We’re excited to announce that Text Blaze (YC W21) is currently seeking a Growth Engineer who is passionate about leveraging large language models (LLMs) to transform the world of growth marketing. In this role, you’ll have the unique opportunity to drive our user acquisition and activation journey end-to-end, exploring and experimenting with innovative ways to use LLMs to promote Text Blaze’s capabilities and grow existing users’ usage of Text Blaze by generating personalized content tailored to each user.
About Text Blaze
At Text Blaze, we’re dedicated to freeing users from tedious work by providing them with simple yet powerful solutions. We’re fast-paced, data-driven, and constantly iterating based on the needs of our users.
Joining us means being part of a profitable, fast-growing company that already has an excellent product-market fit and a deeply loyal user base of over 300,000 users. As a member of our founding team, you’ll have a substantial impact on our product, strategy, and culture.
We’re fully remote. You’ll be part of a team that embraces ownership and impact, all while working comfortably from your own home.
Skills and Qualifications
– A passion for talking to users and understanding their problems.
– A knack for identifying business needs and developing technical solutions to address them.
– An eye for design and comfort with designing your own UI’s and solutions.
– Experience or strong interest working with large language models, prompt engineering and post-processing
– Proficiency in SQL, Python and JavaScript
This is an opportunity to be at the forefront of the LLM-driven growth revolution. If you’re eager to rethink growth and transform how we interact with potential users, we’d love to hear from you.
To apply please email us at hiring@blaze.today
Feel free to reach out to us directly if you have any questions!
If your answer is yes, then you need a detailed guide on how to start a startup.
For those of you who haven’t launched a business before, it can sound like an intimidating task.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that getting your startup off the ground is an easy mission.
It takes hard work, dedication, money, some sleepless nights, and, yes, some failures before you succeed.
Nearly 20 percent of businesses fail in the first year, and just because you make it beyond 12 months doesn’t mean your startup is going to continue to thrive.
According to government stats, 30.6 percent of businesses fail after their second year, 49.7 percent fail after five years, and 65.6 percent fail after their tenth year.
Once you get your company off the ground, it doesn’t get any easier: you need to work just as hard to keep it going each year.
With that said, it’s useful to have a guide and a set of instructions to follow to learn how to launch a startup.
When I write about launching a startup, I’m talking from personal experience. I’ve created several startup companies like Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and NP Digital.
I’m happy to share my knowledge and experience to help make things a little easier and less stressful for you as you go through this process.
Realistically, it takes hundreds of stages to launch your company, but I’ve narrowed down the top 7 steps into a blueprint for you to follow if you want to learn how to start a startup and learn how to create and develop your own business.
In the following article, I outline and discuss each step in detail so you have a better understanding of what I’m talking about.
Let’s begin with the basics.
1. Create a Business Plan
Have you heard the saying ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail?’ That was the thinking of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
Well, research appears to back that up. Study after study shows that businesses with a plan are more likely to succeed. In addition, you can find many articles spelling out the importance of a business plan.
“A business plan is a very important and strategic tool for entrepreneurs. A good business plan not only helps entrepreneurs focus on the specific steps necessary for them to make business ideas succeed, but it also helps them to achieve short-term and long-term objectives.”
It’s pretty straightforward, really. Having an idea is one thing, but having a legitimate business plan is another story.
A proper business plan gives you a significant advantage, but what should you include in a business plan? It helps if you think of it as a written description of your company’s future. Basically, you outline what you want to do and how you plan to do it.
Typically, these plans outline the first three to five years of your business strategy and detail your business’s purpose and aims. Ideally, your document should outline your business goals, strategies, and your plans for achieving them.
Here are the key steps to writing a successful business plan:
Outline your business goals
Describe your target market
Explain your product or service
Detail your marketing and sales strategies
Write down your financial projections and detail the funding
Summarize your overall strategy
If you need some help with your plan, the Small Business Administration has an easy-to-follow guide, along with some templates.
2. Secure Appropriate Funding
Without adequate funding, your business won’t launch or stay afloat long-term. According to Statista, in 2021, there were nearly 840,000 businesses that had been in operation for less than a year. Many of these startups won’t survive because they underestimate the cost of doing business.
Perhaps you’re wondering what level of financing you need? When it comes to raising cash, there’s no magic number that applies to all businesses. The startup costs vary from industry to industry, so your company may require more or less funding depending on the situation.
Costs also vary depending on whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store, e-commerce enterprise, or service business. If you’re unsure how much you might need, try the SBA’S startup cost templates to get a better idea.
Online startup loans, which you can apply for online and pay back over time, with interest.
SBA microloans, providing up to $50,000 in loans for start-up businesses. The main advantage is the lower interest rates.
Lines of credit, which is a type of loan available in both secured and unsecured formats.
Invoice factoring/financing, a process in which a business sells its invoices to a third party, at a discount.
Friends/family/personal loans, which are unsecured loans.
Business loans, which you pay back over an agreed period.
Angel investors, who have considerable wealth and give seed funding to start-up businesses.
Crowdfunding, where you raise money from a group of investors online.
Let’s circle back to our business plan for a minute.
All business plans contain a financial plan. This usually includes a:
Balance sheet, which displays your business’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity of the company.
Sales forecast, which predicts future sales.
Profit and loss statement, which details your earning and spending patterns. This figure helps calculate your net income.
Cash-flow statement, or financial statement detailing how much your business has spent and generated.
You use these financial statements to determine how much funding you need to launch successfully. Additionally, you may discover that the number is significantly higher than you originally anticipated.
For example, I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “That would make a great app,” or “I should make an app for this.”
Do you know how much it costs to make an app? Depending on the complexity, you’re looking at anything between $40,000 – $300,000, and that’s just to make it.
This is the point I’m making: to secure the appropriate funding, you need to find out how much money you need.
To find this number, you must research and predict realistic financials in your business plan.
Let’s say you discover that your startup needs $100,000 to get off the ground.
What if you don’t have $100,000?
You’ve got some options, like bank loans and commercial lenders, and that’s the way many small businesses go. With this said, banks are less likely to give large amounts of money to new companies with no income or assets to default on, which may make it hard for your typical startup to get the funding they need.
Don’t worry, your dream isn’t dead yet. You can find investors. They could be:
However, whichever method you use, proceed carefully because you don’t want to start giving away significant equity in your company before you launch.
Then, if you get lucky and find a potential investor, you need to know how to pitch your idea quickly and effectively. Here are some tips to help you do that:
Memorize your financial numbers; ensure you know them inside out.
Refer to your business plan and ensure your financial figures cover the costs.
Make sure your business plan is presentable so you can give potential investors a copy.
Practice and perfect your pitch.
One more thing: It’s imperative that your business plan has a proper executive summary to entice busy investors.
Once you secure the appropriate funding, you can proceed to the next step of how to start a startup business: finding the right people.
3. Surround Yourself With the Right People
No one makes it on their own. William Proctor might not have been a high-profile, successful businessman if he hadn’t met James Gamble.
Where would we go for advice if Larry Page hadn’t met Sergey Brin? Not Google, that’s for sure.
Then what if Ben Cohen never met Jerry Greenfield? We would’ve been denied one of the world’s most famous ice cream brands.
Even if you’ve already got a co-founder in place, you need some core staff.
CEO and COO. Between them, they develop a vision and put it into action.
Product Manager, who is responsible for taking a product from its development stages and onto the market.
Chief Technology Officer, who works with executive members to oversee the technical side of a business.
Chief Marketing Officer, whose job involves creating a marketing strategy and executing it.
Sales Manager, for managing customer relationships, selling products/service, and motivating the team.
Chief Finance Officer, who manages the financial planning and decisions for a company.
