4 Marketing Channels To Invest In As A Startup With No Budget

Acquiring and retaining customers is one of the biggest challenges a startup faces nowadays. And sadly, a high-quality product is often not enough.

Marketing plays a huge role in the success of a product or a service, so entrepreneurs have no option but to do it right. But what kind of tools can they use?

Could it be social media, free email marketing services, or perhaps a beautiful landing page?

Each channel carries different strengths and weaknesses, different costs, different exposure and of course different audience demographics.

So, let’s find out what would work best for you, your goals, audience and marketing budget.

1. Facebook

Facebook has been around for years and we can safely say that it is the most famous since it’s used by “more than 2.32 billion active users monthly and 1.15 billion mobile active users daily”.

Through Facebook, you have access to countless opportunities. And mind you, it’s one of the most affordable platforms, when it comes to advertising fees. But what is really invaluable is its power to connect brands with their audience organically.

Leading brands are using Facebook as a tool to communicate with their markets through consistent relevant content.

This may not generate immediate sales, but it could create a bulletproof name that represents morals and the qualities that will make prospects connect with-and become brand ambassadors for-a brand that has a “human” voice. 

Also, be very mindful of your audience. There are slightly more males than females on Facebook worldwide, so if you’d like to go global, you need to leave no stone unturned.

Keeping that in mind, decide which platform is going to be the one to work on extensively.

2. Instagram

Similar to Facebook, Instagram is a social media platform that allows marketers to directly connect their brand with its target audience.

Instagram’s visual nature thrives engagement-wise, making it an important tool for marketers, despite it lacking some core Facebook features, like groups or even plain text content. 

With the rise of influencer marketing, brands can leverage the power of Instagram’s platform to promote their philosophy or even sell their products and services.

Of course, there is paid advertising that allows marketers to reach even larger audiences instead of being limited to their acquired followers.

Using a marketing strategy on Instagram to inflate your revenue with a reasonable or zero budget should be the norm. 

This is a great marketing channel to invest in as a startup with no budget and you should be using it.

Oh, and one other thing: It costs nothing, absolutely nothing to post an Insta story and Instagram stories are proving to be one of the most engaging components of this social media platform, along with Instagram Live.

With 5 million video uploads on the very day it introduced its video feature, Instagram is simply made for video marketing, as well as influencer marketing, since more than most influencers are on there. 

So, if you need a cost-effective tool (videos can be very cost-effective and highly engaging and there are plenty of influencers that won’t cost a fortune), Instagram videos and Instagram influencers will most definitely save the day.

Especially if you’re targeting an audience that is a little younger and more artistic than Facebook’s is.

3. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is another platform with a huge user base. But unlike Instagram and Facebook, LinkedIn is focused on B2B marketing. 

This makes it a perfect marketing channel for startups that sell products or services to enterprises. 

You can use LinkedIn to promote your brand and make direct sales. 

Before talking about the tools that LinkedIn provides you with, I would like to point out its main characteristic: The ability to create long-lasting relationships.

With LinkedIn, you will be able to establish authority in your niche and make people trust you and your products or service. 

Just like Instagram and Facebook, LinkedIn can act as a medium to share content and knowledge with professionals, a fact that makes it a great tool for B2B Marketing, but that’s not all.

Sales navigator is LinkedIn’s social media tool that gives you access to leads that correspond with what your ideal customer is like, all around the world. The filters provided by this great tool will help you gather a list of prospects that are accompanied by a high probability of interest in your services. 

This is not a free feature, but it’s not expensive either, considering the number of sales it can generate.

Also, video marketing is not just for Instagram. LinkedIn might be the “business” social media platform, but this doesn’t mean it can’t be fun and engaging. So, you can create content that will help you stand out way more than what simple text posts can do for you.

So, create videos and upload them, link your YouTube account, get a conversation going, through live videos… Get more interaction. Even the B2B model LinkedIn is perfect for needs more engagement in our day and age.

4. Email Marketing

Using all the previous channels without using email marketing doesn’t make sense, as it’s an integral part of your overall marketing strategy, especially if you want to nurture the leads you’ve acquired. 

Social media platforms and landing pages are great marketing channels for startups to collect email addresses, but you have to take advantage of these emails somehow. 

Not every customer is ready to buy from you the time you reach out to them. But that doesn’t particularly mean that they are a lost opportunity. 

As previously mentioned, a common and very effective tactic is to trade free valuable resources (like infographics) for your audience’s email addresses. This way you can build an email list that you can use in the future to inform your subscribers about the content you share, your product updates or even seasonal offers. 

Oh, and email marketing is very much affordable. The prices vary, depending on the email service provider that you will choose to go with.

As I mentioned in the introduction, there are free email marketing services as well as paid. But whatever platform you decide to go with, you’ll need to get your money’s worth and your times’ worth.

And timing, as you know, is everything. So, make sure to watch and learn through your users’ behaviour.

The general consensus is that most emails are opened early in the evening and that Monday is the worst day for email opens, as there will be emails piling up during the weekend.

Make sure to pay close attention to your users’ behaviour and see what works for them. And then, especially if you’re a global startup, start segmenting and sending your emails at the best time, according to your audience and the region you’re segmenting for.

Conclusion

If you are managing a startup and your intention is to have the best possible outcome while keeping the costs as close as possible to zero, I can guarantee that the aforementioned channels are what you should go with.

The above practices have been tested and they are proven to work, so don’t hesitate.

What you should remember as an entrepreneur is that, even if you have an unlimited budget, being unwilling to experiment and use your creativity is what will keep you from success. 

You have the tools. The only thing you need to do now is using them.

George Fakorellis

George is a Growth Marketing Associate working for email automation software Moosend! He loves to write about Marketing in the Digital Era and the growth hacks that he is discovering in his everyday explorations. He is always interested in talking about experiences and ideas so feel free to drop him a message to share your interesting knowledge.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-fakorellis/

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Email: george.f@moosend.com