Tactical tips for startup marketing

1. Make sure you choose a name that works for your business. Try and keep the name simple, clean and catchy. If the name you pick isn’t available don’t try tweaking the name just to make it work. When a domain says it’s “available” it doesn’t necessarily mean that is. A domain being available can mean that you can register it right then and there or that it has a price that you’d have to be willing to pay. Don’t get your heart set on a name only to find out it’s not for sale, try and keep your options open during the naming process.
2. Your website should be simple and really user friendly. Your site doesn’t have to have all of the bells and whistles. The important thing is to make sure you’ve got enough content up to start a Google click campaign. If your site isn’t packed full of information yet, don’t worry you can add more later. Just make sure that you are using a good content management system.
3. Add some links to your new site. If you have friends and family that have sites, call in those favors and link from their sites. The ultimate goal is to get Google to start indexing your site. It’ll only take one good link to get your site going but if your curious to see how you are doing just Google yournewbusiness.com to see if you are being indexed.
4. Start tweeting! A twitter account can be a great link to your site. The name on your twitter account should be the same as your domain name.
5. Email subscriptions are a great way to keep people up to date. A simple email signup form is al you need to let people know when you are coming out with something new!
6. A nice logo goes a long way. You can get lots of different options by running a contest on either of the following sites crowdspring.com or 99designs.com When you’ve picked the logo you like make sure you end up with a vector file, illustrator or eps file.
7. Get your businesses “face” on facebook. Set up a “fan” page (business page) for your business and link it back to your site. You might not grab to many fans in the beginning but it’s a great way to get your name out there. Make sure you recommend your new “fan” page to all your personal contacts on facebook to get more traffic to your page. Also it’s a good idea to setup a sub domain and just redirect it to your site ex: facebook.yournewbusiness.com it’s a free and fairly easy way to direct more hits back to your site.
8. Start Blogging. Blogging is a great way to get your company’s name out there and with the right tags it’ll help get your site indexed. The most popular, free, hosting tools out there is wordpress.com. Don’t use their domain name for your blog, use blog.yournewbusiness.com; you’ll want to be able to control all of the search engine optimization for your blog and direct it towards your website not wordpress.
9. Once you’ve started your blog, write an article about your new business. Explain how you’ve gotten this far and what you are hoping to solve with your company. Tell your readers why you’ve picked this problem and discuss your possible plan of attack. It might be a bit awkward at first expressing yourself and sharing your ideas but try to get past that because with inbound marketing it’s crucial to have that human element in your site and in your business.
10. Setup Google alerts for one or more of the following: company name, yourdomain.com, or an industry term. If you choose and industry term as your google alert, try and find a specific one that you won’t get you flooded by alerts that you’ll just start deleting and ignoring. Picking the right term may take some fine tuning but once you’ve found the right one you’ll have a pulse on your industry.
11. Know who your competition is. Really spend some time researching and finding your competitors. Treat it like a job and don’t stop until you’ve found 6 competitors. Out of those six pick the top two who you think are marketing wizards. Your top two should have a website grade greater than 90, a blog with actual readers, a user friendly website, and a twitter account with actual posts. Start tracking/stalking these companies and add them to your Google Alerts.
12. Update your LinkedIn profile by mentioning your new business venture. Add a link to your new site in one of the three slots provided for this purpose. The anchor of your text should be your new business name and a brief description.
13. Make your new venture official by ordering up business cards. You don’t need a tri-fold pop up card to attract attention but on the other hand the “free” option isn’t the best way to go either. A simple clean card is a good way to network when you are face to face with potential clients.
14. Use the Twitter Grader sear feature to locate the high-impact tweeters in your specific industry. Follow them on twitter and try to start relationships and build your twitter network. Make sure you twitter connections are relevant to your business and don’t get caught up in the game of getting your follower count up. The name of the game here is quality not quantity.
15. Register for a stumpleupon account. Indicate your areas of interest and spend roughly 10 minutes a day “stumbling” and voting things up or down. Get chummy with others who are submitting sites that relate to your new business.
16. Subscribe to the LinkedIN answers category the relates to your business. Try and answer a question a day that you feel well qualified in. Don’t use this forum to plug you or your business. Use this tool to build your credibility and trust in yourself and ultimately your business.
17. Locate the bloggers that are writing about things that relate to your business and industry. Become an active participant on their blogs and add useful information when you can. Again, don’t use this as a forum to self promote or spam the bloggers. Keeping a pulse on your industry and adding valuable input when able will raise your credibility.
18. Use Website Grader to grade your website. Try and fix the basic things and aim to get a 50+ by listening to it’s suggestions.
19. Add some analytic software to your site so you’ll be able to start watching your traffic. You can track where it’s coming from, how it’s growing, and what keywords are helping people find you. You can also see what they are looking at and what’s trending on your site.