Business Development Officer. This is a varied role that involves drawing up a business plan, establishing funding, and building customer/relationship funding.
Customer Service Officer, who assists customers with their questions, any complaints, and providing product information.
However, your business structure depends on the industry, so look at the above as definitive.
When you’re just starting up, hiring an entire team often isn’t realistic, and you find yourself wearing several business hats. That’s OK, to an extent. Just remember to play to your strengths and outsource if you can’t afford to recruit.
That said, there are some experts you should consider essential, including a:
Lawyer
Accountant
Financial advisor
Unless you’re an expert in law, finances, and accounting, these three people can help save your business some money in the long run.
They can explain the legal requirements and tax obligations based on how you structure your business. For example, it could be a:
Sole proprietorship
Partnership
Corporation
Limited liability company
While your lawyer, accountant, and financial advisors are not necessarily employees on your payroll, they are still important people to surround yourself with.
Finally, for this section, don’t forget the fundamentals for starting any company:
Get a federal ID number from the IRS. The IRS lets you submit your business information online to get your employer identification number (EIN).
Get insured: Shop around and find an insurance agent who can get you plenty of coverage at an affordable rate.
Now that you’ve got staff, you need to start work on a website and find a place to base your business.
4. Find a Location and Build a Website
Now you’re ready for the next stage of your how-to start a startup plan: finding a physical location and setting up a website.
Whether it’s offices, retail space, or a manufacturing location, you need to buy or lease a property to operate your business.
Unless you’re working from a home office, your two main options are leasing or ownership. Leasing usually works as out more expensive long term; however, don’t just base your decision on costs. Leasing and ownership both have their pros and cons. Look at the whole picture before making a decision.
I appreciate that it may not be realistic for all entrepreneurs to tie up the majority of their capital in real estate.
Strategize for this in your business plan and try to secure enough funding so that you can afford to buy property. It’s worth the investment and can save you money in the long run.
Let’s move on to setting up a website.
Today, your company can’t survive without an online presence. Don’t wait until the day your business officially launches to get your website off the ground, either, and remember, it’s never too early to start promoting your business.
If customers are searching online for a service in your industry, you want them to know that you exist, even if you’re not quite open for business yet.
The beauty of an online presence is you can even start generating some income through your website before you find premises. If it’s applicable, start taking some pre-orders and scheduling appointments.
Here are some tips about how to launch and promote a successful website:
When designing a website, it is important to keep the user in mind. The layout of the website should be easy to navigate and use. The colors and fonts should be easy on the eyes.
Make your website visually appealing. Use eye-catching images and dynamic designs to make the website stand out from the competition.
Keep the content of the website fresh and up-to-date to keep users coming back to visit your site. Your website is an ideal place to keep your audience up-to-date with a glimpse inside your company, product launches, and, of course, the details of your business premises.
Another important thing to keep in mind is usability. Your site should be easy to use on all devices, from desktop computers to smartphones and tablets.
I’ve got a video tutorial that explains how to speed up your website.
All of these items combined may sound tough, but it’s really not that difficult. Just focus on one task at a time, and you’ll get there.
Once your website is up and running, you need to expand your digital presence. To do this, use social media platforms like:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Linkedin
Snapchat
Your prospective customers are using these platforms, so you need to be on them, too. However, when choosing a platform, ensure you go where your core audience is. For instance, if you’re targeting a younger market, TikTok may be ideal.
5. Become a Marketing Expert
If you’re not a marketing expert, you need to become one.
You might have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then your startup can’t succeed.
To start spreading the word, you must learn how to use digital marketing techniques like:
Content marketing
Affiliate marketing
Email marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Social media marketing (SMM)
Search engine marketing (SEM)
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
However, if you’re starting a small business in a local community, some of the traditional methods can still work well. Think:
For those of you who aren’t efficient marketers, there is no shame in hiring a marketing director or even a marketing team, depending on the size of your company.
Your marketing efforts will be one of the most important, if not the most important, components of launching your startup business. To improve your chances of success:
Allocate a marketing budget.
Determine how you’re going to distribute this money across different channels.
Have a plan and try to maximize your return on investment for each campaign.
Take these numbers into consideration before you spend your entire budget on something like banner ads.
If you’re following this plan in order, the good news is that you’re already on the right track to building a customer base.
Starting a website, growing your digital presence, and becoming an effective marketer are all steps in the right direction. However, now it’s time to put these efforts to the test. That means:
Opening your doors (or website) for business.
Getting a customer to make a purchase is the first step.
Retaining customers.
There are three keys to customer retention:
Customer service
Customer service
Customer service
It’s no secret. The customer needs to be your main priority. They are the lifelines of your business, and they need to be treated accordingly.
Once you establish a steady customer base, you can use it to your advantage.
As illustrated above, you face peaks and valleys while your company operates.
Mistakes and setbacks happen.
Some of these things will be out of your control, like a natural disaster or a crisis with the nation’s economy.
Employees will come and go.
You’ll face tough decisions and crossroads.
Sometimes, you’ll even make the wrong decision.
That’s OK.
Part of being an entrepreneur is learning from your mistakes.
It’s important to recognize when you’ve done something wrong, move forward, and try your best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Pay your bills.
Pay your taxes.
Operate within the confines of the law.
As long as you’re doing these things, you’ll be able to fight through any obstacle your startup company faces in the future.
FAQs
How Do I Start a Startup?
Check if your idea is viable. Do some research and ask around. Are people looking for a business/service like yours? Then ask yourself: How are other businesses in your sector performing? Have you spotted a genuine gap in the market? Then you’re ready to start drawing up a business plan.
Where Can I Acquire Startup Funding?
There are several sources, including personal financing, banks, crowdfunding, friends, family, angel investors, and venture capitalists.
Do I Need a Website to Launch My Startup?
In the vast majority of cases, yes. You also need a social media presence that is applicable to your audience. After all, social media is a free, efficient way to reach a huge volume of people that you couldn’t otherwise target.
How Can I Use Marketing to Launch My Startup?
It depends on your budget. Begin with strategies like social media, free press release distribution, and content marketing. As your business grows, you can allocate a budget for affiliates, email marketing, SEO, online ads, and influencer campaigns.
The percentage of entrepreneurs in the United States is growing strong, and each one of them is going to face challenges along the way.
With that said, having a proper blueprint to follow helps simplify the process. You can get learn the basics of how to start a startup by following the seven steps, and adapting them to suit your individual needs.
With that said, most successful businesses start with validating an idea, creating a comprehensive business plan, and raising adequate funding. Without proper financial planning, your startup doesn’t stand a chance.
Then, surround yourself with the right people and play to your strengths.
For instance, if you’re great at organizing and motivating, focus on that; If marketing just isn’t you, outsource it to a professional who excels in that area.
Don’t forget about lawyers, insurance agents, and accountants to keep your business in order, and make sure you have essentials like an online presence.
Launching your startup is an imperfect journey, and you must prepare for unforeseen circumstances. However, proper planning and execution help limit these hurdles and get your business off to a flying start.
How will you raise funding to get your startup company off the ground?
If your answer is yes, then you need a detailed guide on how to start a startup.
For those of you who haven’t launched a business before, it can sound like an intimidating task.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that getting your startup off the ground is an easy mission.
It takes hard work, dedication, money, some sleepless nights, and, yes, some failures before you succeed.
Nearly 20 percent of businesses fail in the first year, and just because you make it beyond 12 months doesn’t mean your startup is going to continue to thrive.
According to government stats, 30.6 percent of businesses fail after their second year, 49.7 percent fail after five years, and 65.6 percent fail after their tenth year.
Once you get your company off the ground, it doesn’t get any easier: you need to work just as hard to keep it going each year.
