COMMENTS
Put in an analytics package. it is fun to see how the business grows online.
Great advice. In step 2, I suspect you meant 'shudder' rather than 'shutter'.
Sam: I actually had analytics as #21 and for some reason, failed to include it. It's hugely important. Thanks for catching that.
Denis: Yes, meant shudder. Fixed. Thanks.
Why do you think a sub-domain is better than a folder for the blog? I think in most cases a folder companyname.com/blog/ would be more suitable.
Another thing you could add, get directory listings. At least Yahoo's directory, ODP, and whatever major niche directories are in your market.
Hi Dharmesh!
A KISS article:D
However,i was wondering if having weekly newsletters can be used to drive interest towards the startup.There have been two sides of this story where ppl say that newsletters are a thing of the past and some who still like newsletter.
What do you think?RSS or Newsletters
Peter: I don't think sub-domains are better than sub-folders. There are tradeoffs. Sub-folders have a slight SEO edge. But sub-domains are slightly simpler because it's easier to move a sub-domain around if you ever change your mind. Either is fine, I'm just against using a sub-domain on someone else's primary domain (ex: something.blogspot.com).
I would add: monitor your 3 competitors via LinkedIn Company Buzz App which searches twitter
Here's the quickest easiest way to investigate which niches you should target in search engines and other places.
-Start an Adwords account.
-Choose your top 10-20 niche possibilities. If you had a new type of rubber for tires you might try niches like "Bike Tires" "Tractor Tires" "Formula One Tires" etc. Get creative and think about all the niches your product could fit.
-Take these niches and create ad groups with very specific keywords (every iteration of those keywords you can think of). For "Bike Tires" niche I would try "road bike tires" "road bicycle tires" "street racing bike tires" etc.
-Build some various ads texts for those keywords. Get creative here too try out all your marketing angles.
-Make your daily budget something you can afford reasonably and let it rip.
Get this going right away, before you have anything to sell. Just point it to your email signup form for people to fill out if they are really interested. You'll get a good idea of what niches are good to target and the competition for those niches quickly.
This is a very useful article. It may be reserved for another article, one that I think would be an interesting read at some point if it has yet to be written here, but I do think entrepreneurs should be on the look out for a qualified intellectual property attorney as they begin to trot down a few of the paths noted above. While IP is not marketing per se, it is part and parcel of the company's value. Moreover, IP and marketing are often linked together at the hip, particularly at the nascent stages of a company's development.
For #5 I'd add a link to constant contact and aWeber so readers know where to get an email system.
On #15 I'm curious about why you only chose TwitterGrader and didn't mention using
www.search.twitter.com or http://twitterati.alltop.com/.
This is a great thorough blueprint for someone new to the game. Thanks for laying it out so simply.
great tips . I like the http://website.grader.com
Analytis should be high in priority
Working with large and small businesses as well as start-ups in diverse sectors, I see a common mistake: lack of target market profiles. The use of strategies and tactics (e.g. keywords, folders, newletters) should be determined by careful market and competitive analysis as well as vivid behavior profiles for the highest value prospects in each target segment. Design all communications from the audience backwards, not by convention or "best practices" promoted as general flavor-of-the-month favorites. This takes homework, no shortcuts. Best of luck to all entrepreneurs!
Excellent tips and concisely written. I'm analyzing my site right now.
Hi Dharmesh. Very comprehensive. Business cards are important for the face to face meetings (you're not always on a computer). Depending upon your area, YouTube is another great way to get your story out. Thx for the tips.
Great article and comments. I would add a couple of excercises before getting started on numbers 2 - 21 to get the most bang for your buck.
1. Define your value proposition. What value are you bringing people? Take the time to research and understand your target audience and understand what they value and what you really have to offer that solves their problem or pain point.
2. Define an objective and measure of success for each action so you can evaluate the effectiveness of each strategy or action you take.
Thanks Dharmesh for pretty comprehensive information on startup marketing. Most of it is applicable to personal marketing as well.
Can thoroughly recommend Moo for business cards - go for the eco versions - they are less shiny
A question
pertaining to Tip #3: If I enter links to my site in
comments on blogs that are pertinent to my product, will that get the Google crawler to start indexing my site?
Thank you!
Great article.....but if you want to take your market by storm, then scratch #3 and add an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Campaign to your website. The internet is a powerhouse and you can launch your start up very effectively with the proper strategy.
Contact me for a FREE analysis and to be educated on SEO. Contact me at rebecca@nationalpositions.com
Be passionate and purposeful with your business and you will be a huge success!
