by Jeffrey Walker
| May 16, 2014
Beginning a startup is never easy. There are so many things to keep track of in the process of launching a product, and cash flow is a constant issue. But thankfully starting a new business, while difficult is some ways, has also never been easier! Today, there are also more and more tools on the market than ever before, which can help to make starting and marketing a new business much smoother and more agile than it was in the “old days.” The real challenge is that just about everyone and their brother’s uncle is going down this route, and so the competition is fierce.
When starting a new business the name of the game is to get customers to view your product or service as fast as possible. The process of setting up a long and elaborate business plan is not going to work. Nowadays startups should keep it Lean and go from soup to nuts, from concept to beta product launch in as little time as possible. The idea here is to develop an MVP, or Minimum Viable Product, and get something launched for your early adopters to see, handle, and touch, to carefully gauge customer feedback, and then to pivot and adjust user expectations accordingly.
Marketing tools are your best friend when it comes to showcasing your product and service in front of your early adopters and potential lifelong customers. Chances are good as well that the tools you use to market your product in the early stages of your company are going to serve your business well in the later stages of growth.
In this series we want to explore some of the best marketing tools available for the startup. What should be your primary resources for marketing, promoting, and monetizing your line of business? How will you get customers to “like” your product and want to come back for more? How will you influence users to recommend your service to other customers? These are just some of the questions we’ll be exploring as we continue this series.
To get you warmed up to what’s to follow, let’s start with one important recommendation right out of the gate. In fact, most every article on startup marketing tools you consult will always have this one product on their list of recommendations. MailChimp is the gold standard when it comes to launching and managing your startup’s email marketing campaign.
Setting up an email campaign can be an intimidating process, but MailChimp simplifies it and the success of over 5 million users and 4 billion email sent a month proves this out. MailChimp provides a rich array of helpful services to ensure that your startup will reach and retain faithful subscribers. Subscriber profile management, personalization and automation tools , social media networking (including the recently released Twitter Tailored Audiences feature), mobile integration, and advanced analytics reporting are all part of what makes MailChimp the first choice for email marketing campaigns. There are different pricing packages depending on the number of emails and subscribers you need. But the basic “entrepreneur” version allows 12,000 emails and up to 2,000 subscribers and is “free forever,” which really amounts to a great deal!
Email marketing doesn’t stop once you move beyond the early startup phase. Email marketing is always a great means to announce company news, send resources, promote contests or giveaways, and give general updates to your customers. MailChimp handles this process elegantly and provides strong value to your business, whether it’s a startup or a more developed firm.
Please join us back here next time as we continue to explore and discuss the best startup marketing tools and strategies for your small business success!