With that said, it’s useful to have a guide and a set of instructions to follow to learn how to launch a startup.
When I write about launching a startup, I’m talking from personal experience. I’ve created several startup companies like Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and NP Digital.
I’m happy to share my knowledge and experience to help make things a little easier and less stressful for you as you go through this process.
Realistically, it takes hundreds of stages to launch your company, but I’ve narrowed down the top 7 steps into a blueprint for you to follow if you want to learn how to start a startup and learn how to create and develop your own business.
In the following article, I outline and discuss each step in detail so you have a better understanding of what I’m talking about.
Let’s begin with the basics.
1. Create a Business Plan
Have you heard the saying ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail?’ That was the thinking of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
Well, research appears to back that up. Study after study shows that businesses with a plan are more likely to succeed. In addition, you can find many articles spelling out the importance of a business plan.
“A business plan is a very important and strategic tool for entrepreneurs. A good business plan not only helps entrepreneurs focus on the specific steps necessary for them to make business ideas succeed, but it also helps them to achieve short-term and long-term objectives.”
It’s pretty straightforward, really. Having an idea is one thing, but having a legitimate business plan is another story.
A proper business plan gives you a significant advantage, but what should you include in a business plan? It helps if you think of it as a written description of your company’s future. Basically, you outline what you want to do and how you plan to do it.
Typically, these plans outline the first three to five years of your business strategy and detail your business’s purpose and aims. Ideally, your document should outline your business goals, strategies, and your plans for achieving them.
Here are the key steps to writing a successful business plan:
Outline your business goals
Describe your target market
Explain your product or service
Detail your marketing and sales strategies
Write down your financial projections and detail the funding
Summarize your overall strategy
If you need some help with your plan, the Small Business Administration has an easy-to-follow guide, along with some templates.
2. Secure Appropriate Funding
Without adequate funding, your business won’t launch or stay afloat long-term. According to Statista, in 2021, there were nearly 840,000 businesses that had been in operation for less than a year. Many of these startups won’t survive because they underestimate the cost of doing business.
Perhaps you’re wondering what level of financing you need? When it comes to raising cash, there’s no magic number that applies to all businesses. The startup costs vary from industry to industry, so your company may require more or less funding depending on the situation.
Costs also vary depending on whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store, e-commerce enterprise, or service business. If you’re unsure how much you might need, try the SBA’S startup cost templates to get a better idea.
Online startup loans, which you can apply for online and pay back over time, with interest.
SBA microloans, providing up to $50,000 in loans for start-up businesses. The main advantage is the lower interest rates.
Lines of credit, which is a type of loan available in both secured and unsecured formats.
Invoice factoring/financing, a process in which a business sells its invoices to a third party, at a discount.
Friends/family/personal loans, which are unsecured loans.
Business loans, which you pay back over an agreed period.
Angel investors, who have considerable wealth and give seed funding to start-up businesses.
Crowdfunding, where you raise money from a group of investors online.
Let’s circle back to our business plan for a minute.
All business plans contain a financial plan. This usually includes a:
Balance sheet, which displays your business’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity of the company.
Sales forecast, which predicts future sales.
Profit and loss statement, which details your earning and spending patterns. This figure helps calculate your net income.
Cash-flow statement, or financial statement detailing how much your business has spent and generated.
You use these financial statements to determine how much funding you need to launch successfully. Additionally, you may discover that the number is significantly higher than you originally anticipated.
For example, I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “That would make a great app,” or “I should make an app for this.”
Do you know how much it costs to make an app? Depending on the complexity, you’re looking at anything between $40,000 – $300,000, and that’s just to make it.
This is the point I’m making: to secure the appropriate funding, you need to find out how much money you need.
To find this number, you must research and predict realistic financials in your business plan.
Let’s say you discover that your startup needs $100,000 to get off the ground.
What if you don’t have $100,000?
You’ve got some options, like bank loans and commercial lenders, and that’s the way many small businesses go. With this said, banks are less likely to give large amounts of money to new companies with no income or assets to default on, which may make it hard for your typical startup to get the funding they need.
Don’t worry, your dream isn’t dead yet. You can find investors. They could be:
However, whichever method you use, proceed carefully because you don’t want to start giving away significant equity in your company before you launch.
Then, if you get lucky and find a potential investor, you need to know how to pitch your idea quickly and effectively. Here are some tips to help you do that:
Memorize your financial numbers; ensure you know them inside out.
Refer to your business plan and ensure your financial figures cover the costs.
Make sure your business plan is presentable so you can give potential investors a copy.
Practice and perfect your pitch.
One more thing: It’s imperative that your business plan has a proper executive summary to entice busy investors.
Once you secure the appropriate funding, you can proceed to the next step of how to start a startup business: finding the right people.
3. Surround Yourself With the Right People
No one makes it on their own. William Proctor might not have been a high-profile, successful businessman if he hadn’t met James Gamble.
Where would we go for advice if Larry Page hadn’t met Sergey Brin? Not Google, that’s for sure.
Then what if Ben Cohen never met Jerry Greenfield? We would’ve been denied one of the world’s most famous ice cream brands.
Even if you’ve already got a co-founder in place, you need some core staff.
CEO and COO. Between them, they develop a vision and put it into action.
Product Manager, who is responsible for taking a product from its development stages and onto the market.
Chief Technology Officer, who works with executive members to oversee the technical side of a business.
Chief Marketing Officer, whose job involves creating a marketing strategy and executing it.
Sales Manager, for managing customer relationships, selling products/service, and motivating the team.
Chief Finance Officer, who manages the financial planning and decisions for a company.
Business Development Officer. This is a varied role that involves drawing up a business plan, establishing funding, and building customer/relationship funding.
Customer Service Officer, who assists customers with their questions, any complaints, and providing product information.
However, your business structure depends on the industry, so look at the above as definitive.
When you’re just starting up, hiring an entire team often isn’t realistic, and you find yourself wearing several business hats. That’s OK, to an extent. Just remember to play to your strengths and outsource if you can’t afford to recruit.
That said, there are some experts you should consider essential, including a:
Lawyer
Accountant
Financial advisor
Unless you’re an expert in law, finances, and accounting, these three people can help save your business some money in the long run.
They can explain the legal requirements and tax obligations based on how you structure your business. For example, it could be a:
Sole proprietorship
Partnership
Corporation
Limited liability company
While your lawyer, accountant, and financial advisors are not necessarily employees on your payroll, they are still important people to surround yourself with.
Finally, for this section, don’t forget the fundamentals for starting any company:
Get a federal ID number from the IRS. The IRS lets you submit your business information online to get your employer identification number (EIN).
Get insured: Shop around and find an insurance agent who can get you plenty of coverage at an affordable rate.
Now that you’ve got staff, you need to start work on a website and find a place to base your business.
4. Find a Location and Build a Website
Now you’re ready for the next stage of your how-to start a startup plan: finding a physical location and setting up a website.
Whether it’s offices, retail space, or a manufacturing location, you need to buy or lease a property to operate your business.
Unless you’re working from a home office, your two main options are leasing or ownership. Leasing usually works as out more expensive long term; however, don’t just base your decision on costs. Leasing and ownership both have their pros and cons. Look at the whole picture before making a decision.
I appreciate that it may not be realistic for all entrepreneurs to tie up the majority of their capital in real estate.
Strategize for this in your business plan and try to secure enough funding so that you can afford to buy property. It’s worth the investment and can save you money in the long run.
Let’s move on to setting up a website.
Today, your company can’t survive without an online presence. Don’t wait until the day your business officially launches to get your website off the ground, either, and remember, it’s never too early to start promoting your business.
If customers are searching online for a service in your industry, you want them to know that you exist, even if you’re not quite open for business yet.
