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What are the affordable yet effective digital marketing options you’ve to create the buzz, drive traffic to your website, and generate sales?

Startups don’t have big budgets to go wild with digital marketing.

Every penny matters. There is little room for experimentation.

The best approach is to go for the best practices.

Plan

Do you have a digital marketing plan?

Is it documented?

Statistics show that 84 per cent of businesses have a digital marketing strategy while only 16 per cent of businesses do it without a proper plan.

A documented digital marketing strategy will help you plan and prioritize activities. You and your team will know what has to be done, why it has to be done, and when it has to be done.

It doesn’t have to be a 67-page document. A simple Gantt chart will do.

Here is what to include in your plan.

1. Purpose and objective of digital marketing (increase in website traffic, increase in sales, lead generation, etc.)
2. Marketing channels to be used (social media marketing, content marketing, guest blogging, PPC, etc.)
3. Plan of action (how many blog posts to be published a week, who will write them, when to write, how much to spend per post, etc.)

Outreach

Outreach is effective.

It is free.

Reach out to bloggers, influencers, webmasters, Facebook page admins, Facebook group admins, YouTube channels, and pretty much everyone in your niche.

Don’t ask them to promote your product. They won’t do it for free.

Sending an email like this to a blogger doesn’t make sense. It will be deleted instantly.

You’ve to create a win-win strategy.

Write them an email and tell them what’s in it for them. Why they should talk about your product or brand.

This one looks a better outreach email.

It isn’t encouraging enough.

The following email looks even better.

Why?

It offers valuable data to the blog owner. They’d love it.

Work out your emails. Create something awesome for the person you’re reaching out.

A simple email asking to promote your product just because it is awesome and you created it won’t work.

Start with Facebook pages in your niche, YouTube channels, and relatively less-famous people (with huge followers) on social networks. Target them.

These are the people who will promote your product.

But when you’re reaching out to a blogger, an influencer, or maybe a celeb, do your homework.

Partnerships

Partner with other businesses or with an influencer.

When you reach out to someone for partnership, the first thing they ask is:

What’s in it for me?

Do your homework and be prepared to answer some of the toughest questions.

The simplest approach is to do a joint venture. Offer your partner a fixed percentage per sale (like 30 per cent). It works just like affiliate marketing but you actually partner with the other business.

You need to choose your partners carefully. Consider three factors when choosing a partner:

1. It should be established.
2. Your partner must have a decent number of subscribers/followers.
3. It shouldn’t be too famous. If it is, your brand will lose its uniqueness.

The Man with a Van Plus, for instance, partnered with a competitor moving company when it was launched. Their competitor was targeting a different geographical location and was not interested in the cities where Man with a Van Plus was located, so it turned out to be a great partnership program.

So your competitor can help you provided you offer something in return.

The Man with a Van Plus shared 50 per cent of all the orders for six months with their partner.

A few partnerships can help your startup kickoff immediately.

The best part is that you only have to pay once you start getting sales. If it doesn’t work, you don’t have to pay.

Discount coupons

People are in love with discount coupons.

As much as 96 per cent of consumers use coupon codes. Eighty percent of consumers reported that they will switch the brand if they’re offered a compelling discount coupon.

Use coupon codes to promote your products. You don’t have to do a lot except for creating a coupon marketing campaign.

Here is how to do it.

1. Create a coupon code.
2. Submit it to coupon sites.
3. Run a contest on Facebook and other social sites.

Submit your coupon to as many coupon sites as possible. Potential users search for coupons in search engines and/or on these coupon sites.

Take your coupon campaign to another level by partnering with a coupon site. When you partner with a coupon site, it will promote your coupon. Feature it. Send it to its subscribers.

It is hard to partner with a large coupon site like RetailMeNot. You’ve to find relatively small and famous coupon sites like Coupon Buffer. Imagine having your coupon code featured on their homepage?

You’ll get all the love.

Simply submitting your coupon code won’t work. Your product must have demand.

You’ve to promote your coupon campaign so as to get the word out. A new product that has just been launched will potentially have no demand in the market. You’ve to tell people why they should buy it.

This is where partnering with a few coupon sites is so crucial.

Once you partner with a coupon site, it won’t just share your coupon but it will promote your product, too.

These four digital marketing techniques will help you promote your startup like a pro.

Let’s do it with a bang.

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