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Sarah McGivens, Negosentro | The world of business is full of people who are waiting for their idea to sell itself. Still, if you want your startup to stand out from the crowd you have to do something about it. And since the way people perceive your business is vital for your long-term success, you should always aim at promoting your startup as much as possible. Self-promotion can help you maximize these perceptions and grow your business. And if you’ve ever wondered who to do this, make sure you stay tuned because we’ve come up with our top 5 self-promotion tips for startups.
Create a good story
One of the first things you’ll need if you want your startup to get noticed is a good story for. This means you’ll need to come up with a consistent narrative that your customers are going to associate with your business. We’re talking about things such as visions, goals and basically anything else that’s essential to your business. Even though this may seem like an easy task, creating a good story requires a lot of time and effort. No matter how big your budget is, you’ll need to focus on creating a narrative because that’s one of the easiest ways to get your story out and bring in more customers.
Embrace social media
Today, people rely on social media more than ever. Not only do we use platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with our friends and family, but we also use them when browsing for companies we can turn to. This means using social media is a great way for self-promoting. Create a page for your startup and use it to stay in touch with your customers. You can share almost anything from news about your startup to articles people who follow you might find interesting. Also, make sure you respond to all the comments made by your followers, even the negative ones since that will show them that you care.
Offer a referral incentive
People may like your business but that doesn’t mean they’ll be ready to recommend you to their friends and family unless you give them a reason to do so. And there’s hardly a better way to do this than to offer rewards for referrals. Here, it’s very important that you find the right rewards and tailor them according to what your current customers really want. This is something many companies out there do. Just take a look at Dropbox who gives extra storage to anyone who refers new customers. During their marketing campaign, the Omaha Steakhouse even gave 10 extra burgers to those who have referred a friend.
Invest in promotional products
Promotional gifts for your customers are also something you can never go wrong with. These little things are usually kept for a long period of time, which means they’ll help you build a strong a brand. Moreover, promotional products are guaranteed to improve your customers’ opinion of your business and they will be more likely to buy from you. Not to mention that today there’s a whole variety of items you can go for when it comes to promotional products. While pens and T-shirts used to be the most popular promotional products out there, you can now go for something more unique such as a personalised diary or USB flash drive with your logo.
Turn your employees into brand ambassadors
While large companies may have a whole department in charge of marketing, small businesses have much less options when it comes to promoting your business. However, this doesn’t mean your employees can’t help you with this. In fact, you can turn them into brand ambassadors and have them bring more customers in. They can do this either by talking up your business, giving business cards to their friends or family and sharing news about your company. Just make sure you keep your employees happy and they’ll be ready to go an extra mile to promote your business.
Tackling self-promotion doesn’t really have to be a challenge. Follow the tips we mentioned above and you should be able to do it while still focusing on core business operations.