The beauty of an online presence is you can even start generating some income through your website before you find premises. If it’s applicable, start taking some pre-orders and scheduling appointments.
Here are some tips about how to launch and promote a successful website:
When designing a website, it is important to keep the user in mind. The layout of the website should be easy to navigate and use. The colors and fonts should be easy on the eyes.
Make your website visually appealing. Use eye-catching images and dynamic designs to make the website stand out from the competition.
Keep the content of the website fresh and up-to-date to keep users coming back to visit your site. Your website is an ideal place to keep your audience up-to-date with a glimpse inside your company, product launches, and, of course, the details of your business premises.
Another important thing to keep in mind is usability. Your site should be easy to use on all devices, from desktop computers to smartphones and tablets.
I’ve got a video tutorial that explains how to speed up your website.
All of these items combined may sound tough, but it’s really not that difficult. Just focus on one task at a time, and you’ll get there.
Once your website is up and running, you need to expand your digital presence. To do this, use social media platforms like:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Linkedin
Snapchat
Your prospective customers are using these platforms, so you need to be on them, too. However, when choosing a platform, ensure you go where your core audience is. For instance, if you’re targeting a younger market, TikTok may be ideal.
5. Become a Marketing Expert
If you’re not a marketing expert, you need to become one.
You might have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then your startup can’t succeed.
To start spreading the word, you must learn how to use digital marketing techniques like:
Content marketing
Affiliate marketing
Email marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Social media marketing (SMM)
Search engine marketing (SEM)
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
However, if you’re starting a small business in a local community, some of the traditional methods can still work well. Think:
For those of you who aren’t efficient marketers, there is no shame in hiring a marketing director or even a marketing team, depending on the size of your company.
Your marketing efforts will be one of the most important, if not the most important, components of launching your startup business. To improve your chances of success:
Allocate a marketing budget.
Determine how you’re going to distribute this money across different channels.
Have a plan and try to maximize your return on investment for each campaign.
Take these numbers into consideration before you spend your entire budget on something like banner ads.
If you’re following this plan in order, the good news is that you’re already on the right track to building a customer base.
Starting a website, growing your digital presence, and becoming an effective marketer are all steps in the right direction. However, now it’s time to put these efforts to the test. That means:
Opening your doors (or website) for business.
Getting a customer to make a purchase is the first step.
Retaining customers.
There are three keys to customer retention:
Customer service
Customer service
Customer service
It’s no secret. The customer needs to be your main priority. They are the lifelines of your business, and they need to be treated accordingly.
Once you establish a steady customer base, you can use it to your advantage.
As illustrated above, you face peaks and valleys while your company operates.
Mistakes and setbacks happen.
Some of these things will be out of your control, like a natural disaster or a crisis with the nation’s economy.
Employees will come and go.
You’ll face tough decisions and crossroads.
Sometimes, you’ll even make the wrong decision.
That’s OK.
Part of being an entrepreneur is learning from your mistakes.
It’s important to recognize when you’ve done something wrong, move forward, and try your best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Pay your bills.
Pay your taxes.
Operate within the confines of the law.
As long as you’re doing these things, you’ll be able to fight through any obstacle your startup company faces in the future.
FAQs
How Do I Start a Startup?
Check if your idea is viable. Do some research and ask around. Are people looking for a business/service like yours? Then ask yourself: How are other businesses in your sector performing? Have you spotted a genuine gap in the market? Then you’re ready to start drawing up a business plan.
Where Can I Acquire Startup Funding?
There are several sources, including personal financing, banks, crowdfunding, friends, family, angel investors, and venture capitalists.
Do I Need a Website to Launch My Startup?
In the vast majority of cases, yes. You also need a social media presence that is applicable to your audience. After all, social media is a free, efficient way to reach a huge volume of people that you couldn’t otherwise target.
How Can I Use Marketing to Launch My Startup?
It depends on your budget. Begin with strategies like social media, free press release distribution, and content marketing. As your business grows, you can allocate a budget for affiliates, email marketing, SEO, online ads, and influencer campaigns.
The percentage of entrepreneurs in the United States is growing strong, and each one of them is going to face challenges along the way.
With that said, having a proper blueprint to follow helps simplify the process. You can get learn the basics of how to start a startup by following the seven steps, and adapting them to suit your individual needs.
With that said, most successful businesses start with validating an idea, creating a comprehensive business plan, and raising adequate funding. Without proper financial planning, your startup doesn’t stand a chance.
Then, surround yourself with the right people and play to your strengths.
For instance, if you’re great at organizing and motivating, focus on that; If marketing just isn’t you, outsource it to a professional who excels in that area.
Don’t forget about lawyers, insurance agents, and accountants to keep your business in order, and make sure you have essentials like an online presence.
Launching your startup is an imperfect journey, and you must prepare for unforeseen circumstances. However, proper planning and execution help limit these hurdles and get your business off to a flying start.
How will you raise funding to get your startup company off the ground?
According to the Harvard Business School, the greatest problem faced by companies when launching a new product is a total lack of preparation.
Because of this, up to 30,000 new products are launched every year—and at least 95 percent end in failure.
While products can fail for many reasons, a solid product marketing strategy can help to mitigate many risk factors and boost your success.
What Is Product Marketing?
Product marketing is the entire process of bringing a new product to market, from the research and development to the launch and beyond.
It’s used by companies of all sizes with the ultimate goal of understanding and filling customers’ product needs.
Whether you’re launching your first product or your fiftieth, a solid product marketing plan can be the thing you need to push your success over the edge.
Benefits of Product Marketing
The main benefit of product marketing is to increase sales. However, an effective product marketing strategy can have more benefits than “just” profit.
First and foremost, product marketing can help you to position your product in the market for successful targeting and less advert waste.
A proper strategy would answer questions like “what product gap needs to be filled?” and “how does my product stand out from the competition?”
With product marketing, you also gain a deeper understanding of your customer base.
Who is your audience?
What are they buying?
What is their main reason for making a purchase?
By creating such buyer personas, you can increase your value proposition by up to 82 percent.
Then, to top it all off, you’ll get to unlock new insights about your competitors. While this isn’t often a huge concern for smaller businesses, up to 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies practice “competitive intelligence”—which has to say something for its value. If you want to grow, get ahead of your competitors while you still can.
Examples of Product Marketing
Before we get into our own strategies, let’s look at two brands with successful product marketing campaigns.
1. Poo Pourri
Poo Pourri is a great example of a brand that executed product marketing for an otherwise embarrassing and taboo subject (a toilet spray that eliminates the unpleasant odors associated with the bathroom.) It does so with humor and relatability because, after all, everybody poops.
They positioned their product perfectly.
Their first-ever video advertisement not only ranked as the number five most-watched video on the platform in 2013, but it also gained the brand a cult following that has continued to grow over the years.
An example of effective product marketing from Poo-Pourri.
How can other brands, even those with less taboo products, learn from Poo Pourri’s success?
First and foremost, find your platform and go hard. Poo Pourri used video advertising in its early years to continue to grow its following. This included television and online advertising where the brand was able to push the envelope with humor.
The brand also used customer personas to its advantage. It’s true, everybody poops. However, not everyone feels the need for a toilet spray.
Instead, their advertisements targeted certain markets and situations to really drive their point home.
2. Tesla
When you think of Tesla, what comes to mind? Electric cars. Clean energy. Solar power.
Your mental alignment of Tesla with these keywords and others in the clean energy space is for one simple reason: they built their entire identity, including each product marketing strategy, around their brand statement.
“Tesla builds not only all-electric vehicles but also infinitely scalable clean energy generation and storage products. Tesla believes the faster the world stops relying on fossil fuels and moves towards a zero-emission future, the better.”
An example of effective product marketing from Tesla.
