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You might not have a marketing team in place when you’re in the planning stages of starting a new business. But well before you open your doors, you’ll need to develop a marketing strategy to include in your business plan. Let’s look at some types of marketing to consider.

Thinking about how to start marketing a startup begins during business planning? You may start out handling these marketing aspects by yourself. However, if you notice gaps that could significantly increase profits and visibility, it may be time to hire a marketing team. Here are popular marketing strategies to consider.

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for all internet-based activities that create visibility for a business. Any kind of online content creation falls under the category of digital marketing. 

Content, in this sense, is loosely defined as any piece of digital media — videos, blog posts, pictures — that is designed and shared to disseminate information and draw people in. As a business owner undertaking marketing a startup in any field, you should be aware of the basic content funnel:

• Top-of-funnel (TOFU) — Creates awareness through blog posts, social media updates, videos, podcasts, infographics and more surface-level content.
• Middle-of-funnel (MOFU) — Fuels consideration by providing interested viewers with product comparisons, reports, e-books, case studies, webinars and more information-heavy content.
• Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) — Attempts to seal the deal with a purchase or conversion through demos, testimonials, free trials, promos and more product-specific content.

Everyone builds out their content in a different way, but all aspects of the funnel are crucial to drawing people in. You prompt discovery of your business during TOFU by providing useful information that appeals to a wide audience, and you funnel these interested viewers down to purchase or conversion by offering more resources in MOFU and convincing them that your product can solve an existing pain point by BOFU.

Similarly, email marketing is used to attract customers and lead to conversions. It may be considered part of content marketing — and the way your email messages are crafted will accordingly place this tactic in different parts of the funnel. For instance:

• TOFU email marketing will use purchased or acquired email lists and push out content relevant to the target audience’s interests.
• MOFU email marketing may zero in a bit more on the product or offer field-specific resources straight to their inboxes.
• BOFU email marketing will offer a demo or free trial with a click-through button to sign up easily and make a conversion.

You might start out emailing potential leads one by one, but there are platforms designed for streamlined email when you’re marketing a startup — such as MailChimp. You can also use split-testing to determine the efficacy of different email content. This may be as simple as changing the graphics, or you could change the content of the email entirely. Email marketing is a craft in and of itself, and the marketing plan associated with it should reflect that.

You should have already checked to see if your company’s name is used as a domain name when writing your business plan.Hopefully you’ve snapped it up by this step. Typically, you’ll want to choose a .com domain extension, but depending on your structure, you can use .org or .net. Then, start building your site so people have somewhere to land after viewing your marketing efforts.

Whether you’re tech-savvy and building a website from scratch or using a beginner-friendly website builder, you’ll want to include the following fundamentals on your startup’s site:

• Contact form
• Email sign-up
• Company address (or general service area)
• "About” section
• Logo and branded color scheme
• Quality images
• Clear, concise text

Your business website is the first impression you present to potential customers, employees and investors when marketing a startup and beyond. A user-friendly, clean interface is crucial to get website viewers to stay on your page for a longer time. When testing out your website design, you can use various tools to see visitors’ activity on your site. 

When most people think of marketing, they picture ads. This is possible online through what is called PPC marketing. As the name suggests, you pay the platform on which you placed the ad each time a viewer clicks through to your target link. Usually, it’s just a few cents per click — making this a great way to dip your toes into marketing a startup that is fresh on the scene.

As you learn more about PPC marketing, you can also do a/b and split-tests, fine-tune your funnel and tailor your demographics to your optimal target audience. This will be the best allocation of your marketing funds, which should be increased only after you fully understand how to do PPC marketing effectively. Most ad platforms, such as Facebook Ads, have integrated data reporting to allow you to check on your progress and conversion rates. 

Social media marketing is the newest form of digital marketing. In addition to the ads that pop up in personal feeds, other social media marketing tactics are at play, such as:

• Sponsored influencer posts
• Tagged accounts and locations
• Hashtags
• Contests
• The social posts on the business’s page

Your social media presence will depend heavily on what type of business you are running. If it’s highly creative, such as a photography business, you may want to focus your efforts on Instagram and create an aesthetic feed to showcase your work. If you are a more straightlaced, professional brand, LinkedIn may be your best bet — sharing case studies and reports to those who care most. 

Marketing originated with physical copies of marketing materials, such as:

• Flyers
• Brochures
• Mailers
• Stickers
• Merch

Even though digital marketing has dominated the advertising scene, that doesn’t mean print is dead. It depends on your target audience and where it’s likely to see your marketing efforts. Newspaper ads could work for a small landscaping business, but mailer ads may work better for a furniture business that targets new homeowners. 

One of the most unique ways to increase brand awareness is to host events. This can be something as quirky as an art festival or as formal as a trade show. It depends on your business goals, but you’ll typically require marketing materials such as:

• Flyers
• Signage
• Banners
• Promo bags
•  Branded merch

Before launching the event and spreading the word digitally, make sure you have the budget to pull off the event. You’ll have to find a space to rent, get caterers or other service professionals, and pay for the marketing materials listed above.

Getting people talking about your brand is the ultimate goal. This is called word-of-mouth or referral marketing. This typically happens when you have at least a few established customers who can then go to their networks and tout your quality service or products. You can speed this process along when marketing a startup by offering incentives, such as referral codes or discounts on their next purchase.