What Marketers can Learn from Startups

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Ahh Startups…

A romantic notion of a passion project becoming a livelihood

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With small groups of people putting in long hours, eating copious amounts of pizza and using innovative

marketing ideas to spark a business from the ground up

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On the other side, there’s your organization

It has established a foothold, and operates on sound processes, strategies, and campaigns that

use solid marketing principals Flickr CC: elllotsofcrazycharacters

Admit It!

Sometimes you look longingly at your friends in startups and wish for some of that edgy

entrepreneurial magic Flickr CC: evaysucamara

Startups can do things a little differently because they’re small and nimble

But remember, they have to work a lot harder than you to capture attention and market their brand-new business

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They’re in Survival mode, While you’re in Growth mode

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Stop creating your own roadblocks and consider what you can take away from startups and

implement into your own marketing! Flickr CC: wsdot

Stay Close to your Customers

Great startups develop close relationships with their initial customers and social networks They have to − These are the people who helped them get going Flickr CC: vuhung

As businesses grow they can lose that personal closeness

As a marketer, you can make an effort to keep up active relationships with customers

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Get on social media and talk to people, or call some of your early, long-term

customers and see how their feeling

Get Up & Start Talking

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Don’t allow yourself to think of customers as just another entry in

your CRM’s contact database  

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Be Available and Responsive

Larger organizations tend to forget that!

Social media is so much more that a marketing channel; it’s an opportunity to

actually talk to people

The best companies use social media to have a larger conversation with people and find ways to

interact on a more personal level  

Rethink your social

media to ensure you’re having a two-way

conversation

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Innovate (and Fail)

Innovation is the bread and butter of startups In some ways, so is failure

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In larger organizations you can’t have a true “let’s try anything and see if it sticks” mentality − There’s too much at stake

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Remember that Michael Jordan poster from the 90’s that said something like,

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”?

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To some degree you have to allow your marketing team to try new things, even if there’s a chance of failure, because the potential success could be so

much more awesome Flickr CC: zstasiuk

Take the Shot and Make Michael Jordan Proud!

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Get your business to the next level See more marketing best practices at leadmd.com