Top 3 Marketing Tips for new Technology Startups

You have just released your product into the market and you want to start to get the word out there. What are 3 things that you think every startup should be doing to build traction?

1) Get your products into the hands of the right people (both on- and off-line media). When making your pitch, don't write a bunch of technobabble, what you say needs to inspire busy people to put aside a small piece of their day to take a closer look at what you are offering. (Don't just ship product on the hope that someone will look at it either; get a committment before sending your product out.)

2) Offer incentives. Proven things that will motivate people to be more interested in your product include decoys, incentive pricing, seeing that your product is neither the most expensive or the cheapest. Don't diminish the value of your product by giving it away, but it may help to give something away for free (think Amazon's free super saver shipping offer). Free is in its own special class when it comes to incentives that work.

3) Explore opportunities for marketing alliances. (We have an article on marketing alliances going up on Canoe.ca's Money > Small Business section on Tuesday next week.) If you target a niche it is much easier to make a big impact with fewer $. Beyond the traditional marketing channels, don't overlook things like associations that have thousands of members - there is an association for almost every professional group.

Nice post Ed (sorry, can't comment yet)

1. Build an exceptional user experience. Word of mouth is everything at an early stage. Yes you need influencers and releationships with the media but they are all for naught if the product doesn't sell itself. - Poll your users on a scale of 1-10 about their satisfaction with the product (this is called a Net Promoter score) with 10 being highly satisfied. If your users aren't at least sevens, go back to the drawing board.
2. Community but let me add to that content. The value of community is multi-layered: establishing transparency and credibility, viral marketing, organic customer support, but also SEO. Create good, authoritative content to supplement your community. SEO everything and Google will quickly surprise you.
3. Network, network, network. This is what I consider the other answers are getting at. Be on twitter, facebook, LinkedIn, etc. But recognize that those channels take time and need work just as going to a conference and networking in the traditional sense is hit and miss. The more you get the word out, the more it will get itself out.

I'll just share 3 ideas using Social Networking. And yes, just pick the current big three. Don't spend time on dozens of smaller sites. Unfortunate but true, you will have more traffic and exposure with a focus on a few key places than spending time on dozens of smaller places.

1) Join Twitter. The latest popular place. Do searches, find people who have similar interests with your product. Follow them. Post tweeds in the subject area (not just your product).

2) Join LinkedIn. Join groups. Add friends with people from those groups that work in your field. Post updates (similar to twitter).

3) Join Facebook. Become fan of some pages with similar interests. Add friends. Post status updates.

I don't think there's something that "every" technology startup should do to get the word out or build traction. It depends on your product, your market, where your target audience is, the vehicles to reach them, what the competitive landscape looks like, etc. "Traction" might mean media coverage, it could mean support from influencers, could mean a certain level of customers/sales.

Maybe it's a copout answer but for me the "what every startup should do" is to make sure you have a marketing plan (whether written or the knowledge in someone's head). Target market, trends, competition, value proposition, unique positioning, target audience, objectives, etc. With that you can define exactly what "traction" means and determine the three most important strategies/tactics to achieve it. And it doesn't mean writing a marketing plan that looks like a book. In some scenarios it could mean just filling in the outline of a marketing plan in a relatively short working session. Just depends.

Best of luck.

New answer:

• There are two critical elements for growth in a lot of startups - viral spread and partnerships. Both will help you grow your business beyond a specific ROI on marketing dollars. Rarely can you spend your way to the number of customers you want. So that means a great product that makes customers want to tell others...and focusing on companies who have the same target audience that you can leverage to reach them in ways that don't require cash like advertising and many other marketing tactics require.