StartUp marketing 101: the blogs to get you started

If you’re an inhabitant of StartUp land your plates invariably full. You’re spinning other plates too, while probably juggling at the same time. You’re busy.

And with so much on the go at one time, certain things can slip down your to do list. Like marketing. Which is a shame because you know you NEED to do marketing, but you just can’t find the time to give it the attention it deserves.

But that lack of marketing can mean lack of awareness for your brand, lack of engagement with customers, and lack of sales pipeline which can all put you on a quick path to nowhere. Especially in the uber competitive StartUp world.

So, what can you do to kick start marketing for your StartUp?

The quick answer is: Educate yourself.

That’s why we’ve pulled together this handy guide to the top 5 resources StartUps need when it comes to marketing (other than our own blog, obviously).

Whether you need to land your first round of investment, attract some amazing new clients to bolster your portfolio or get your brand out there for the first time there’ll be plenty here you can use.

So, here’s our top recommended blogs / sources for marketing knowledge that you’d be silly not to give a follow:

Marketing Tips from Mailchimp

While technically not a ‘blog’ in the traditional sense (forgive us, it’s useful), this hub of resources covers a wide range of topics. From “7 ways to grow an audience”, to “What to ask when hiring a digital marketing agency” it’ll really help you get to grips with where to start.

Whether you’re going to be outsourcing your marketing entirely, or you already have an internal resource that could use some inspiration, they’ll be some great nuggets here that everyone will find useful.

Plus, it’s from Mailchimp so you know you’re guaranteed some wit and lovely graphics to boot.

Venture Harbour’s Ultimate Startup Marketing Strategy

Ideal for the Product StartUps among you, this guide from Marcus Taylor, Founder/CEO of Venture Harbour is a chunky but worthwhile read.

Split into four chapters – Foundations, Paid Media, Earned Media and Owned Media – he covers some of the fundamentals of getting marketing off the ground for the first time.

If you can forgive phrases like ‘growth hacking’, then Taylor quotes and references some of the most important marketing measures and methods including conversion rates and A/B testing, with some real-life software recommendations and use cases in an easy-to-read way.

Worth a gander in our books!

Sifted’s ‘How-to’ Guides

As you’re no doubt floating in the StartUp pool already, you’ll have heard of Sifted. It’s the Financial Times spin out publication dedicated to StartIps in Europe, if you haven’t.

Although primarily covering Tech StartUp stories from an investment, innovation and trends based news, Sifted also has a valuable ‘Startup Life’ section, with a dedicated How-To guides covering off marketing topics.

We particularly enjoy this article, about marketing through a crisis.

Sifted’s definitely one to bookmark and revisit on the regular to keep up-to-date with StartUp news and marketing views.

Startups.co.uk

Not the most original of names (or suggestions, we guess) but, did you know they actually have a whole area dedicated to marketing?

From the greatest Christmas campaigns through to ‘dummies guide type’ articles about topics such as ‘what is ppc’ and the ‘best low cost marketing tactics’ every article is StartUp focused (as you would hope) and despite the pretty basic format there is some real value to be gained by checking them out.

Great if you really are just starting out, want to know what good might look like and help you to get a vague idea on direction or terminology before you get hiring internally or bringing in an agency.

First Round Review

And, last but by no means least, you’ve got to check out First Round Review’s marketing goodness. To narrow down the articles just search for marketing in the search bar and it’ll bring you up everything related.

One of the most useful articles, especially if you’re just starting out on your marketing journey, is this one.

It also nicely breaks down exactly what falls under marketing’s remit. Some of the things on there may surprise you, but this handy little table from the blog spells things out pretty clearly.

If you check out these top 5 resources for StartUp related marketing usefulness, you’ll be in a pretty good position to start making some informed decisions about your StartUps venture into marketing, or how it should be progressing if you’re already at that stage.

Oh, and if you didn’t already know, our blog is chocked full of marketing advice, so it’s worth subscribing to that too, which you can do here.

As we said already, if you need some marketing support or just want to chew the fat about marketing in general then we’d love to do that with you. Click that big button below and we can have a chin wag.