5 marketing tips for busy founders

It won’t come as a surprise for anyone that marketing at a startup is not easy. It’s not just the budget restrictions but also the fact that, in many cases, marketing is only one of the many hats founders have to wear. The lack of expertise in the field, coupled with a lack of time and conflicting priorities, often leads to startups making some common but avoidable mistakes.

To help you beat the odds and maximise your resources, here are in my experience, the five most common mistakes startups and small business owners should avoid.

Focusing on brand identity rather than brand positioning

When you have a strong vision of how your business is going to change the world, you want to make sure that the visual representation of that vision is perfect. However, branding is much more than your brand name, logo, fonts or the look and feel of your app.

The reality is that branding is less about you and more about your customers’ perception of your brand. Solidifying your brand positioning will help you switch the focus from what you do, what your product is, to what you are bringing to your customers.

Although you may already have a good idea of the different elements of your brand positioning — target audience, market differentiators, brand personality, etc. — putting it all on paper will help you focus on the customers and simplify the way you communicate with them. In turn, this facilitates future marketing decisions, and more importantly, gives your customers reasons to buy from you.

Pitching to your customer with your investor deck

A prerequisite for any founder is to be a true believer in his/her product. But that self-belief can often lead to very ineffective self-centric marketing approaches.

Although potential investors may be keen to hear how you are going to “reimagine/rebuild/revolutionise [your category],” very few customers—maybe early adopters, if that—will be influenced by that rhetoric when making the purchasing decision.

We, customers, are selfish. Most of us don’t use Uber because “they are working to transform transportation,” but simply because it is cheaper, most of the time cleaner, and you know what you are going to pay beforehand. In other words, we use Uber because it’s pretty clear what’s in it for us.

The same logic applies to most brands and customers. Having a website or any other marketing material focusing on how fantastic your product is, the technology it uses, or why you brought it to the market is almost pointless. People don’t buy products, or technology for that matter, they buy experiences. You can talk about your app features until the cows come home, but you would be better off focusing on showcasing the app benefits for the customer, and of course, ensuring the experience is as good as you say it is.

It goes without saying that understanding your target audience and what makes them convert will also go a long way with your investors.

Fame is good, hyper-targeting is even better.

We've all heard it before. Free marketing is the best marketing. What startup hasn't done some DIY PR in the hope of going viral and bringing the masses to their site? But let's be honest, although in some cases it works, in most cases it's more a soft branding, spray and pray tactic, than one that will bring converting customers or lead to steady growth.

I'm not saying that PR is not an effective tactic, but you need to make sure it is effective for your business, you are doing it correctly and at the right time. If your PR efforts are not hitting your target audience in a meaningful way, or have the risk to put the spotlight on a product that may not be quite ready yet for it, you’d be better off steering your marketing efforts elsewhere.

A good place to start when looking at cost-effective marketing strategies is hyper-targeting. You won't be famous overnight as identifying your buyer personas will take time, some money, and more importantly lots of testing and analytics, but the end result –hyper personalisation– is definitely worth it.

Being able to fine-tune your messaging for conversion, so you serve it to the right customer, on the right medium, at the right place, will not only improve the customer experience but will also help you build your marketing into your product, reach scalable and sustainable growth, and become famous—if that’s what you really want.

Think ahead

Have you had that uncomfortable moment when you realise that it is the 10th of December, and you will have to spend twice the money to put an average Christmas campaign that will have very little chance of success because your competitor has been nurturing your target audience for weeks? You are not alone; the lack of marketing planning is a common occurrence among small businesses.

I hear you; the battle between the important and the urgent is never more prevalent than in startup land, but the lack of planning and direction in marketing can not only be an expensive exercise but also one that, in the long run, can sink your business.

It’s not about putting a comprehensive 12-month marketing plan; we all know that is an

eternity for a startup or a small business. However, it is essential to align your business strategy with your marketing strategy.

Dividing your marketing plan into a ‘chewable’ size (e.g., three-month plan) will help you make the process less overwhelming and help you correct the course more efficiently if needed.

Planning will allow you take full advantage of any seasonality, leverage the findings and results of your previous campaigns—if you haven’t done it yet—evaluate what resources you need to activate the plan, and finally, implement it cost-effectively.

Planning will also help you to be more agile with your marketing, as you can take full advantage of last-minute marketing opportunities without having to stop every other marketing effort.

Perfection is the enemy of done

Although I have left it to last, this is probably the most common mistake I have encountered in my 20 years in marketing.

Of course, I understand, your business is your baby. When you show it to the world, you want it to look its best. However, expecting perfection on every marketing initiative and overanalysing marketing decisions slows down your ability to go live with campaigns, and in extreme situations, can freeze your entire marketing function.

Here are some tips to get your marketing moving:

• Great is good enough. The same way that perfection is unattainable, marketing is never done; it evolves all the time. Therefore, rather than wasting your time and money on an endless pursuit of perfection for a marketing piece that may not even exist in a couple of months, you should accept or, even better, celebrate great work and move on.

• It’s not about you. If you are obsessing over a marketing initiative, copy for an email, web page, etc., you are likely to be approaching things from your perspective rather than your customer’s point of view. Go back to your brand positioning to ensure you are customer-centric or ask the opinion of a real customer or someone outside your business. And remember, it is very likely that no one else but you will notice that image or copy tweak you are agonising over.

• You cannot afford perfection. Time is money, and that’s particularly true for founders and owners. Let “make it happen” be your motto and make informed but quick decisions. If you are continually getting caught in the headlights, you will affect not only your marketing deliverables but also the culture of your business, losing in the process the agility required to make your startup a thriving one.

Final thoughts

The common denominator of the most frequent marketing mistakes made by startups and small businesses is not putting the customer first.

Shift your focus from how wonderful you are to what that means to the customer. If you are going to obsess over marketing, let it be over finding and targeting the right customers and ensuring every marketing initiative goes through the “why” test. Why should your customers care about the features of your app? What’s in it for them?

If you are ruthless in this approach, you will build a customer-centric brand that will translate into conversions and steady growth.