You can be on Entrepreneur’s cover!

Why Digital Marketing Strategies are Imperative to Boost Startup Growth The relativity of digital marketing strategies with the growth of businesses is no secret in today's ever-evolving business world. But what are some of the most favorable marketing strategies?

By Abdulla Basha

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You're reading Entrepreneur Asia Pacific, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

Shutterstock

The emphasis of businesses on digital marketing strategies has been increasing with each passing day as the traditional marketing is hastily becoming obsolete. Marketers believe that the trade has changed more in the last two years than it ever did in the past five decades. Digital marketing strategies can give an edge to businesses, in particular, startups, who would do well to leverage this approach to catapult themselves to a higher level. In hindsight, it becomes quintessential to choose the most suitable strategies for the latter because of their apparent lack of resources and marketing expertise. We give you a heads-up on some of the most favorable strategies.

Email Marketing

There are assumptions that marketing through emails is redundant. It is, however, far from dead, delivering impeccable returns on investment for marketers. In a recent survey conducted by Demand Metric and the Data and Marketing Association (DMA), it was found that email marketing had an impressive ROI of 122 percent. This is four times higher than the other marketing channels analysed, including paid search, direct mail and social media.

This is a pearl of a strategy which undeservedly goes unnoticed. The fundamental ingredients of crisp emails would lie in engaging subject lines, persuasive language while avoiding jargon, bullets, and optimizing emails for mobile devices. Brands that harness the true potential of email marketing will eventually reap dividends.

Social Media Marketing

This is one of the more perceptible options as the importance of social media marketing has been extensively proclaimed. Social media marketing has been forecasted to grow from about $32 billion in 2017 to $48 billion in 2021. About 90 percent of marketers have confirmed the strategy's emphasis on their businesses while 89 percent have agreed that their social media initiatives have incurred exposure for their businesses.

While it is a given that sales are boosted, social media marketing also increases traffic. Apart from this, it helps establish thought leadership, consumer loyalty, leads, and search ranking. Considering all the benefits available, it is advisable to choose the right social media channels with respect to the company's target audiences. The user bases of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, and other channels harbor different consumers. It is pivotal to understand the personas and patterns of your audience and match it with the most suitable social media platforms.

Content Marketing

This is one of the most crucial marketing strategies that startups must tap into. Content marketing is a strategy that involves the creation, publication, and distribution of suitable and valuable content to target audiences. This could be in the form of articles, videos, posters, blogs, jingles, and various other creative forms of content where the motive lies in engaging audiences. The worldwide content marketing revenue in 2017 was $32.1 billion with 90 percent of B2C organizations and 88 percent of B2B marketers committed to content marketing. This approach adds to the credibility and authority of a company while facilitating long-term relations with audiences. Apart from elevating brand awareness and recognition, the thought leadership stirs critical thinking among viewers and readers which in turn engages consumers. While it supports a company's SEO and SMO efforts, start-ups must also realize that the beneficial strategy doesn't provide quick results. The results rise steadily but incur lasting benefits.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-per-click (PPC) or Google ad words, is a strategy that involves the use of sear engine advertising to attract visitors to the company website. It helps to generate sales-ready leads. There are various practical advantages that PPC offers. For instance, it helps in acquiring consumers at the right time with the use of suitable ad words incurring high ROIs as the expenditure is on a per-click basis. There is in turn transparency and clarity on the marketing cost while there is minimal anticipation for results. The added benefit is that crucial data and insights can be acquired with the use of analytical tools that can help strengthen other marketing strategies.

However, PPC may have the tendency to exhaust budgets fairly quickly if more clicks are generated in comparison to low conversions. Hence, it is pivotal to engineer successful campaigns in order to tilt the scales in favor of conversions where the costs of clicks are not wasted.

In Conclusion

There is fierce competition among startups to stake their claim in the business world, making it imperative to employ the most suitable digital marketing strategies. While some strategies may have greater scope for experimentation, others require minimal room for errors in terms of finance and the fact that first impressions can have major implications in today's fast-paced business world.

Abdulla Basha

Co-founder, Social Frontier

Social Frontier is an offshoot of GrowthStory’s centralised marketing team, which was headed by Abdulla Basha till they raised Series B funding. It was the realization that about 96% of businesses fail within 10 years primarily due to inefficient marketing and brand dilution that prompted Serial Entrepreneur and Promoter K Ganesh to float the idea of Social Frontier as a separate venture.

Social Frontier was incepted in early 2017 with Abdullah Basha and GnanaPrakash Rathinam as its Co-Founders. While Basha has extensive experience in managing digital marketing for portfolio companies including helping them scale business and acquire, Rathinam has over 17 years of expertise in building software products and solving critical business problems. The venture aims at helping businesses increase reach and engagement on social media, maximize website traffic, spur lead generation, increase application installs and achieve several other digital marketing goals.

 

 

Business News

Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Multibillion-Dollar Crypto Fraud

Southern District of New York Judge Lewis Kaplan said that the loss amount to the victims of Bankman-Fried's crimes surpassed $550 million.

Side Hustle

This Mom Started a Side Hustle After a 'Shocking' Realization in the Toy Aisle. Her Product Was in Macy's Within the Year — Seeing Nearly $350,000 in Sales.

Elenor Mak, now founder of Jilly Bing, didn't plan to start a business — but the search for a doll that looked like her daughter inspired her to do just that.

Marketing

5 Ways to Get on the Media's Good Side (and Stay There)

When you're trying to make a name and a mark for yourself and your business, it's really important to get on the media's good side — and stay there.

Thought Leaders

How To Improve Your Soft Skills and Emotional Intelligence in 7 Easy Steps

Using these simple but effective approaches will help a person in their business, life and relationships.

Business News

Mark Zuckerberg Told Meta Engineers to 'Figure Out' Snapchat's Privacy Protections: 'We Have No Analytics on Them'

Recently unsealed court documents detail "Project Ghostbusters," Meta's project to work around Snapchat's end-to-end encryption to intercept data.