Marketing Strategy for Startups, that worked!

Marketing is the key of any startup. All of us have great products, but how to market our product is the most crucial. Twitter wasn't the first microblogging, Facebook wasn't the first social network, About.me wasn't the first profile site, Foursquare started 1 month later than Gowalla, etc.

Please share with us, marketing strategies that you have tried that worked, and not worked. We may have heard a lot about inbound marketing (blogs, tweets, social media...) or outbound marketing (press advertising, tv, radio, billboard...), but how do people exactly do it to go viral?

Victor, you'll have a hard time finding ONE strategy that can do the trick.

You need to invest in a variety of the elements you mentioned. The more channels you use, the more opportunities you have to get found, noticed and heard.

But beware: At the end of the day, it depends a lot of the target audience you're trying to reach.

If they're teens, you probably need to invest in Facebook. Getting a story covered on NY Times will not help you reach them.
If you're targetting business executives, then investing in PR to get into the newspapers and magazines they read might be the best option. They probably don't use facebook to find companies/products like yours.

The trick here is that people use different channels to get the info they want. Some read blogs, some read publications. Some are active on Twitter, others only on facebook. Try to identify the channels where your prospects are more active, get that list down to the top 5 and then invest in all of them.

Hope this helps
Michel

There is no exact way to go viral that's sure!

• you need a great idea
• have to find and define your target group exactly
• locate and speak to the opinion leaders of the group
• try to make some myth, or just have a real unique idea
• be funny, shocking - try to have a huge impact on people

...I think these are only some elements of the recipe!

In Chris Anderson's - Long Tail you can find some great ideas and case studies: http://www.longtail.com/