Warmly,
Rebecca
Great post. I'm curious about a couple things. You say to create a twitter account with your company name, but you yourself use your personal name. Have you evolved past needing to do this? Or do you perhaps recommend both?
And on a slightly unrelated note, if you go the Facebook direction, do you think it can (or should) replace a standard discussion forum on the company website? What about using emails to Facebook fans instead of a separate mailing list? I'm going to guess you're not in favor of the latter since you'd lose direct access to the email addresses, which can be a valuable commodity for a startup. But as a forum, a Facebook fan page might finally be better than phpBB or whatever else your webhost can slap on.
We've had a hosted discussion almost since we started, but I'm considering switching to Facebook instead.
Mark
I'm just getting started with my first start-up and this article's timing is perfect. I got answered questions I didn't know I had.
Thanks.
I perceive email newsletters as somewhat outdated, but it only takes five minutes to set-up anyways.
On point "18. Find the bloggers" what would you recommend as the name you use when you post a comment? Your company name, a targeted keyword, or your actual name?
What is proper blog etiquette here?
Hi,
Great tips. Got to your blog from Linked In. I am working on my own web start up and your tips were just what I was looking for. If you can add some links to some of the techniques that you described for implementing the tricks that would be helpful for a newbie like me.
Thanks
Ananth
Great article. Although, I'm going to start a startup anytime soon, I am planning to start a new personal blog. I think all the given tips in this article apply to a blog too. Thanks a lot.
Dharmesh, excellent tips, simplified and motivating to get going with the points laid out, right away.
Hi Dharmesh,
It was really an informative article, it actually gave me a direction for designing my campaign for an IT outsourcing company - where I am an Intern for my Summers. Thanks a lot. Please write more on Online Branding.
Dharmesh - great list. Looking forward to seeing you at IMS.
I would add a 1A - make sure that the name you choose does not have a lot of clutter when you do a Google search on the name. That's why I use my middle name - I am the only David Meerman Scott in the world. And when I chose the names for my books "The New Rules of MArketing & PR" and "World Wide Rave" I could "own" the Google results for those phrases.
Take care,
David
Excellent article, although it is clearly focused around web marketing (as opposed to general marketing) perhaps that should be qualified in the title -just a thought, keep it up the content is really good.
I'm in Ireland and it all relevant here too.
Dharmesh,
Nice summary, great tips. Question, plz: if not Dreamweaver or Frontline, what do-it-yourself-to-save-huge-developer-expense web design product do you recommend for the only moderately tehno-savvy entrepreneurs?
Thanks for a steer.
Colleen
You nailed it. I think we are actively perusing or have talked about doing 19 of the 21 things on your list. The other two we will be talking about today. Thanks for taking the time to pull this together.
Hi Dharmesh,
Thanks for writing this fantastic article. It is great to read about tactics and not just strategy!
For version 1.1 consider adding a point about Monitoring Twitter. If you want to know what people are saying about your company, product or service, Twitter is a great source.
Visit
http://search.twitter.com and do separate searches for your company, product and/or service names. Subscribe to the RSS feed of the search results via the "Feed for this query" link. You'll be notified whenever someone mentions one of your search terms.
Also consider using Twitter to monitor what people are saying (the good and the bad) about your competition.
-David
THANK YOU! This may just be what I need to reach my first million!
great advice! I will most definatley be using these tips since I am startng up my own pr firm! I would like to know more about where this summit is going to take place, I live in the Bay Area and would love to hear you speak.
thanks!
This was very useful, I will share with my colleagues- we're all enrolled in a 16wk small business program.
Many Thanks
These are very useful steps when you're trying to launch a startup these days when budgets are low (for most of us entrepreneurs). The real value here are all the 21 steps seen together as a list on how to get things running in a smart way. Nice of you to share this competence with others trying to do startup marketing. I will use this in marketing my own startup launched a month ago.
Why 7 and 8? What use is Facebook for Business to Business? Seems valueless to me.
I'd like you to expand on this please Dharmesh.
Very useful checklist. This is a keeper. Maybe it would have been better to split it into 'real world' and 'online' activities as the real world ones (like business cards) are only really useful (in my experience) if you are going to various networking meetings where you can engage with people about whatever you are doing. Most people don't do this and they should be.
Very helpful. I was ahead on some of the list, but waay behind on many areas. AAAh, so much work to do. Thanks!
Excellent blog posting! I will email it out to my business groups.. thank you!
