HowTo: Marketing Efforts of a Startup -- Part 2

This article is part 2 of an article series, discussing how we are building brand awareness for our online property management startup. If you have not read part 1, please do as I will be continuing where I left off.

So I would like to start with a mini-update on Property Stampede's business and product development. We have business cards! We also designed a letterhead. We are about a third the way to our beta goal of 100 testers and 3000 units. We are moving a long quite nicely, and in fact we have had a few of our local beta testers ask if they can become shareholders. :D

As for product development, we are almost near completion of the main core components. We are on target for our May 15th private beta launch and we are looking really good for our public launch in September. We are extremely excited.

So now, lets continue on with the marketing efforts for the soon to be #1 online property management application.

Step 6: Create a Twitter Account
Now I realize that creating a twitter account seems like you are just giving in to the social media trends, but it is a powerful tool to keep followers updated. I am learning more and more about utilizing Twitter to increase our exposure. We created an account that reflects our name, propertystamped. We also used Twitter's Blogger widget to display our twitter feed on our blog. Then we used TwitterFeed to broadcast our blog posts to our twitter account. Lastly, follow other twitter users that make sense and that are related to your startup.

Step 7: Its Time to Get Viral
Once you have a lot of the building blocks in place, it is time to start getting viral. It is time to start offering expertise on your blog in regards to industry related news and topics. If you are not a good writer, then you better start practicing. Your ultimate goal is to create enjoyable content that people will want to reference or post on sites like Digg, reddit, and del.icio.us. You can start the seed by making those initial entries yourself into those sites.

The last component of getting viral, is using a tool like Google Reader to subscribe to blogs and news feeds that are related to your industry or startup. Pick enough feeds so that it builds a pretty handsome list of new posts daily. Go through them and pick ones that you can provide a valuable comment to. Do not spam other blogs, if you do not have something valuable to add to the discussions then it is better not to post than to post something that could possibly tarnish your image.

Step 8: Visit Local Business Organizations
Not everyone has the luxury of starting their company in a startup hub like Silicon Valley, but I can venture a guess and say that there is at least one business organization within your community. Reach out and find out what organizations are in your area.

We are fortunate here in Buffalo to have many organizations tailoring to the needs of general business networking and specific industries. One organization that I used to be in and I still get together with some of my co-participants, is BNI. BNI has a vast network of professionals and most cities have many BNI chapters. It is a networking group that only allows one person from each industry or profession. As a member you are allowed to visit other chapters anywhere in the world twice per year. So part of my marketing strategy is to go to as many chapters as I can and directly interact with professionals that provide the best opportunity for referrals. Remember, it is all about "Who You Know, Who ..."

Step 9: Begin Assessing Your Traffic
I know at this point it may seem like assessing 5 unique hits a day is pointless... but I argue that it is definitely not. You have to gauge what sources are worth your time for viral marketing. If you posted 5 comments in a month on www.whatever.com, and you only got 2 unique referrals, well then I think you should stop wasting your time or figure out why no one is following the link to your blog. Now if you have 2 comments on www.whateverelse.com in a month, but you collected 22 unique referrals, well then you better post more on that site. To be effective in viral marketing you have to know what works, otherwise it is like spinning your tires on ice, you will not get far very quickly.

Step 10: Know Your Target Audience, Create Keywords, and Start PPC
At this point, you are up and running. You are building a brand and making people know about who you are. It is time to use your viral marketing statistics to determine what keywords have worked well to this point. Once you pick your keywords, its time to take a crack at Google AdWords, Overture, or MS' Ad product (can not remember the name, have never used it). Start small until you are sure those keywords are reaching the right audience and increase from there.

I hope the above steps help you get a little bit further. Right now that sums up our efforts to date, but soon we will be exploring making a YouTube Video, hosting a webinar, and releasing Press through a service like PRWeb. It should be a fun ride and I will post my summary on here with Part 3 in the near future.

Chris