Marketing Considerations for Founders

Effective marketing could mean the difference between success and failure in the startup world. In a landscape defined by innovation, rapid evolution, and advancing competition, Tech founders in particular, face numerous challenges when developing and executing marketing strategies.

This article provides key insights and practical tips to help founders navigate these challenges and build resilience into their future plans.

An initial but critical hurdle to cross, is to differentiate and define your proposition in a crowded marketplace.

UK Third Largest Tech Sector in the World

In 2023, the UK became the third country in the world to have a tech sector valued at $1 trillion. In her address, during London Tech Week last year, the Business and Trade Secretary, the Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch, described how the UK has “more 'unicorn' billion-dollar tech startups being created than Germany, France and Sweden combined,”[1] and that during 2022 alone, UK tech companies raised almost £24 billion of funding.

With the government committed to investing over £20 billion per year in R&D over the next two years, this is an exciting, albeit competitive, time to be a tech founder in the UK. However, there have arguably never been more startups vying for attention and investment. Standing out from the crowd demands more than a ground-breaking product or service—it requires insightful branding, compelling storytelling, and a deep understanding of your target audience's needs and aspirations.

Positioning a Business for the Next Stage

Founders must not only consider how they will attract customers but also how to strategically position a business for the next stage; whether you’re seeking investment, expanding, or preparing for sale. Developing a compelling narrative that articulates the company's vision, growth trajectory, and value proposition is essential for attracting investors or enticing a potential acquisition. Marketing efforts that showcase the company's leadership, scalability, and innovation can enhance its attractiveness to investors or buyers.

Expertise and Talent Acquisition

A recent study has identified that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there aren’t enough skilled people to take them. The “Future of Work” report by Korn Ferry[2] examined talent supply and demand in 20 economies worldwide, across three industries and found that the projected talent shortage could result in about $8.5 trillion in unrealised annual revenues.

This is a key consideration for your marketing strategy because as your startup begins to scale, team expansion will undoubtedly become a priority. Hiring top talent is essential for driving innovation and executing your company vision. Marketing plays a crucial role in employer branding, attracting the right candidates, and creating a culture of talent and creativity.

Founders may seek to enhance their expertise by attracting outside talent and strategic advisors. Whether in the form of non-executive directors, industry experts, or advisors with industry-specific knowledge, these external influencers can provide invaluable insights and guidance. Marketing efforts that demonstrate the company's potential, leadership, and commitment to growth can all help to attract experienced professionals eager to lend their expertise to your startup journey.

Considerations for Tech Founders

Amidst these challenges lies the opportunity for founders to carve out a presence on the UK tech scene. If you can communicate your innovation, learn from insights and develop strategic partnerships, you stand a good chance of being able to navigate the complexities of marketing today, to make an impact in your sector.

In the following sections, I’ve compiled some actionable guidance tailored to and based on insights from the tech founders that I’ve had the pleasure of mentoring. From developing value propositions to leveraging emerging technologies and strategic alliances, I share some strategies and tactics to help tech startups thrive in the competitive arena of the UK's tech scene.

1. Understand Your Target Audience

Identifying and understanding your target audience is crucial for any successful marketing strategy. Without clarity on who your customers are, your efforts may be misdirected, resulting in wasted time and resources.

Methods for Conducting Market Research

Surveys, Interviews and Focus Groups: Engage directly with potential customers and stakeholders to gain insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points. You can keep costs low by using tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to create surveys. Don’t forget that this is an opportunity to connect and communicate with your target audience – every touchpoint has the potential to leave a lasting impression, so consider how you present the company or concept even at this stage.

Social Monitoring, Listening and Insights: With over 3 billion searches taking place on Google alone, don’t underestimate the power of being able to tap into the raw insights that can come from analysing what your target audience is asking and saying. Use social platforms to analyse trends, gather demographic data, and observe conversations related to your industry. Tools like Answer the Public, Facebook Insights and Google Alerts can be helpful.

Competitor Analysis: Study your competition to understand their audience and identify any gaps you can fill. Analyse their marketing tactics, customer reviews, and social media presence. Creating detailed buyer personas with these wider insights in mind can help you tailor your marketing efforts more effectively. Include demographics, behaviours, needs, and pain points in your personas to ensure a comprehensive understanding.