Cemanthe
This is so good and helpful. I am on the verge of starting work in an online sector that is highly populated with competitors with fat wallets. One of my pain points is how I will compete with their marketing. Some of your tips are just the thing to help me get the word out through the social media.
Great post and thank you. Even if I feel I've got things under control and went through your first 15 points or so thinking, Yes, I've done that, that too, I'm good, I suddenly realized I could have done things better and there are things I've not even considered. It's certainly useful even months after your first website and when you actually do have a site out there with real content.
Thanks a lot. Cheers!
Pia
Great article ! Thanks.
Website grader is really good to know few fixes as per standard online marketing.
Very useful information for novice like myself. Thanks for that.
I'm just wondering about the value of launching a simple website (point 2 on your list), when our product will be the website it self? Isn't there a (big) risk of bad will if you launch a site that doesn't solve the problem that we aim to solve?
Great post as always Dharmesh! Sorry I keep missing you when I come by Hubspot HQ (love the new offices btw). Hope to connect in San Francisco at the IMS, see you there!
- Greg
Very nice article, I have researched many ways to get seen in google. I think Im doing pretty good for my first time but we shall see as th weeks pass by.
This is an exceptional article. I have little to no website design background, so I went through homestead. They gave me a way to pretty much cut and paste the content where I wanted on the site, but now I have the tools to actually drive business to the site.
I came across this in the OnStartups LinkedIn Group. I am very glad I clicked over to read the full post.
Though much of your advice to startups includes important items to make note of, it sounds a bit like a tactical laundry list. Most of the things you list have a bigger-picture function: joining the market conversation.
Startups are unknown, so no one is looking for them and often people aren't even looking for their products because they don't know they exist. I would advise startups to look at what they offer and who needs what they offer? Then look at who are the Influencers driving the market conversation around fulfilling the wants and needs of those people. Finally, what does the startup need to do to accomplish building relationships with the Influencers and interacting with the market conversation at large through appropriate tools and conversation locations. The tools and locations you list (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, etc.) are not the necessary or applicable to every startup. Startups have few resources, usually human resources, to keep up all of those tools and locations.
Determining 1st, who they're market conversation influencers are, and then the tools and the locations those conversations are happening in and what the best practices are for interacting with it is far more critical than just ad hoc tactics.
Excellent article Dharmesh!
I had to laugh at number 14 - but so true.
Another should be to at least try to have a sense of originality..I'm so tired of crossing over the same sites with either the same content--or same biased opinions towards marketing..
Another idea is to create a video about your product/service and upload it to YouTube, then re-embed in your Website. People like watching videos that explain what the stuff is that you're doing.
Hi! Great post and very good points. I think that another important "social tool" to use is friendfeed
www.friendfeed.com): you can setup all your other feeds and build a network that can view all your update in one place. You can also setup a group about your business.
Bye,
Nicola.
A past client of mine just joined your LinkedIn group, and checking out your blog convinced me to join, too. This article's timing for me was serendipitous.
I just launched one new venture and expect to start a second one in a few weeks -- when I am admitted to the State Bar of Texas. At that point would it better to have one twitter account with my name (as you have for your account), or the name of either of my new ventures, or create separate accounts for each?
@Tariq I suggest you to use your name and talk about your startups. On social media (especially Twitter) people want to talk with real people, not with "virtual" companies :)
Good luck!
@njvitto -- Thanks for the reply. I think using my own name would be an intuitive choice, too. But sometimes success hinges on being flexible enough to try something counter-intuitive. It occurs to me that just having my company/venture name as my twitter account name means the company name becomes more meaningful to potential clients. On the other hand, I just checked and my venture's full name is one character too long for twitter. :) So, I also wonder if the advice against mangling URLs applies to twitter account choices? Assuming so, I would be better off with my name... if that fits. ;)
Good stuff! Always nice to see a step-by-step process
Hello Mr. Dharmesh;
I am planning to launch a web service in few months and while going through tons of blogs and articles, I realized yours was one of the most articulated, concise and to the point blog I have read.
Thanks for putting it no neatly.
Rahul
Some comments and things I would add:
#2 - Your website, even if simple, should be good, interesting, different. Because if you spend all this time in Linkedin and other industry trying to build some credibility and people click to your website and find a useless website, however good your comment was your credibility is going to be tainted.
