10 ways to Market your Startup with Little to NO Cash Infusion!

[savvylife]

As I am working on a startup myself, I've spent countless hours trying to distill effective ways to market our business/service with little-to-no-money. Here are my top 10 ideas!​

1. Bloggers

• Start a dialogue with top bloggers in your niche via Twitter/E-Mail. Praise their work and how you've implemented x,y,z into your life. Only do this if true. The goal is to start a conversation. Later on, show them your product/business/website and offer to write a post for them to highlight on their site (only if applicable).
• https://smartblogger.com/blogger-outreach/

2. Reporters

• Same format as above.
• https://www.helpareporter.com/

3. Q&A Websites

• Yahoo Answers!: Answer relevant questions with in-depth, appropriate answers. Self promote business within applicable answers and your profile.

4. Facebook

• Share valuable posts from your blog/business website or just relevant industry data points, get friends/family/colleagues to share.

5. Infographics

• Put together useful infographic(s) surrounding your niche. Share on Pinterest, other document sharing sites.

6. YouTube

• Create highly valuable videos surrounding your niche. Self promote within the video and its associated description.

7. Guerilla

• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-marketing-tactics-that-helped-us-crack-the-college-market/
• Flash Mob
• https://www.aplayermedia.com/blog/2017/11/14/guerilla-marketing-for-startup-and-music-brands
• https://www.stickermule.com
• Find your competitors haters or users that suggested a tweak that was never implemented. Reach out on a 1 by 1 basis, showing how your solution is exactly what they are looking for.
• Chalk near universities and central park

8. Create curated video (product demo/introduction)

• https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-product/
• https://medium.com/watch-us-startup/putting-together-a-product-demo-video-95da4b87768a
• https://www.appsterhq.com/blog/5-elements-best-product-demo-videos/

9. Content marketing

• a. Find out what people are talking about the most (Reddit [what's getting upvoted], news articles, etc.). Find an article that touches on the subject and see what its MISSING. Write one that covers the same information, but filling the gaps. Market like crazy (post to relevant subs, social media, etc.)

10. Influencers

• Of course, if you know of anyone with a large following, getting them to promote the business is a huge help! If not, try following the same format as the Bloggers/Reporters part above.

What do you guys think? Would you add anything here?

 

[dulcismo]

@savvylife We’ve focused on micro influencers (people with less than 1000 followers) rather than influencers and have had great success. Influencers that are bigger than 1000 followers are building their own personal brand and are usually looking for money or a tonne of free product. Micro influencers will genuinely promote your business if they like what you are doing since they aren’t being paid for it and likely have a real highly engaged following. We’re a clothing company and built a real good following this way of people that genuinely want to support what you are doing.

 

[savvylife]

@dulcismo That's a great piece of info. How are you finding these microinfluencers and what have you found to be the best way to engage them?

 

[dulcismo]

@savvylife Mostly it’s people who are following you already or someone who is an early customer. We get them involved in a photoshoot that we are doing or invite them to our events. Most of these people are thrilled to support and want to help out any they can. If we get them some high quality pics of them in our gear they will share them out on their social. They are crucial for getting early feedback as well.

 

[charlly]

@dulcismo Interesting, thanks for this. Mind if I reach out to you via PM?

 

[dulcismo]

@charlly Absolutely. Feel free