2. Build a Strong Brand Strategy and Identity

A cohesive brand strategy and identity help differentiate your startup in a crowded market. It should reflect your company’s values, mission, and unique selling proposition.

Developing Your Brand Strategy

Define Your Brand Vision and Mission: Clearly articulate your brand's purpose and what you aim to achieve. This will form a foundation to guide your branding and marketing efforts.

Identify Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Determine what sets your product or service apart from competitors. Your USP should be central to your brand strategy.

Understand Your Market Position: Analyse your competition and determine where your brand fits in the market. This will help you position your brand effectively.

Elements of Brand Identity

Logo and Colour Scheme: These visual elements should be consistent across all platforms and materials. A professional logo and a well-thought-out colour palette can make your brand instantly recognisable.

Voice and Messaging: Develop a clear, consistent voice that resonates with your audience and reflects your brand's personality. Whether your tone is formal, friendly, humorous, or authoritative, it should be consistent across all communications.

Consistency in branding builds trust and recognition, making it easier for customers to connect with your business. Create brand guidelines to ensure that your team comply with the brand identity.

3. Develop a Value Proposition

A value proposition clearly articulates why a customer should choose your product or service over others. It’s a critical component of your marketing strategy.

Steps to Develop a Value Proposition

Identify Customer Needs: Understand the specific problems your product solves. Gather insights through customer feedback, surveys, and market research.

Highlight Unique Features: Emphasise what makes your product different and focus on features that set you apart from competitors.

Communicate Benefits: Clearly explain the tangible benefits customers will receive. Use concise and impactful language to convey your message.

For example, Uber’s value proposition is “We reimagine the way the world moves for the better. For all the places you want to go. For all the things you want to get. For all the ways you want to earn. Across the entire world. In real time. At the incredible speed of now.”

Uber subtly highlights the differences between their service and traditional taxi services by demonstrating the solutions they provide to multiple customer segments. The clear, concise messaging mirrors the simplicity of their branding and effortless navigation on their website, reinforcing the convenience, control and ease of their offering. Put simply, their value proposition highlights unique benefits, helping them to stand out in a crowded market.

4. Consider Multiple Marketing Channels

Using a mix of online and offline marketing channels allows you to reach a broader audience and diversify your marketing efforts.

Key Online Marketing Channels

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): Optimise your website, socials and video content to rank higher in search engine results and increase organic traffic. Apply insights from your market research, conduct keyword research, create quality content that resonates with your audience, and follow best practice guidance to ensure that you’re doing everything from a technical SEO perspective.

Content Marketing: Create useful and relevant content to attract and engage your audience. This can include articles, blog posts, eBooks, whitepapers, and case studies – in written and video format. Focus on answering the questions that your target audience are asking.

Social Media: Use platforms that are relevant to your target audience; including LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram to build community and brand awareness. Develop a content calendar for consistency and post regularly to maintain engagement. But don’t post for the sake of it, make sure that it is relevant and has a purpose.

Email Marketing: While socials and in-person events can help to increase brand awareness, emails are great for sales conversion. Customers who receive a welcome email are 33% more engaged and open to interacting with a brand. Maintain direct communication through personalised email campaigns. Segment your mailing list and send relevant communications to improve open and click-through rates.

Ads: Run targeted ads to reach specific segments of your audience quickly. Platforms like Google Ads and Meta Ads Manager allow you to control your budget and measure results.

Influencer Marketing: Partner with influencers who resonate with your target audience. When managed right, authentic influencers can provide genuine endorsements to help expand your reach. Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are particularly effective for influencer marketing.

Key Offline Marketing Channels

Networking Events, Exhibitions and Trade Shows: Participate in events and consider attending startup events relevant to your sector to connect with potential customers, partners, and investors. They provide opportunities for face-to-face interactions and relationship building.

Print Advertising: Consider industry publications and other print media to reach your target audience. Ask strategic partners and existing customers for insights into any information sources they access to assess whether the investment will be beneficial and monitor the return on investment.

