Internet Marketing for a startup company
I want to start a business, so I of course am interested in learning what internet marketing strategy is ideal for this type of situation, I will focus my discussion on a B2B environment.. I have done some research and talked to an industry expert and I have come to some conclusions. I have used the following blog posting as research: http://blog.score.org/?s=Larry+Bailin – this is a blog written by Larry Bailin, who writes for SCORE (the Small Business Success Blog). The interview subject was Vicky Bagwalla – The CEO of U214 – a Toronto based business technology company, which specializes in website design and business technology consulting and implementation (www.u214.net).
Add value to the existing conversation:
Internet marketing for a small company is much the same as any type of communication in this space. The person that is trying to market this startup needs to first know what they are talking about and have interesting insights into the industry. The industry players are very experienced and savy and have heard it all before. There is no sense in talking to the industry insiders and then putting their thoughts up on your blog, they will already know these things and you will turn people off very quickly. The trick is to take what people are saying and then add your value to the conversation. The key is not to sell people through the blog or facebook site, but to add value to the conversation and then provide a place where industry people can learn more about the space. In the B2B environment there are only a few customers for the blog or Facebook group, you are targeting a very small and distinct group of people and your goal is to generate credibility so that when you get the chance to meet with them you will have a foot in the door and you will not be making cold sales calls. Also very important is to keep the content consistent and fresh on all of your marketing sources, if you don’t have a lot to add to the conversation then you need to spend more time on it generating ideas. You should only be getting into areas that you can add a lot of value so this shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Another trick is to space out your message a little bit, especially on media sources like Twitter, just give snippets and not your entire databank of ideas in one go, the goal is to show that you have a lot to add consistently. Lastly if what you want to say is not adding a lot of value then refrain, because it takes a long time to get someone to consistently follow you, but if they get bored they can jump ship quickly and it will be very hard to win them back.
Focus:
There are a lot of places that someone can create content for social media and internet marketing but budgets and time are very short for entrepreneurs. The draw of social media is strong because you think that you can have an internet ad go viral and get a huge bang for the buck, however that happens quite rarely and there are studies that show that it is just as difficult to pull off a viral add as a widely popular bricks and mortar add. To be successful in internet marketing for a startup the entrepreneur needs to be realistic about the potential of the marketing and the time commitment that is necessary for it. Another key is to see what is working and what is lagging with the strategy. This is where the web analytics comes in. The marketer can see where the majority of the hits to their website come from and focus on courting those sources. They can also see how well their twitter account is being followed as opposed to their Facebook account, etc. These focused efforts will give the entrepreneur more value from the time that they spend.
Consistency:
Vicky Bagwalla talked to me about his top 3 rules: Consistency, consistency and consistency. This comes back to the point that, this is something that people will always look towards to see if they trust you, and that will only happen if you are being consistent. The difference with the social media world is that there are many more chances to be inconsistent because there are so many outlets and touch points for the consumer of your media then there used to be, so it is even more important to stay as consistent as possible.
Bottom line:
According to Larry Bailin, the best book ever written about how to be successful in internet marketing was written over 70 years ago called – Dale Carnegies, How to Win Friends and influence People. Basically what he and I are saying is that social media is not the silver bullet solution, the same tried and true efforts that needed to be done before are what is needed in this space as well. The entrepreneur needs to put the effort into learning about the customer and understanding them so that they can be convinced that what you have to offer is of interest to them. Social media just gives the customer more of a chance to see what type of person you really are in a less formal way. They can easily check in on you and they have a way easier way to form an opinion of you. The good news for the entrepreneur in a startup is that it was very difficult in the past to show someone from a large customers who you are and try to convince them that you have value to them, now the internet and social media has created an easy and liquid way to facilitate this new connection.