Home > Productivity > Start-up Marketing: (5) Scrappy Building Blocks to Create Awareness

Ask any start-up if they have a marketing department. Most will say no. If they do have any marketing efforts in place, nearly every single person at the company is chipping in.  In a start-up environment, a single department doesn’t define marketing; it is defined by the contributions of every team member.

Here are (5) building blocks to make your start-up shine without a traditional marketing team.

1. Establish a social presence for each core team member.  (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)

2. Humanize your brand by empowering the team to talk about the your emerging brand/service. (And of course, establish guidelines about what’s confidential versus public information.)

3. Create (sales) content your entire team can share on a regular basis, though a wide array of channels.  Industry white papers, About Us landing pages, (Slide Share) product demos, etc. are all a good place to start.

4. Set-up QR codes, bit.ly links and personalized URLs (PURLS) that point to your most valuable sales info.  This allows you to track basic analytics on where your users are coming from – geo location, content sources, and inbound keyword searches. Over time you will be able to use the information to shape SEO, content strategy and target audience specs for media buys.

5. Share (curated) conversations about your product and/or user feedback in real-time RSS feeds.  Involve a wide range of team members to identify key product features and/or user input to expose regularly on social channels and your website.   To control what gets posted, assign someone to monitor and curate what goes live. The core housing point for this information can live on a single page within your website and be updated as often you have new info to share with the world (e.g. Testimonials).

Need help getting started? Visit Get Scrappy to sign-up for a free 15-min consultation.

Photo Credit:  Flickr – Steven Depolo, Building Blocks