Tesla effectively cornered the electric vehicle market. It knew it had a target audience in the space, of course, but it never swayed from its brand statement when developing electric vehicles and other clean energy products.
6 Product Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business
If you’re excited to be a success story like the examples above, then consider these six product marketing strategies.
1. Pair With Robust Content Marketing
Did you ever think your product was too “boring” for content marketing to have an impact? Think again!
Blendtec, a seller of residential and commercial blenders, launched a series of videos aimed at making their boring product fun. The series was called “Will It Blend?,” and it’s just what it sounds like.
The company would test blend various inedible items in their blenders as a way to inject curiosity and humor into their product line.
An example of robust content marketing from Blendtec.
While your content marketing strategy doesn’t have to be quite so outlandish, it can be just as successful. There are plenty of content types to include in your strategy, including:
blog posts
videos
podcasts
infographics
white papers
downloadable guides
You just need to ensure your content marketing is compelling.
First, understand what your customers need.
Second, push on their pain points.
Agitate that pain through storytelling.
Offer to solve their problem.
As long as you touch those four points, your content marketing strategy will be off to a strong start.
2. Develop a Product Launch Plan
Product launches don’t always go as planned.
According to Gartner, 45 percent of product launches are delayed by at least one month. This can lead to a domino effect of poor results.
While this is a bitter pill to swallow, it’s also one that should give you sufficient motivation to invest time in a clear and detailed product marketing plan.
It needs to be effective, on time, and successful, and consider these three stages:
Pre-launch.
Launch.
Post-launch.
Pre-launch is heavily focused on research and development. Consider what your industry is like, who your customers are, and what your product can offer that nothing else can.
This stage will also require heavy involvement with beta testing and finessing your messaging to the target audience.
What unexpected pain points come up during beta?
What is the feedback like?
What can you improve in your product or messaging?
Launch is all about getting the message out to the right audience. This means choosing the best channels to reach your target market and even hosting multiple online and in-person events to generate a buzz.
Finally, post-launch requires you to evaluate your targets versus actuals. Did you perform as well as you hoped? If not, why?
A poor initial launch isn’t a loss. It’s important not to lose momentum during post-launch and, eventually, shift your focus to retaining the customers you do have.
While customer service plays a huge role in retention rates, there’s also the important step of retargeting your existing customers. That is, marketing directly to them to address their needs and invoke feelings of brand loyalty.
What does this look like?
A few ways to retarget existing customers include:
Create custom ad campaigns for previous and existing customers. These should focus heavily on brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. What is it that keeps customers coming back? Capitalize on it.
Build a retargeting email campaign for customers who haven’t purchased over various timeframes. Using segmentation, create different campaigns for customers who haven’t purchased over various periods of time (e.g., within the last 3 months, within the last 6 months, etc.)
Bid more aggressively on retargeting campaigns. Consider that customers who previously converted are more likely to convert than new customers. This means you can afford to have a higher Cost Per Conversion (CPC) for retargeting campaigns.
Ultimately, the goal of your retargeting strategy is to remind customers why they purchased from you in the first place. Place heavy emphasis on their initial experience and the value your product offers.
4. Address Customer Pain Points
Consider that 63 percent of B2C consumers and 76 percent of B2B customers expect businesses to anticipate and address their needs. This is the true value of understanding your customers’ pain points and addressing them with your products and services.
Pain is an important part of any marketing strategy, but one that can often be overlooked in e-commerce. Here’s why pain is so important:
Pain can help move a customer to action.
Pain can create a sense of relief in a customer.
Pain can tighten the conversion funnel.
Pain can improve conversion rates.
As mentioned in the content marketing section, the key to a successful product marketing strategy is to identify your customer’s pain, remind them of the pain, and then show them the solution to their pain.
These insights come from a robust market research strategy which includes keyword research, competitor reviews analysis, and customer surveys.
Take Qdoba, for example. They know that additional charges for popular add-ons, like guacamole or queso, are a pain point for their customer base. So, they don’t charge extra:
An example of addressing consumer pain points from Qdoba.
Pain points don’t stop with the purchase of your product, though. You should also have a plan in place for when your customers experience pain as part of the usual customer service journey. For example, an issue with the product.
This includes monitoring customer reviews, offering live chats with customer service agents, and reading through the results of customer surveys.
5. Reevaluate and Improve Product Positioning
Just because you’ve launched your product, it doesn’t mean you need to stick with previously chosen markets and marketing tactics. In fact, launch may have shown you a new possible market for your product or even a unique value proposition.
Pre-launch, you and your product team would have answered the following questions:
Why was this product made?
Who is this product made for?
What challenges does this product resolve?
What makes this product unique?
Post-launch, it’s time to consider whether the answers you and your team came up with held true. If not, what do the new answers look like and how do they differ from the original plan?
That difference can give you a whole new idea for repositioning your product in the ever-changing market.
When you reposition and how you do so is highly dependent on the product and costs involved. A few examples of repositioning a non-profiting product include repackaging, remarketing it to a different audience, or even adding new features.
Fortunately, you have the value of customer insights and their feedback—which wouldn’t have been available to you during the initial product launch. Use this to implement a full product positioning strategy.
6. Consider a Change to Your Pricing Structure
Another way to reposition your product is to consider a change to your pricing structure. This is helpful if you’re seeing less-than-profitable returns on your product.
A change to your pricing can be as simple as lowering (or increasing) your price or running exclusive promotions.
You can also follow the likes of Peloton and hundreds of other companies who successfully implemented the “good-better-best” approach to pricing.
In short, the good-better-best pricing strategy involves three tiers of the same product with increasing value. This enables you to make your product more accessible to new customers while also increasing spending for those customers who want more.
An example of pricing structure from Peloton.
To continue with the Peloton example, there are four options to choose from:
The Peloton Bike (starting at $1,195).
The Peloton Bike+ (starting at $1,995).
The Peloton Tread (starting at $2,345).
The Peloton Tread+ (starting at $4,295).
While the Peloton Bike and the Peloton Tread are unique products, they still offer one experience for the customer: a home workout device.
By offering your product at various price points, you open the product up to more customers. This can be a good step for companies hoping to break into more markets.
Product Marketing Frequently Asked Questions
What are the four types of products?
There are four product classifications, all of which can benefit from product marketing. They are convenience goods, shopping goods, specialty goods, and unsought goods.
What companies can benefit from product marketing?
If you think your business can’t benefit from product marketing, you’d be wrong. Companies of any size and configuration can benefit from a planned approach to product launch and sales.
What are the types of product marketing?
There are over 20 marketing activities that can fall under product marketing. These include advertising, branding, product management, product development, sales, and promotion.
What is the difference between marketing and product marketing?
Product marketing is a subset of marketing. Marketing is a broader term encompassing activities like marketing communications, operations, and project management.
Product Marketing Strategies: Conclusion
From product development to customer analysis to launch, a product marketing strategy can ensure you hit all the milestones in a set timeline.
In turn, you can launch your product on time and increase your odds of success.
As long as you have a solid product marketing plan in place (one that mitigates risks and anticipates customer needs), you’ll be off to a better start than most companies.
Which product marketing strategy do you think will be most effective for your up-and-coming product launch?
Many small business owners and entrepreneurs have a stigma that only big companies like McDonald’s and Disney can do branding. “It costs a lot of money,” they believe. But that is not entirely true. Brand …
There are plenty of e-commerce marketing channels available to grow your business, such as social media, PPC, SEO, and network marketing.
Successful e-commerce business owners, though, know that email marketing is one of the most profitable channels available.
Let’s take a look at “what is e-commerce email marketing?” and why e-commerce businesses should use it.
Finally, we’ll delve into the 10 best e-commerce email marketing strategies that you can implement immediately for great results.