Some things I would recommend to anyone trying to generate awareness for a website on a limited budget:
- Contribute to Wiki Answers and Wikipedia and where approriate refer your site (if it is not appropriate or relevant it will be deleted very quickly)
- If you are looking for a developer, designer, copywriter... I suggest you check elance.com
- For email sends, as per another comment, I highly recommend constant contact (to benefit from a free 60days trial go to http://tiny.cc/AQ7XX)
- To generate some more awareness and help your rankings check payperpost.com
- To generate some revenues look into affiliate programs like commission junction
- Buy a domain name (I love Go Daddy) and link it to a Blogger account
Good luck
just a point, the business plan is the most important part of funding for any business start. The other points you raised are brilliant however:)
Thank you. A very useful article, and apt, at a time I'm just starting to look into starting and marketing a business.
Looking forward to an updated list (I'll work through this one in the meantime).
This is a fantastic list, loads of fresh ideas and guidelines to follow. Kudos
nahhh..its good simple advice, but its like too web 2.0 based, wat about going out and meeting stakeholders in real life?
I felt this was all excellent advice and, being new to social networking and the start-up of my business, I will incorporate much of it.
Thank you,
Nancy Frye-Swope
Nancy's Virtual Office
Thank you for sharing . It was a knowledge add .
WOW! Just found this article and it is great. I'm going to use it for myself as well as my clients. I think you hit everything I've ever read anywhere else. Thanks.
Where is the identifying and proving revenue? Nobody is interested in a non revenue generating or close to generating 'idea'
Hi Dharmesh
Highly appreciate your article.
To add more i suggest you should provide more details on setting up a company, incorporation, local registrations (India) Trademark & patent related information.
Benefits that companies can avail by registering with SEZ, STPI & other regulatory authorities, etc
Since my company does certain activities above, i thought it might be beneficial for people to know how easy or tough is it going to be for people to setup a proprietary concern, partnership, LLP, Pvt. Ltd., etc
Very informative post. I am using some of them and now I learned some for me to do
Dharmesh,
This is a super action item list, that, when put together, forms the foundation of a sound marketing strategy.
I would add my three-legged stool of visibility, which revolves around establishing yourself as an expert and building your own "body of knowledge."
You want to be known for what you know, not just for what you do, as what you know is more highly valued than what you do.
This means that you should write and distribute articles and even white papers, for free, online, on topics about which you're an expert; speak on your topic of expertise at conferences and professional meetings; and get quoted in journalists' articles in your field. Even if you only do one of these, you'll be ahead.
Other traditional forms of marketing haven't lost their cache: join an organization or two or three where your primary target buyers hang out -- be sure to get into leadership as soon as you can, because besides it being the right thing to do, your name will get around quickly. And get together with prospects where possible and feasible -- people still eat, and face to face contact is as relevant and powerful as ever.
Roberta Guise
Guise Marketing & PR
www.guisemarketing.com
Hi Dharmesh,
I'd add that even/especially a startup needs to do some multi-channel direct marketing. A combo of targeted direct mail, email, social networking outreach - but the key is to use all the channels (and watch your budget).
If you're familiar with the Winterberry Group, they report that online channels demonstrate greater value when used as a complement to direct mail applications.
Dharmesh, if you want to explore this idea more for your blog... (hint?) I've got more info. and also a company in mind for you to talk to (AmazingMail) that provides integrated successful campaigns for even the smallest startups.
Just let me know, and I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Best regards,
Jill
a really, REALLY great post - all the basics folk need in a nice condensed 2.0 package - I would have tho done a bit of a spiel on the value and ease of using Google Analytics - so worth it to see where ur heading and the fact it metrics overlays Adwords and SO MUCH more .. cheers
Nick
@foolkitlegal
What do you guys think of puting product pictures in flickr.com with the address on the photo?
Or videos on youtube.com?
Kind regards..
Dharmesh - This a great article that (also works as a checklist). I would add two comments:
0 - Even before you do any of the above, your company needs to have a story. What do you do? Why are you better? What problem are you solving? Others touched upon this point but no one mentioned it specifically. @Nigel mentioned having a business plan, which requires you to think (and write out) what the business IS. Writing the plan can be useful for developing the story. But you need to have a story you can tell people.
1 - When you pick a name, don't allow yourself to be hamstrung by the .com convention. Yes, it's great if you can get a .com name (and even if the name you want is not available, you can sometimes pick them up for surprisingly cheap), but the use of alternate TLDs - like .de, .es, .io - opens up your creativity in ways you might not imagine and allows you to create names that you probably wouldn't be able to get when you're thinking 'it has to be a dot com.' Great examples, delicio.us (before they could afford delicious) and drop.io.
