If you are a student of Delhi University, you probably would have been exposed to marketing in one way or the other. Whether it be getting sponsorships for the college fests or during internships, or some of you may have your own startups.
Marketing is the most difficult task if it is not done right.
Here below are the tips and tricks that you should use to do marketing:
1. Promotional Business cards
Get your business cards with few discounts printed on it. Leave them everywhere you go, hand them to new people you meet. The discounts could be availed at your store or on your website. Make sure that you track the number of cards that you could use.
2. Host an event or a class
Plan an event or a class, probably of something in trend with your users. For example, if you are a startup catering startup owners, organize a networking event at your office, calling a mentor or an investor from your contacts. This will publicize not only your startup but would create a positive image of your startup in the community. Your network would become very strong.
3. Collaborate with college students
If you have a startup located in a metro city and there are college students around, collaborate with them for some or other works. For example, you can start a work from home internship, where they may help you with any of the work. This would help you in creating a network among students, and more and more people will get to know about your business, as the students tend to have comparatively large groups than yours.
4. Organize recruitment drives
Colleges welcome companies to hire students from there colleges. Well if you are a registered startup, you may visit a couple of colleges. Students would get to know and learn about your startup and you never know you might also get a team member.
5. Business card Collecting
Put a box at the entrance of the office with a sign, put your business cards and get amazing prizes. At the end of the month, you would have lots of cards collected with you. This technique can be handy if you have your office at some coworking space or in a building which is visited by a large number of people or for the restaurants. You may also ask them to like your facebook page, or follow your twitter handle for the results.
6. Car Magnets
If you own a car, put a car sticker at the back mirror of the car, eventually if you pass some area of high traffic, you might get noticed with your potential clients.
7. Balloons at the local event
Many metro cities hold a number of cultural events every week, in Delhi raahgiri day every Sunday. Visit any of such social event and get a large number of balloons with your name printed on it, distribute it for free. It's a low-cost way to get noticed.
8. Join in local contests
There are always something or the other going on in the city. You need to list down the kind of events that may have your target audience, visit the events and you may also take part in few.
9. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a great way to engage your startup especially if you are a tech-based or a content based startup. It engages users and you may also earn through the affiliate program of different sites. You can start your email marketing campaign from free email marketing service like MailChimp.
10. Apply online for Business awards
Most industries have business awards you can win, providing you with a badge of taking part. It also gives your company authenticity and people start taking you seriously.
If there aren't any category for you, you may organize your own awards. It's easy to raise sponsorships for such events. You just need to partner with some online publishing partner.
11. Industry Partnerships
This is one of those things you should do with the start. In the start, the number of business contacts that you have is very important. If you partner with someone who has a target audience as yours, people can pay you big for the event.
12. Develop a customer referral program
One startup that made it big by its referral program is Hike. Hike provided free messages for every time you referred a friend. This helped to grow its user base. “Word of Mouth” is an important factor for any startup. If a friend refers to your company, chances are he/she would be using your services.
13. Recycle your content
It is important to recycle your existing content and make it 100% new. For example, the video tutorials can become a webinar, while the collection of blog posts can become an e-book. Never be shy to recycle your old content. You grow, and chances are the content you publish again would be absolutely new for someone.
14. Use LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social network where you can find a number of business contacts, you can join groups, enter into the conversations with like minded people and you might get noticed.
15. Be a Social Media Savvy
More than 1 billion people are on facebook, social media has become a part of almost everyone's life. You can find your prospective clients. You just need to find the actual content and audience for your startup. Don't get carried away or distracted.
16. Use forums
Find the discussion forums of your niche, you may look up to Reddit, Quora. DO NOT SPAM, JUST HELP. Let us assume for an example, there is a discussion about the marketing of printed t-shirt, and you have a contact, just share your contacts. Here you would be making two business contacts. You can also pose yourself as the expert in a particular industry. Just you need to focus on doing things gracefully, not just spam. There is a subtle difference in both.
17. Publish great content
Content is one of the best ways to bring users to your website. You can hire freelancers who can write down the articles for you. Make sure that the articles don't have the copied content.
18. Create instructional videos
Video content is the next big thing coming up. People have started shifting from their interests from reading than to listening. It saves time. You need to keep up with the same. With users shifting on to platforms like Youtube, you need to have content on youtube for people to find you.
19. Donate your products
If you are a product based startup, just go down to a place where you could find out the people from your audience, show them the product, and if your product is something that they like, they will be coming to you again. For example, Ola cabs followed this technique to market itself in India.
20. Hang out there, where your audience hangs out.
For example, if you have a startup that serves the college students, you should hang out at the places near the college vicinity. This would help you know your audience and eventually help you to improve your product.
21. Visit networking events
If you are a restaurant owner, you might be thinking what help is a networking event to you. Well, there is. You need to understand the strength of business contacts. You might get a startup who can partner with you in advertising in return for a favor from you.
22. Give and take
If you have a service, that you are best, you can provide those services to some other startup and ask some of their services in return. When you do such things, you tend to grow together.
Any budget tactics we missed?
Are you doing something cooler than this?
Share your own in the comments below.