What Is E-Commerce Email Marketing?
E-commerce email marketing is a marketing channel that enables you to send marketing messages to current and potential customers.
The strategies you use can be simple, like sending a weekly email blast with featured products, or complex—with multiple automated email series for cart abandonment, customer re-engagement, and exclusive membership deals.
Why Should E-Commerce Businesses Do Email Marketing?
As an e-commerce business owner, you’ve probably heard the sales pitch for just about every marketing channel there is.
You may even dabble in email marketing currently, but perhaps you don’t understand just how valuable a tool it is to your sales strategy.
Email marketing is a unique process in that, unlike social media or SEO, you own every piece of the funnel. Most importantly, you own the email subscriber list.
Why is that so important? With 4 billion daily email users (which will climb to 4.6 billion by 2025), you can’t afford to miss this incredible opportunity.
Through email marketing strategies, an e-commerce business can benefit from brand awareness, customer engagement, and high-intent customers. We also can’t ignore the conversion rate boosts that e-commerce businesses see when they implement a solid email marketing strategy, with the best ROI when compared to other marketing channels.
While much of this article will focus on email marketing strategies for active marketers, we understand that not every e-commerce business is yet set up for email marketing.
Set realistic and sustainable goals to grow your business, such as building an email list or improving customer retention by X percent.
Select an email marketing software like MailChimp or Constant Contact.
Map out your initial campaigns (e.g., welcome series, abandoned cart series, or new product launches.)
Decide how you’ll collect email addresses. Many e-commerce companies offer a small coupon in exchange for email addresses.
Set up landing pages as needed for campaigns.
Set up campaign tracking with your chosen analytics provider.
Take the time to establish a firm foundation and you’ll be off to a better start than even many seasoned e-commerce businesses.
Best E-Commerce Email Marketing Strategies
Whether you’re new to email marketing or you’re looking to optimize your current setup, our best e-commerce email marketing strategies will provide you with a solid foundation to build your email marketing empire.
1. Start With a Welcome Series
For the best impression with new subscribers, establish a welcome email series. This gives you a chance to share your brand story, highlight your best products, and even offer a discount to drive sales.
Beyond that, a welcome series drives serious engagement. With an average open rate of 68.59 percent and an average click-through rate of 16.05 percent, a welcome series is a great part of your larger email marketing campaign.
Why?
First and foremost, a welcome series implies more than one email. Two or three emails is the sweet spot and anything beyond that is considered “spammy” and may scare off new subscribers.
With two emails, you have the chance to welcome the customer and invite them to connect. With three emails, you have the chance to do the previous two while also getting to know the customer more personally.
Take, for example, the NewEgg welcome series below which welcomes the customer and then invites them to connect with the mobile app:
Whether you choose two or three emails, you want to be sure to include a few key elements in each email.
The initial welcome email should:
thank the subscriber
welcome them to the brand
let them know what to look forward to in future emails
If you made a promise upon sign-up, like a discount, that needs to be included as well.
The second welcome email should then:
give subscribers a further way to connect through mobile apps or social media
focus on the value you or your products can provide to their lives
tell them why they should purchase
2. Be Sure to Include a Clear Call to Action
What do you want your subscribers to do?
Whether that’s reading your latest blog post, watching a promotional video, or buying your newest product, your customers should know exactly what you want.
A call to action, or CTA, is a prompt given to users in a newsletter, on a website, or in a video. The prompt is usually a button or hyperlink that will help the user to achieve the goal.
According to Unbounce, including just one clear CTA in emails boosts clicks by 371 percent and sales by 1617 percent.
When it comes to effective CTAs, clear and concise is the way to go.
This means testing variations of your most used calls to action to see what elements your users respond to best. This includes verbs, button shape and color, length, and word order.
Unbounce saw an increase of 90 percent in their click-through rate just by changing “Start your free 30-day trial” to “Start my free 30-day trial.”
3. Use Personalization to Segment Your List
When is the last time you received an email that was specifically tailored to you?
If you’re like most people, that email had a greater chance of compelling you to act.
In fact, personalized promotional emails lift transaction rates and revenue six times higher than non-personalized emails.
Contextual personalization utilizes where a customer is in their journey. For example, just beginning to research the topic or being ready to make a buying decision.
Demographic personalization utilizes demographic information such as age, gender, location, and household income level to inform recommendations.
Behavioral personalization is the use of past purchases or website behavior (e.g., abandoned carts). Consider this email from Etsy that advertises products based on past purchases:
Depending on the size of your email list, you can even combine these categories to create intersections. Try combining past purchases with new location-based recommendations.
As your segmentation becomes more specific, the marketing campaigns will become more personalized and, more likely than not, successful.
Therefore, automated email campaigns can be an invaluable tool in your overall marketing strategy.
From welcome series to cart abandonment to transactional emails to re-engagement campaigns, automated emails for e-commerce can level up your email marketing strategy.
Any email marketing software worth its weight will publish advice to help you automate your emails.
Discounts to offer: If you want to secure a sale, try offering a discount code on the products they have in their cart.
Subject lines: Subject lines strongly influence the CTR of your cart abandonment series, and can make sure your audience opens their email and reads the information you’re providing.
Calls to action: Your CTA needs to convince your prospective customers to return to their carts.
Additionally, your cart abandonment series can be a great place to personalize. The obvious one here is to include the products left behind in the cart like Chewy does below:
6. Perform Split Testing
How do you know whether your email campaigns are as effective as possible?
Without split testing, you don’t!
Split testing (sometimes called A/B testing) is a marketing strategy that pits two or more similar variations of an element against one another.
For example, a split test may test the efficiency of two CTA buttons, one black with white text and one white with black text.
The goal is to find the best variations of common email elements to ensure that your emails have the greatest return on investment—such as testing user experience design elements.
Once you have statistically significant (as determined by you) results in hand, it’s time to implement changes if necessary.
7. Use Email to Encourage Engagement
We’ve touched briefly on engagement in the welcome series section. However, engagement emails don’t need to be reserved only for welcome email campaigns.
Email newsletters offer a unique opportunity to capture your audience. This is especially true if open rates are high but click-through rates are lacking.
Segment your audience according to their engagement, and deliver appropriate messages accordingly.
Subscribers who have previously converted, for example, are 74.7 percent more likely to do so again.
Here, you would want to capitalize on brand trust. Ask yourself:
“Why did the customer buy from me before. Why should they do so again?”
This would be a good opportunity for a product recommendations email based on their previous purchase.
If it’s a consumable product, then a subscription offer email is easy enough. If it’s a non-consumable product, then a complementary product email is a safe bet.
For subscribers yet to convert, focus on building brand trust and offer discounts to make a purchase less risky.
8. Offer Exclusive Experiences and Rewards to Loyal Subscribers
Segmentation makes it easier to personalize emails and reward loyal customers.
By segmenting your email list by longtime subscribers or the greatest money spent, you can provide an exclusive experience that makes them feel valued by your brand.
Notice I say experience and reward as opposed to discount.
Can a discount be a reward? Absolutely. However, discounts do have a downside. In particular, they can cheapen your brand’s value, especially in the eyes of loyal customers.
A loyal customer knows the value of your product.
Instead of a discount offer, consider an experiential reward. This is also backed by millennial spending habits. After all, 78 percent of millennials would rather spend their money on an experience than a product.
Give away once-in-a-lifetime trips.
Offer meet and greet events with brand ambassadors.
Design a top-tier social media group where you host virtual events.
9. Set Up Back In Stock or Wishlist Emails
We’ve touched on the importance of automated emails, and we’ve even covered two automated campaigns in particular:
A welcome series.
A cart abandonment series.
The next on our list to highlight is the back-in-stock (or “wishlist” emails.)
