there a tangible person, location, or story behind the business? Are your form submissions being accepted successfully?

While you do not require a polished brand prior to commencing marketing activities, you do need to appear active, reachable, and legitimate.

A small leak in trust can kill a potential sale. For example, a customer may enjoy an advertisement for a product/service, but upon landing on a sparse website, may hesitate about purchasing the item. Similarly, although a customer may want to inquire about an offering, they may lose interest due to frustration from the poor user experience during the inquiry process. While these “quiet leaks” can be difficult to measure, closing such gaps will cause your subsequent marketing efforts to generate better returns.

How To Choose Which Platforms Align Most Closely with Your Customer’s Behavior

The most common debate is whether one particular platform is better than another. Ultimately, it would be more productive to ask yourself this: on which platforms are my customers looking for a solution in relation to what I offer? 

A service-based business will have different needs. If they need immediate solutions from their customers, they can use SEO (search engine optimization). On the other hand, if a B2B startup wants to build peer-to-peer relationships through trust that takes much longer, then the type of content used, how referrals occur, and communication with potential clients will likely be important factors. If a product-based business is trying to create awareness for their products or brand using images and/or testimonials, as well as repetitive messaging about their products or brand, then all three elements above could be useful.

This consideration becomes especially relevant with regard to paid channels like Google Ads, since failing to effectively target the correct audience or send visitors to irrelevant pages can result in wasteful spending.

Test Small Prior to Scaling Big

Your initial marketing dollar investment should provide insight and knowledge for improvement. Launch small tests. Run tests on individual messaging concepts, specific audiences, or singular offers. Track responses. Did people click? Did they respond via email? Were the inquiries generated from targeted areas representative of the ideal demographic you were looking to reach?

Don’t be too reliant upon views/likes; they are valuable, however, they represent only one piece of the entire puzzle. Lower volume campaigns that generate quality leads have better ROI (Return On Investment) when compared to higher-viewed campaigns with less desirable audiences.

Store data from each of the test campaigns you conduct. Ask for follow-up information as to how customers found your business. Record any consistencies or patterns within customer behavior prior to expanding the larger budget spending.

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Be Proactive In Managing Activities Related To Your Digital Marketing Strategy.

It is certainly feasible to hire contractors that can provide assistance with aspects of your digital marketing strategy; however, do not delegate all control too soon into the process. Founders need to be receiving customer feedback as they are addressing their questions, concerns, and fears. Those responses will help make better marketing choices going forward. That same type of response will show you what consumers care most about, what confuses them, and what creates hesitation throughout the buying cycle.

Therefore, when using customer feedback (as opposed to just focusing on activity) as a basis for creating your digital marketing strategy, it works better.

Budget correctly. Track results. Make changes before increasing your budget. A less exciting approach, perhaps; however, this approach is substantially more likely to produce a successful result by investing your money in areas that matter most.