Welcome to the section of our site that is dedicated to digital marketing for startups. We know first hand how exciting – and daunting – starting a new business can be.
Why is digital marketing important for startups?
Startups are unique because they usually require fast growth having garnered investment from third-parties and they don’t have an established brand name. Often there is a race to establish their sector of the market or a job to be done in educating a new category. The best channels to achieve this are online due to speed and cost.
The widespread accessibility of the internet has meant that the original – more prohibitive – barriers to establishing a business have been removed; you don’t need to get shelf space in retailer or to create a TV spot. Instead we can use online platforms to:
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- Conduct market research
- Develop a website
- Sell direct to the consumer
- Market a service or product
- Advertise with low production and media costs
- Have a direct relationship with the consumer
Digital marketing is therefore important because a website and digital media is critical to the success of a new enterprise which must consider:
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- Brand perception
- Product education
- Brand awareness
- Product fulfilment
- Customer service
- New product development
- Customer relationship management
While the internet may have facilitated the conception of many new businesses, we are operating in an era of unprecedented choice and despite plenty of software and cloud based solutions to help businesses, it is still incredibly tough to make a startup work long-term. Fortunately, many of these requirements can be fulfilled through a handful of digital tactics and tools.
For example, in 12 months you want to achieve a turnover of £100,000. Your products sell for £5 each. That means selling 20,000 units in a year or an average of 1,667 per month. Sounds simple enough but many companies that we speak with do not have these basics in place before approaching an agency. We’re often just told “as much as possible”.
Next, you need to figure out what is a realistic marketing budget. If you have a 30% margin after manufacturing/overheads of a £5 product then you have a profit of £1.50 per sale. Assuming you don’t want to make a loss and initially just cover yourselves to grow your business, then you can reinvest your profit into marketing with an estimated cost per acquisition of £1.50.
CPA = Cost Per Acquisition CAC = Customer Acquisition Cost
Sometimes you may refer to Customer Acquisition Cost instead of cost Per Acquisition this is particularly relevant for subscription models.
Put simply, £1.50 x 20,000 = £30,000 of budget to achieve your goals. Of course, sometimes you have a higher CPA or a lower CPA, sometimes you’re selling a service, not a physical product but having an idea of what your goals are is a good place to start.
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