How to Market Your Startup on a Shoestring Budget

You have a great idea. You know it, your team knows it. But you need EVERYONE to know about it. How are you going to spread the word when you are on a tight budget trying to maximize every dollar?

Here are three easy (and effective) ways you can market your startup on a shoestring budget.

1. Develop Your Personal Brand

It was your knowledge, skills, and personality that led you into this business. Your personal brand is the fastest way to build a trusting relationship between your company and your potential clients, users, or customers. Nail. It. Down.

Demonstrate thought leadership.

Know what your area of expertise is and pick the best channel to share it. Are you a social media whiz? Then you better be the first one tweeting when Instagram introduces “stories” and when Twitter removes photos from its character count!

Just like every brand needs a voice, so do you. 

Finding your voice takes practice but, once you have it, people will be able to appreciate your sense of professionalism, quirkiness, or whatever it is that you bring to the table. Every word counts.

Literally brand yo’self. 

You need to know what colors, fonts, and things describe YOU. If you create your own website to share your expertise, you might want your own logo and colour scheme that can follow you wherever your career takes you.

Know what makes you unique and find a way to share that. 

Outside of work, my life tends to revolve around coffee, cute stationery, and travel. Your audience wants to know YOU. That’s what takes your company from a logo to a team of real people.

Personal branding comes down to showing people who you are, and why they should trust the company that you put your blood, sweat, and tears into. People trust people, it’s that simple.

2. Find Partners That Will Help You Promote Your Brand For You

You did the research. You know that there is a group of people out there that want or need your product, service, or expertise! Find the organizations that share similar interests, but aren’t competitors, and turn them into community partners.

Make the relationship mutually beneficial. 

Don’t go on your profiles, guns a blazing, and start spamming every inbox you can find hoping that someone, anyone, will say yes. Be strategic. Make a list of organizations that you think would actually benefit from promoting your company. How can you test whether the relationship makes sense? Ask yourself if you would feel comfortable promoting their content too!

Don’t feel comfortable asking for support? Just start promoting.

You don’t need permission. Their content is out there for the world to see, so start sharing it. Show your potential partners that you are invested in promoting their interests and that you see alignment with your brand. It will make asking for support that much easier.

Once you have a few solid community partners, keep those relationships strong. As you promote each other’s content, you will have developed a free brand ambassador.

3. Live Tweet at Events

There are so many different free Meetup groups, workshops, and lunch and learns in our community. Looking to increase engagement with your brand? There really is no better time to be tweeting than at an event that aligns with what you do.

Cut through the noise and tweet to your target audience.

If you send a tweet using an event hashtag or handle, suddenly your posts aren’t lost in the abyss of the entire Twittersphere. Instead, you speak to a smaller, relevant community where people are actually paying attention. You’ve just sent a targeted tweet without paying a cent.

Engage with other attendees.

If you find the pace of live tweeting overwhelming (which it can be) take a few breaks and engage with others who are posting. These are the people you want in your network! Follow the event hashtag and reply, retweet, and follow away. Who knows, maybe you will find a potential customer or community partner!

Find relevant followers quickly.

If you are in the stages of building an audience, this is one of the fastest ways to do it. General hashtags are useful, but you are still likely to attract a few “spammers” who are looking for literally anyone to follow them. If you want real, local followers with a true interest in your brand, engaging in social media conversations at events is a must.

Most free events only run an hour or two and are a great way to maximize the value of your time when resources are tight!
 

Effective marketing doesn’t have to be expensive! How do you market your startup?

Header photo by Jenn Richardson

Tapping into Calgary's Tech Community

For the past few months, I've been working with Lighthouse Labs to launch their first full-time web bootcamp in Calgary. Here's a shortened version of the blog I wrote to share what #YYC has to offer for the technically inclined!

Want to Connect with Calgary's Tech Community?

Chic Geek - a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging women to be makers, builders and creators leveraging technology to explore entrepreneurship. They host a Mentorship program as well as beginner-friendly workshops to get women (and men) up to speed on tech tools and to build confidence.

Startup Calgary - a nonprofit organization dedicated to entrepreneurs and technology-focused startups. They host a number of events throughout the year, with the largest being Launch Party, a 500-person event that brings the entire innovation community together to celebrate entrepreneurship in Calgary and recognize the top 10 startups.

Pixels & Pints - a monthly Meetup lead by Tony Grimes that is ideal for designers and developers. The format is extremely simple: Bring people together once a month and drink beer. There is an opportunity to do a ‘call out’ that you’re looking to hire, seeking work, or just announcing an upcoming event that is relevant for developers and designers.

YYCjs - a monthly Meetup lead by Eric Kryski for JavaScript developers. The Meetup has grown rapidly over the past 5 years. So much so, that they needed to change up the venue to the Last Best Brewery so they could accommodate at least 65 people each month.

Assembly Coworking Space - an affordable coworking space in Kensington targeted at tech startups and social enterprises. They offer a complimentary community space on the fourth floor for Meetups and are instrumental in bringing people together. Plus, they're hosting the first Lighthouse Labs Calgary Bootcamp cohort!

The A100 - spanning Calgary (and Edmonton), the A100 is a group of seasoned technology executives in Alberta. Their members regularly help others expand networks, connect people experiences, and share their experiences in order to help the next generation of entrepreneurs in Alberta. I'm currently helping them plan AccelerateAB, Alberta's large tech conference taking place in Edmonton on April 27, 2016.

Innovate Calgary - an innovation and commercialization hub for technology companies. They offer a number of programs for entrepreneurs and host the New Tech Meetup to highlight a couple local tech startups every month.

Digital Alberta - the voice of the digital industry in Alberta. They connect people through a membership network and host an annual Gala to highlight the best of the digital sector in our province.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but was created to highlight the many awesome organizations and community groups thriving in Calgary.

Want to learn more about Calgary's tech community? Send me a note and let's grab coffee.