Direct Mail Campaigns: Develop targeted mailing campaigns and send promotional material directly to your target market. Personalised mail can often stand out in an increasingly digital world.

Public Relations: Leverage positive media coverage to build credibility and raise awareness. Press releases, interviews, and guest articles can help to enhance your brand’s visibility.

Community Engagement: Whether you have a local, national, or international reach, consider participating in relevant events and activities to build CSR into your strategy. But make sure that it is genuine. Tokenism can cause significant damage to your brand and consumers are becoming increasingly switched on to slacktivism and Greenwashing.

5. Explore AI in Marketing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help to increase productivity and enhance your marketing efforts by automating tasks, analysing data, and personalising customer experiences.

Chatbots and Customer Service: Use AI-powered chatbots to provide instant customer support and engage with website visitors. Tools like Intercom can help improve customer service efficiency.

Personalisation: AI can analyse customer behaviour and preferences to deliver tailored content and recommendations. Personalisation engines like Dynamic Yield can boost engagement and conversions. See Gartner’s review of the top personalisation engines for further suggestions.

Predictive Analytics: Use AI to predict customer behaviour, forecast sales, and optimise marketing campaigns. Predictive analytics tools like HubSpot and Salesforce can provide actionable insights.

6. Measure and Analyse your Marketing Performance

Remember to select channels that align with the needs of your target audience and the goals of your business to create a cohesive strategy. Then continue to monitor the effectiveness of your approach – base this on the data you have available and the feedback from your target market.

Tracking performance is crucial to understand what’s working and what’s not.

Key Metrics to Track

Website Traffic: Measure the number of visitors and their behaviour on your site. Track metrics like page views, bounce rate, and average session duration.

Conversion Rates: Track how many visitors turn into customers. Monitor metrics such as lead conversion rate, customer acquisition cost (CAC), and lifetime value (LTV).

Engagement Rates: Monitor likes, shares, comments, and other engagement metrics on social media. Use these insights to refine your content strategy.

Email Open and Click Rates: Evaluate the effectiveness of your email campaigns. Track open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates.

Tools for Measuring Performance

Google Analytics: Provides in-depth website performance data. Use it to track traffic sources, user behaviour, and conversion goals.

Social Media Analytics: Built-in tools on platforms like Linkedin and Meta make it easy for you to analyse engagement, reach, and follower growth.

Email Marketing Tools: Services like Mailchimp offer detailed analytics on email campaigns. Track open rates, click rates, and subscriber behaviour.

Use these insights to adjust your approach and improve your marketing effectiveness. Regularly review your performance and make data-driven decisions to optimise your campaigns.

7. Adapt to Market Changes

The market is constantly evolving, and your sector, particularly in the tech space has the potential to be even more fast-paced. Taking a flexible approach could be the key to long-term success.

Tips for Staying Informed

Monitor Industry Trends: Regularly read industry reports and news. Stay informed about emerging trends, technologies, and customer preferences.

Ask for Feedback: Regularly seek feedback from customers to understand their evolving needs. Use surveys, polls and direct interactions to gather insights.

Experiment: Be willing to try new tactics and quickly pivot based on results. Embrace a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement.

Successful startups often pivot their marketing strategy in response to market changes and turn challenges into opportunities. To maintain a competitive edge, stay agile and open to change.

Strengthen your Marketing Strategy for Impact

The marketing strategy you adopt for your business could mean the difference between success and failure. As a founder, you face multiple hurdles. If you take one piece of guidance from this article, let it be that you take the time to understand your ideal customer base and then develop and define your value proposition and subsequent marketing strategy with their insights in mind. As you move forward, remember to explore multiple channels, and always keep a close eye on your analytics to monitor ROI and the outcome of your marketing efforts.

The information in this article is intended for information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. For advice and guidance relating to your business contact Catherine Goodwin directly via www.wearealp.com or through Linkedin.

To read more of our Entrepreneurship Hub knowledge articles, visit: https://www.beta-den.com/news/category/entrepreneurship-hub/

Written by Catherine Goodwin, Director of We Are Alp