With recent constraints on the supply chain, more brands than ever have had item stocking and inventory troubles.
You can either waste an opportunity by removing temporarily unavailable items from your website, or you can capitalize on customer wants with back-in-stock emails.
As the name suggests, back-in-stock emails alert customers when a product they expressed interest in is back in stock and available to purchase.
Depending on your platform, a back-in-stock email option may be a product page feature or it may require additional configuration (and add-ons like an app).
However much effort it takes on your part, the return is worth it!
According to a study by Barilliance, back-in-stock emails had the highest open rate (65.32 percent) when compared to alternative post-purchase emails.
10. Utilize Dynamic Content
We already know that personalization drives conversions.
The same can be said for a subset of personalization known as dynamic content, which has been shown to increase email ROI by 100 percent!
So, what is dynamic content?
Dynamic content is personalized content generated based on user signals:
Product recommendations based on past purchases or previously viewed products.
Calls to action tailored to the user’s browsing behaviors.
Free exclusive offers (such as ebooks and white papers) for someone in the “research” stage of the buyer’s journey.
With most major email marketing software companies, dynamic content will be an impressive addition to most e-commerce email templates.
E-Commerce Email Templates
Here are a few e-commerce email templates to help you build your e-commerce email marketing campaigns.
1. Welcome Email Template
This welcome email template combines clean lines combined with pops of color to be striking and eye-catching. When customizing it, make sure to use the large “featured image” space for a friendly brand image or a featured product lifestyle relevant to you.
Make your big sales event known with this beautifully stylized email template. Featuring bold text and modules for product imagery, your customers will easily see the value in your offer.
4. Product Recommendations Email Template
Let your product recommendations do the talking with this image-heavy recommendations email template. The faux navigation also adds a standout touch that makes your readers feel as if they’re shopping your website.
5. Follow-Up Email Template
With a clean, streamlined design, this follow-up email template is ideal for soliciting post-purchase feedback from your customers.
How much should I make from e-commerce email marketing?
What you earn from e-commerce email marketing is relative to what you invest. With an average of ROI $36 earned for every $1 spent, you’re likely to earn more from e-commerce email marketing than most (if not all) other marketing channels.
How does e-commerce use email marketing?
E-commerce relies heavily on email marketing as a way to connect with both current and prospective customers. It’s used as a way to promote new products, communicate exclusive offers and deals, and engage with the target audience.
How do I start e-commerce email marketing?
To start e-commerce email marketing, all you need is an email marketing software, some e-commerce email templates, and one or two fully fleshed-out campaigns. The rest will fall into place as you grow your subscriber list.
How important is email marketing for e-commerce companies?
Email marketing is a critical part of any effective e-commerce marketing strategy. Without email marketing, you could be leaving tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table.
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Conclusion: E-Commerce Email Marketing
Whether you’re a new or seasoned e-commerce business owner, email marketing should have a large part to play in your overall marketing strategy.
It’s not difficult to get started, and once you do you now have the best strategies in hand to make your campaigns a success.
To recap, the 10 strategies you should implement in your e-commerce email marketing strategy are:
Start with a welcome series.
Be sure to include a clear call to action.
Use personalization to segment your list.
Automate what you can.
Create a dynamic cart abandonment series.
Perform split testing.
Use email to encourage engagement.
Offer exclusive experiences and rewards to loyal subscribers.
Are your sales and marketing teams aligned? Or are they working in silos, with only a vague understanding of what the other team is doing?
If your sales and marketing teams aren’t working well together, you’re not alone.
According to LinkedIn, 93 percent of sales and marketing professionals say their company has issues with alignment, such as antagonism between teams, excluding others from planning, and challenges communicating.
Sales and marketing misalignment can result in lower sales, lost leads, and annoyed customers. Are you ready to improve the relationship between sales and marketing?
Why is Sales and Marketing Alignment So Important?
When the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, you lose revenue, deliver a poor customer experience, and miss opportunities.
A lack of sales and marketing coordination costs businesses an estimated$1 trillion a year in the US alone.
For example, say marketing creates a campaign to drive what they think are qualified leads to a new landing page.
Unfortunately, sales redefined how they qualify leads a few weeks ago–but no one told marketing.
Now, that landing page is flooded with leads that sales will never follow up on. Marketing says “Look at all that traffic! Why isn’t anyone following up on all those leads?”
While sales sees low-quality traffic that will waste their time, so they focus on leads from a paid campaign instead.
Everyone’s frustrated, and no one wins–least of all your customers.
So how do you get everyone on the same page? By using strategies that bring sales and marketing together, increase communication, and play to everyone’s strengths.
What strategies should you use? That’s what we’ll cover in our next webinar, created in partnership with Pipedrive.
Who Should Attend Our Sales + Marketing Alignment Webinar
If you have a marketing and sales team of two or more people, you’ll want to attend this webinar.
Here’s why: setting up sales and marketing alignment from the beginning is the best way to prevent misalignment.
If you have a larger team and struggle to get everyone on the same page, this webinar will be crucial. We’ll cover a range of strategies, from automation to removing silos, to help both teams share data and strategies.
Remember, everyone is on the same team–and we’re all looking to drive growth. Making it easy (thank you, automation!) to share data and insights will improve everyone’s metrics–especially your bottom line.
What Types of Businesses Is This Webinar For?
Any business with a sales and marketing team (even if it’s only one person each!) will benefit from this webinar.
That includes organizations in industries like:
B2B businesses looking to improve their sales and marketing metrics
SaaS companies looking to increase sign-ups
E-commerce businesses looking to scale.
Brick and mortar companies struggling to grow online and in-person sales.
What You’ll Learn in Our May 24th Webinar
In our upcoming webinar, you’ll learn seven strategies to help your sales and marketing teams work together to drive leads, traffic, and revenue.
Neil will share strategies like using automation and integrations to eliminate data silos, aligning communciation cadences, and integrating call data so both teams can leverage it to improve customer experience.
For each strategy, we’ll share data points on why it matters, results in the form of case studies, and provide step-by-step instructions on how to implement our strategies for your business.
The webinar will wrap up with a Q+A session where you can ask questions and get advice on implementing these strategies in your own organization.
Want to join us? Sign up today and join us on May 24th. We look forward to seeing you.
Well, if you’re hoping to reach local consumers, then you need to ensure they can find your business online. You need to propel your content to the top of relevant local Google search rankings.
One way to do this is by embracing the power of link building; specifically, link building for local SEO.
Let me show you how local link building works, why it matters, and how you can start building your own link profile.
What Is Link Building for Local SEO?
Link building refers to acquiring links from other websites back to yours. These links are known as “backlinks,” “inbound links,” or “incoming links,” and they help to drive traffic to your website.
Local SEO is the process of optimizing your website to attract customers from a specific region.
Link building for local SEO, then, is the process of securing backlinks from local businesses with two goals in mind:
boosting your visibility in organic local searches
drawing more traffic from local customers most likely to purchase from you
Why Link Building for Local SEO Matters
There are three major reasons local link building matters.
First, Google considers the number of backlinks you have when determining your page rank. The higher the number of quality backlinks you have, the better your chances of securing a page one ranking. Over 67 percent of clicks go to the first five organic search results!
Second, link building for local SEO helps you drive specific, highly targeted search engine traffic to your website. By targeting the right traffic, you’re more likely to draw people who are serious about making a purchase.
Finally, link building for local SEO is a great way to build your brand’s visibility organically. It takes, on average, seven brand impressions before someone takes action (the marketing “Rule of 7” as it’s colloquially known). Better brand visibility helps you nurture prospects.
Link Building for Local SEO Strategies
Are you ready to get started on building your backlinks? Here are my top six strategies.
