After your product hits the market, the first question you should ask is: “What does my business need when it comes to marketing?”
Does your marketing need to support your branding and offer you a better logo, or does it need to bring you new leads and provide your sales representative with opportunities?
The obvious answer is both. You must give the marketing machine time, otherwise you will lose.
Marketing for tech start-ups is not a piece of cake, but start-up marketing agencies can simplify it for you, as long as you ensure that it fits your needs.
How do I ensure that marketing professionals are meeting my needs?
When working with marketing professionals, be upfront about your business needs. Here are some examples of what might be important for your business:
- Branding. Your brand essence should, on the one hand, provide a sense of your company’s spirit, and on the other hand, describe your company’s value in an original way that simultaneously serves your SEO needs. Choosing your logo or brand name requires both creativity and precision. It’s a tricky task that is better when you have a team of marketing professionals helping you through.
- Choosing your “persona”. Sometimes, the first meeting with your B2B marketing agency will reveal that you didn’t have an exact definition of your buyer personas or have not been properly targeting them. Luckily, working with them is a great opportunity to fine-tune your potential customers and research where to find them. Knowing your target audience is crucial in order to convert leads and make sales.
- Website and SEO. It is known that a website is a company’s most consumer-facing asset, but companies have a tendency to neglect their websites. This is a grave mistake: your website is your essence and the first thing customers look at when it comes to deciding if they are going to purchase your product, or when partners decide if they would like to collaborate. And let’s not forget about SEO optimization, which is an essential part of website creation and upkeep. One of the best techniques to improve your website results is to write consistent, engaging blog posts about your niche.
- Social media. Twitter? LinkedIn? Or even TikTok? Marketing professionals are familiar with all of the above and much more. They will help you find a proper language, create fitting content, and target the audience most appropriate for your business.
- Paid social & paid search. You can spend huge budgets, but it’s like using a sledge-hammer to crack a pistachio. Your other option is to choose your proper audience, create suitable and creative ads, and spend the exact amount of money per lead as planned. It’s all up to you and the marketing agency you choose to work with! By the way, you can actually plan your startup marketing budget. And don’t forget: social media won’t bring you proper results without paid media activity.
- Email marketing. Did you know how easy it is to burn out your domain if you’re sending emails without putting together a proper contact list? Well, it is. So be sure you’re scraping your leads database properly, otherwise all your future emails will go to spam.
- Event management. You could run a great webinar or attend the biggest conference in your field, and it will bring you plenty of new relevant leads. But it’s not easy to manage it yourself: you will definitely need marketing pros to lead the process and advertise it smartly.
- At the end of the day, it’s all about lead generation. Was it built into your company’s activities from the get-go? Are there better ways to find relevant leads? What are lead magnets for your audience? Finally, is your SDR “hungry” for more? Your marketing agency should be able to help you to solve those puzzles. As we talk about lead generation, we shouldn’t forget the importance of marketing automation for startups. Take a look at your HubSpot, and if it’s a mess – it’s always a good time to clean it up.
But is it best to hire an agency or in-house marketing specialist?
Let me guess: you need flexibility. Yesterday you wanted to focus on SEO, but tomorrow you will be in desperate need of a PPC professional. Do you have the time and budget to hire a full in-house marketing department that can serve all of these changing needs? What’s going to happen when your priorities change?
If your answer is “NO!”, then here we are, a team of professionals in startup marketing in Israel who can provide you with a CMO-as-a-Service that will serve your specific marketing needs. At SAGE, a B2B startup marketing agency, we have a 360° marketing team that will execute every aspect of your startup marketing activity and even more. Your marketing activities will be greatly enhanced if you outsource CMO.
Still have more questions? Contact us!
