It's tempting to jump in immediately, but your marketing campaign should be the product of careful consideration.
When you first start a business, you're excited. You want to grow as fast as possible, get through as many tasks as you can, and sacrifice whatever it takes to preserve your forward momentum. Unfortunately, this often results in a half-baked marketing campaign; throwing money at advertisers in a blind rush to get more customers.
Suffice it to say, this usually does more harm than good.
Instead, you need to take a step back, and carefully consider these five dimensions of your marketing campaign:
1.Goals. Your goal is more visibility, but that isn't very specific. What are you hoping to accomplish? Do you want more people to buy your product directly? Do you want more visitors to your site? Are you looking for meaningful engagements with potential clients? Just as importantly, how fast do you want/need to accomplish this? Be sure your goals are hyper-specific and grounded in research; otherwise, you stand to lose.
2.Audience. You can't market to everybody and hope to be successful. Who is your target audience? What mediums and strategies will best appeal to them? Consider this carefully, but don't trust your instincts too much on this--back up your assumptions with data.
3.Budget. As a startup, you probably won't have much budget to allocate to your marketing campaign. Still, you can use this limitation as a grounding point for your framework. For example, if you only have $500 a month to spend, what's the best possible way you could spend that $500? Don't just throw it at the first thing you see.
4.Longevity. Consider your marketing campaign an investment. Is this particular investment something that will pay off for years to come, or one that will get you a short-term, temporary boost of visibility? Though you'll see slower, smaller results at first, the former is usually a better way to go.
5.Growth. How are you planning to scale this campaign? Will you be launching similar, complementary campaigns across other channels? Will you be investing more in this eventually? This will help you find a suitable starting point to build your foundation.
These five things aren't the only ones you should consider, but they will get you started with a decent outline. Once explored, you should have enough information to select a marketing channel and start distributing your messaging effectively.
Jose Vasquez is a serial entrepreneur and tech enthusiast dedicated to helping startup technology companies get the direction and momentum they need to succeed. As the founder of Build. Brand. Blast., Jose has established a collective resource for tech entrepreneurs to consult when brainstorming, creating, launching, or expanding a new business. Jose is also the founder and CEO of Quez Media Marketing, a marketing firm that combines technology and creativity to help new and growing companies get the results they need.