- Have a plan
“When a company comes to us, the first thing we ask is ‘Do they have something new and unique to say?’,” says Ian Wright, managing director of Edinburgh-based advertising, design and digital agency, Family.
Assuming there is a clear proposition, the next task is to set some goals. This helps dictate the best channels – for example PR coverage to develop brand awareness, building up a social media following (to develop and nurture an audience or community), or more targeted ads and offers.
2. Consider getting expert help
Using an advertising agency can help focus spending so that it drives maximum results. “They’ll ask the right questions, and help you develop a style that lasts,” Wright says.
This could save a lot of money in the long run, and some agencies even offer special terms for startups.
Be aware that specialist digital agencies will have a ‘digital first’ agenda. To maximise all options, look for a multi-disciplined organisation that also works with more traditional channels (such as print, radio and TV).
3. Get online
“These days, if you haven’t got a website you haven’t got a business,” says Simon Landi, managing director of Access Advertising, a marketing and digital agency in Manchester.
“And if you’ve got a website, you can’t avoid Google search,” he adds. “In fact you can determine how strong your business proposition is by looking at the current list of searches on Google and the cost of advertising your search terms online.”
Online activity should also include proactive networking, and developing web-based partnerships. “This is a very cost-effective way of quickly amplifying your message, allowing you to reach a much wider audience quickly and efficiently,” Landi notes.
Social media involvement and blogging are also important – but the company must be clear about what it wants to say, and pick something that will resonate with their target audience. “With Twitter, Tumblr, Vine, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest for example, you’ll never be short of a channel to promote your wares, but good, relevant content is paramount,” Lundi says. “And it should be communicated in an interesting way: the use of video and/or graphics always goes down well.”
4. Prioritise your budget
In a crowded market, you may need a bigger budget to stand out. In one case of a home-staging business (which gets houses ready to sell), the founder spent 10-15% of its first year’s sales on creating a website that positioned the business expertly in the marketplace. “They then did the bulk of the work themselves,” Lundi says.
Digital channels can be very cost-effective because they’re immediate and have in-built controls and metrics.
For Hopster, an online platform for kids’ educational games and TV content, this is crucial. “If I had £5 to spend on digital marketing, I’d probably spend £4 of it on someone to do the analytics,” says founder and CEO Nick Walters.
Hopster, which launched its digital content platform two years ago, spent almost nothing on marketing for the first six months. Its priority was to seed the market – establishing the first few thousand users with free samples and giveaways, and making the product the best it could be before promoting it in earnest.
Facebook in particular proved a great way to reach Hopster’s target audience – primarily mums of young children. “With Facebook there are a lot of great targeting tools, so you can really drill in and make sure you’re talking to the right people,” Walters notes.
More traditional channels – including direct marketing techniques such as email newsletters – can be valuable in complementing any digital activity, helping to reach a wider audience and drive traffic to your website, mobile app or social media pages.
It pays to be selective and sometimes spending a bit more if the end results justify it. “We’ve done a lot of radio PR, and we did our first TV advertising campaign over the summer,” Walters says. “We really had to think about the timing as you can put £500 into Facebook and get a result, but the same isn’t necessarily true with TV. It was the single biggest marketing outlay we’ve ever had: not just the media cost, but also the ad production. We got a positive return though. We’re now the number one grossing app for kids in the UK Apple App Store, so we must be doing something right.”
5. Remember: it’s not all about sales
At Welsh telecoms company DataKom, advertising accounts for around 1% of monthly expenditure, though managing the whole marketing and advertising function accounts for around 5%. “You need all the supporting activities to make the advertising effective,” says MD Jay Ball.
“We focus most of our lead-generation advertising on Google AdWords, because of the niche area we focus on geographically,” he explains. “But we invest across the channels – we’ve also tried ads in the papers, Yell and local radio.”
Importantly, DataKom’s advertising activity is not just aimed at driving a financial return. “We spend a lot of our budget on social channels and on growing our audience – because we think that makes us a more credible business to buy from,” Ball says.
“We also get involved a lot in business networking events, and nothing substitutes meeting customers face-to-face. Charity event advertising is something we do too, because CSR [corporate social responsibility] is important to us and improves how people see us. “But overall, we just find much better returns and awareness from digital channels. We use LinkedIn and Twitter a lot. For B2B communications we find these to be the most effective forums.”
This advertisement feature is paid for and produced to a brief agreed with Simply Business, the UK’s biggest business and landlord insurance provider, and sponsor of the supporting business growth hub.