1. Get Links From Travel and Local Review Websites
In other words, you need positive reviews, and you want them from websites that can help you with your local link building goals. For example, here’s a rundown of nine great new restaurants in Kansas City:
Each listing includes a backlink and contact details:
Kansas City magazine reps visited restaurants based on existing customer reviews rather than accepting cold pitches.
Make it easy for customers to leave reviews on Google, Yelp, and other popular platforms.
Offer incentives e.g., a kayak business might offer a discounted kayaking session for reviewers.
Highlight customer testimonials on your social media platforms—they make great User Generated Content, and often encourage others to leave their thoughts.
Link building for local SEO often means doing some manual outreach, so you can of course pitch local websites and see if they’ll list your business.
Just make sure you send a professional pitch, include relevant business information, and provide links to any customer reviews (if available.)
2. Hold Special Events and Promotions to Get PR Links
Want to build your local presence and increase brand awareness, all while sourcing local link building opportunities?
Consider holding special events or campaigns.
If you need some event inspiration, you might:
sponsor a local sports team
host a charity fundraiser
run a workshop
hold a contest
Or, you could offer promotions like a free product demo or seasonal discounts. It all depends on what makes the most sense for your business model.
Once you’ve chosen an event or promotion, you need to advertise it.
Do some online research to find your local news outlets such as local papers, radio channels, Facebook community groups, etc.
Decide which outlets to target based on your consumer demographic. 96 percent of 18 to 25-year-olds and 87 percent of 55 to 66-year-olds check social media daily, so online platforms are a good place to start.
Draft a short press release. Include key events details and a URL for the backlink.
Don’t forget to include keywords in your press release, too. Ubersuggest can help you find relevant keywords.
3. Get Listed in Local Business Directories
According to research, 94 percent of consumers have turned to a business directory at least once in the last year to learn more about a new company.
For local link building opportunities, target directories and get your company listed. Popular business directories include:
Bing
Facebook
Foursquare
Google
Yelp
Want to find more local or niche directories? Google is your friend. For example, if you search “local small business directory Colorado,” the first link is to the Colorado Business Directory:
When you’re ready to pitch a local directory, follow their instructions closely. Set out your key details like your website and opening times, and include a short description of your business.
Every detail helps a directory verify your business which could improve your chances of acceptance (and acquiring a backlink.)
4. Create a Blog Covering Local Topics
Do you have a blog yet? If not, start one and focus on covering local topics. Sure, this step requires more effort on your part, but here’s why blogging is worth it to build links for local SEO.
Blogging lets you showcase your knowledge and expertise which increases consumer trust and, ultimately, encourages them to choose your brand over competitors.
According to a Demand Gen Report, 60 percent of buyers read blog posts in the early stages of the purchase process.
Blog content is easy to share on social media. Over time, more shares mean more visibility for your brand which draws more traffic.
Once you’re ready to start your local blog, here’s how to get backlinks to your posts.
Backlinks begin with great content. Spend time researching what your audience wants and craft articles to meet their needs. If readers find your content useful, they’ll link back to it.
Pitch your content to link roundups. Roundups highlight great new content in a specific niche, and since the authors are always looking for content to feature, there’s a good chance they could offer a listing and backlink.
Highlight your posts on social media. The more people share your content, the more likely it is you’ll reach bloggers looking for content to link to.
Be active on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Build business relationships, establish yourself as a local expert, and you’ll acquire backlinks naturally.
5. Use an SEO Tool Like Ubersuggest to Find and Target Competitor Backlinks
Why should you care where competitors get their backlinks?
It’s simple.
These are the types of places likely to link back to you, too, so it’s worth doing some competitor research to find websites to target for local link building opportunities.
Here’s how to use Ubersuggest to target competitor backlinks if you’re link building for local SEO.
Say you run a bakery in Denver. If we run a Google search, we can see one of the highest-ranking local bakeries is Azucar Bakery:
Enter their website domain into Ubersuggest and click “Search” to get started:
From the main screen, go to the left-hand column, scroll down to Backlinks, and click “Backlinks Overview:”
Enter the domain name again and hit “Search” to load the results:
On the next screen, scroll down to the “Backlinks” results. You’ll see a list of the domains that link back to Azucar Bakery:
Once you know the type of websites linking to your competitors, you can target them yourself.
How you use these backlinks depends on your marketing strategy and business goals; in this case, you might make sure you’re listed on Foursquare and also target websites for product reviews.
6. Find Unlinked Mentions of Your Brand and Ask for Links
Unlinked brand mentions can present golden opportunities to secure backlinks from high-quality, authoritative websites.
For one thing, it’s easier to send outreach emails to the relevant contact if they already know your brand.
If they’re discussing your products or services, then it’s reasonable to think you might ask for a backlink, right?
There’s no need to pursue every brand reference, though, especially if it’s on a low-quality website that won’t boost your rankings—so here’s how you might find backlinks worth pursuing.
First, scan the internet for unlinked brand mentions. You can do this by using a tool such as BrandMentions.
Then, identify the relevant contact to send an outreach email. The contact could be the website owner or someone from the marketing department. You can usually find these details using tools like LinkedIn or social media such as Twitter.
Finally, send your outreach email. Compliment their company, and thank them for mentioning your brand. Politely explain why adding a backlink could benefit their company and consider offering them a link in return.
Don’t neglect those unlinked brand mentions. Instead, seek them out, build relationships with other website owners, and convert them into useful backlinks.
Link Building for Local SEO Frequently Asked Questions
How important are links for local SEO?
Links are hugely important for local SEO because they help to boost your local search ranking. With a higher ranking, you’re more visible in search results and customers are more likely to visit your page.
Should I use an agency for help with my local SEO link building strategy?
You might find a digital marketing agency partnership helpful if you lack the time or resources to dedicate to marketing, but it’s absolutely possible to create your own strategy by following the tips I’ve outlined above.
How can I get reviewed by local publications to get backlinks for my business?
Link building for local SEO means liaising with local businesses. You could contact local publications directly, host an event and invite their representatives, sponsor a contest, or even reach out to and sponsor local influencers. It all depends on your marketing budget and what’s most likely to appeal to your target audience.
Is a blog a good way to build local SEO backlinks?
Yes! Blogging is a great way to build links naturally in the long term, so prioritize writing useful, engaging content on a regular basis. Don’t forget to optimize your articles for local keywords.
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Conclusion: Link Building for Local SEO
Local link building is a great way to improve your SEO, boost search engine visibility, and draw relevant traffic to your website.
You won’t see results overnight, no, but you should consider link building as a key part of your longer-term marketing strategy.
While you don’t need to try all the tips I’ve suggested, start with the strategies that make the most sense for your business and, in the meantime, focus on producing regular, high-quality blog content to build your brand’s trustworthiness.
If you need any extra help with link building for local SEO, check out my consulting services to see how I can help you boost your local rankings.
Have you tried any of these local link building strategies? How are they working out for you? Let me know below!
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Bryan Curtis to discuss ESPN’s Peyton and Eli Manning ‘Monday Night Football’ broadcast and whether or not this is the future of broadcasting (1:48). Then Bill is joined by Peter Schrager to help make his Million-Dollar Picks for Week 2 (27:39) before Craig Horlbeck joins to talk about the must-add fantasy football players after Week 1 as well as their favorite QBs moving forward (84:14).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guests: Bryan Curtis, Peter Schrager, and Craig Horlbeck
D2C companies, by definition, take out the middleman and sell their products “direct to consumers.” In many ways, this seems like an obvious choice. You sell your product straight to them and cut out any fees required with wholesale and other sales platforms. Plus, you don’t have to charge markup fees to cover those additional … Continue reading The 7 Best Strategies for D2C Brands
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