Again, thanks for a great article/checklist. Look forward to meeting soon.
Cheers.
Good checklist of essentials in a concise way - thanks and congratulations.
Interesting read. Some good tips!
Great tactical list of things to do as a start up.
The only things I'd add:
market research so you can be in a position to tap into the existing demand from the onset of the new business.
create unique value proposition that clearly explains the pain your company solves and who's feeling it.
Great article, you took what takes most people years to figure out and laid it out in a clean and easy to understand format. Wish I had seen an article like this early on
thanks
Dharmesh, I found this article to be very inspiring and have used this as my checklist to build my online presence. Thank you for writing this.
Thansk Dharmesh for this post. It's a comprehensive basic check-list.
Some thoughts that came up to my mind:
How about the usage of one's twitter account? What do you suggest to keep time-consumption low (still gaining importance / attention)
What about:
- register on CrunchBase
- one's local online directory
- Pin your location on Google Maps (instead of directory)
- start writing white papers, if you have the knowledge in the area of your business and publish them (website, blog, forum, or best case on a page, where experts / clients meet)
What a really fantastic article...lots of practical advice. One thing I would add is have a go at doing your own public relations. Small businesses and start-ups are so much more suited to PR than big companies - they're more nimble, interesting, appealing to the media and the entrepreneur is more likely to 'shoot from the lip' something journalists love. Yet small companies rarely have the confidence to try PR. There's millions of free media exposure to be grabbed - go grab it!
Malabar Partners has four branded programs for startup consulting. These is a really great list of common sense and relevant actions that any startup should follow.
I believe that under the surface, any startup should also lay a foundation of ethics, culture and agreement. One of the things I have seen that has caused a great deal of stress for startups is the participants don't clearly, legally understand what their relationship and obligations are to the startup and each other.
Then a point of success or failure comes, and the wheels on the bus come off. Hurt feelings, ethical conflicts, etc.
We advise our startup to put agreements with the principles in place that cover things like what happens in the event that one person dies. What happens in the event that one person wants to quite. What happens in the event that one person gets arrested on a felony charge. Spell things out up front.
Everything mentioned works well, but take sometime, you have to keep patience to get noticed. Startup are always take time to have good presence.
Hi..
It was really great to read your article. the insights were very useful.
Keep posting.
Vibhuti
Great article ! It makes me want to work even harder on my startup...
I have a small question though : where do you find the awesome illustrations of your articles ?
Thanks a lot
Hello,
Great Article written in a thoughtful way, useful to many people like me.
Thanks a lot
I'm sorry but this is not great advice. Just cutting every corner and doing these basic things sin't going to make your own business successful what so ever. A much better idea is to read about how people like you have started from scratch and built their own business. They have actually good advice. Like this guy i read about while looking for a job Rob Tuchman. He created a sport marketing company and I promise you he did it by doing a lot more then these basic steps. Young Guns is this book he wrote and I know from reading it that it'll be better advice then this.
Fantastic Startup check list. I learn so much about how can I improve my website today and i wanted to say Thank you!
Malabar Partners has four branded programs for startup consulting. These is a really great list of common sense and relevant actions that any startup should follow.
We advise our startup to put agreements with the principles in place that cover things like what happens in the event that one person dies. What happens in the event that one person wants to quite. What happens in the event that one person gets arrested on a felony charge. Spell things out up front.
My crucial advice is to have a go at PR. Smaller businesses and start-ups are much better suited to PR than bigger companies. They're more interesting, more nimble,they are more likely to say something 'quotable' ie interesting or contentious as they are not constrained by layers of approvals, the founder is more accessible to the media than the CEO of a major corporate, and PR - if you do it yourself, costs you nothing. Come on all you small businesses out there! Start doing PR - you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Get some free tips from
www.prpro.co.uk
We advise our startup to put agreements with the principles in place that cover things like what happens in the event that one person dies. What happens in the event that one person wants to quite. What happens in the event that one person gets arrested on a felony charge. Spell things out up front.
Then a point of success or failure comes, and the wheels on the bus come off. Hurt feelings, ethical conflicts, etc
Thanks for this - great reminder list to have. Just starting off the 2nd company so fab timing!
Thanks for this . this will be of great help.
Excellent list for new startups.
Cool site, keep going, cause a lot of usefull info
Nice article. It almost makes starting a startup sound.....easy!
With a few exceptions, this is the same list I use with the small business startups that I coach. The great thing about it is that, with only a couple of exceptions, everything is free! Just takes a little time and a startup can be off and running.