How to Market Your Startup: A Step-by-Step Guide

Building a Strong Brand Identity

One of the main goals of marketing is to communicate to your audience who you are and what you stand for. That means you need a strong, recognizable brand.

“How you position yourself, how you stay top of mind, all of that is going to come down to your brand,” says Scott Gabdullin, CEO of Authority Factors.

Your startup’s branding needs to be consistent over time and across channels. That’s easier to achieve if you write brand guidelines early on to answer some fundamental questions about how your brand presents itself.

“Are we fun? Are we serious? Are we professional? Do we ever use a cuss word when we're talking? I mean, just as simple as that. It just lays down the boundaries of what your business does and doesn't do,” says Beth Romer, owner and founder of L&L Collective.

Visuals such as your logo should look the same wherever people encounter them, so use graphic design software like Canva to develop a brand kit and manage images.

Leveraging Social Media

Set up accounts for your startup on every social platform, even those where you might not plan to be active. This ensures no one else can claim the handle and assume your company’s identity.

Then, decide which platforms you want to focus on. This will largely depend on who your audience is and where they spend their time online.

“Quite often for our own businesses, which are largely B2B service-based businesses, we'll probably look into LinkedIn, we'll look into Facebook because the audience that we are going after is largely on an older part of the audience segment there. So they're a bit older, they tend to use Facebook quite a bit,” Gabdullin says. “But if you are targeting somebody who is younger, you might want to consider TikTok and Instagram and maybe even Snapchat.”

To craft engaging, shareable posts, highlight real people. You can introduce employees or give a behind-the-scenes view of a workday.

“I always say to focus on the human-centric content, and by that I mean being able to show the people behind the business. So the people who are the decision makers, the people who are customer-facing,” says Ashley Mason, founder of Dash of Social.

Or, tell a story. Let your audience know why you founded your company or how you came up with the idea for a product.

You can manage channels directly through the platform websites, or try out the free tiers of social scheduling software like Buffer and Later.

Creating a Content Calendar

Content performs better when you publish regularly. Plan out a calendar of content, and find a cadence that works for you—whether that’s once a week, twice a week, or something different.

You might find inspiration in your existing interactions with customers or clients. “A lot of blog posts that startups end up writing can be used as an FAQ type of section,” Mason says. “So that helps with being able to answer questions that people are constantly asking you over and over again, and then you have a resource to point them to rather than having to answer that question multiple times yourself.”

Don’t limit yourself to written text. “You want to test several forms of media and see which one resonates with your audience the most. Because some people prefer to see written words, some people prefer to listen to audio,” Mason says.

AI can be helpful for identifying trending or seasonal topics, generating ideas and outlining blog posts. But good content requires work from a human, too. “Don't use AI to write your blog. Google actually penalizes you for it,” says Lindsey Carnett, CEO and president of Marketing Maven.

You can plan out your content in Google Sheets, and write posts in Google Docs.

Optimizing SEO

Investing in SEO is essential for keeping tabs on your reputation and driving search traffic.

“I think that everybody should be paying attention to SEO, even as an individual,” Carnett says. “So if somebody has your same name, but they're an axe murderer, you should probably know about that. Everybody should set up a Google alert. It's free to do and set it up for your name. If you are a startup, set it up for the name of your business. Set it up for all the people that are involved in your business.”

On your website, follow best practices like using meta tags, adding image descriptions and alt text, and organizing content with appropriate headers. Keywords related to your startup should appear naturally in your landing pages and blog posts. And steer clear of automated or repetitive content that could get dinged in search.

Use an SEO tool like Semrush or Website Grader to see how search engines view your site and find ways to boost its performance.

Nurturing an Email List

Many startups begin with meager email lists, but you shouldn’t give into the temptation to buy thousands of contacts. Not only is it a bad look if your brand pops into someone’s inbox uninvited, but you could run afoul of privacy laws.

“You definitely need to make sure that the people that you are sending emails to actually want those emails and they've opted in to receive those emails,” Carnett says.

Instead, offer a freebie that website visitors can unlock if they share their email. Consider partnering with influencers to cross promote your newsletter and get new signups. And when you attend trade shows, conferences or other industry events, ask the people you meet for their emails.

Segment your list so contacts receive personalized messages that are relevant to them, and try A/B tests to see what messaging results in a higher open rate. You can also resend newsletters to the people who didn’t open them the first time. “That way you're hopefully catching those stragglers and ensuring they still see the content,” Mason says.

More advanced functions typically come with a fee, but you can jump into the basics of email marketing at no cost with the free tiers from Kit and Mailchimp.

Engaging Your Community

Community engagement initiatives like webinar series or online forums can build excitement about your brand, position your startup as an authority and generate leads.

To get ideas for topics, try polling your audience on social media. You could also hold events to showcase upcoming product features or anything else in the works. 

Choose a schedule that’s sustainable. Planning and running webinars takes time, so it’s better to hold a few of them—say, once a quarter—rather than to promise one a week and find you don’t have enough bandwidth.

And remember that it’s not always necessary to assemble a community from scratch. “You might want to tap into other communities that already exist and cross promote there,” Gabdullin says.

Gaining Insight from Analytics

To measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, it’s hard to beat the free data from Google Analytics. Metrics you’ll want to check out include where traffic is coming from and whether your audience visits your site on desktop, mobile or tablet. Track the bounce rate and the average time people spend on different pages.

If the numbers seem overwhelming, Mason recommends getting help from AI. “A little hack that I have for being able to interpret that data is to actually open ChatGPT, copy and paste the data that you're seeing into ChatGPT, and ask it, ‘What does this data mean? Can you interpret it for me? And what are some improvements I can make moving forward?’” she says.

When you make changes, keep in mind that results won’t show up overnight. It might take a few months before those graphs start trending upward.  

At the same time, don’t be afraid to pivot if a tactic flops with your audience.

“If you decide you're going to go after a certain strategy and it's not what you want, then maybe you switch gears and you try something new. And just be open to change,” Romer says.

Ultimately, the results you’ll see from marketing depend on how much work you put into it over the long haul. “If you just stay consistent and continue to provide value to your audience, it will pay off over time,” Mason says.