Viral Access: What Marketing Tactics Are Efficient In Building A Startup Business?
As a startup business entrepreneur, one must face numerous challenges, including having relatively low production capacity and sales capabilities, little brand recognition, inadequate POS (point-of-sales) system, and insufficient media channels for advertising when competing with well-established brands. How to effectively market a startup to further increase its brand awareness and gain its market share become crucial questions which answers are desperately in need. Being a pioneer company specializing in social media and micro-KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing across Asia, Viral Access would like to provide some insights to better answering these questions.
(Source: www.alecpow.com)
Introducing “Who I Am” To Customers
Due to the lack of brand recognition, branding becomes particularly important for startups in terms of building connections between customers and their products or services over time. The first step recommended to every startup business is to introduce who they are to their target customers since the people tend to only shop from brands they trust or with which they are familiar. Overall, establishing brand image and shaping it in customers’ minds does not happen overnight.
In addition, running pre-launch campaigns helps in building up hype and anticipation towards a startup’s new product or service launch. For instance, several months before the launch of Apple’s iPhone 8 and X in 2017, rumor had it that at least one of the new models would come in with all-screen design. Such concept went viral instantly and inspired other brands to develop their own designs in hopes of benefiting from following the trend. Shortly after the spread of iPhone’s rumor, Chinese smartphone companies Xiaomi, VIVO, and OPPO successively announced on Weibo, a major social media platform in China similar to Twitter, that all-screen designs would be incorporated into their upcoming phone models that were scheduled to be launched before new iPhones. Although their brand recognitions may not be as renowned as Apple, their early release of smartphones with similar design had not only successfully stolen Apple’s thunder but also avoided facing direct competition with the giant.
Informing Customers What My Specialties Are
After successfully positioning a brand in the target market, startup entrepreneurs must inform prospects in what products or services they specialize to further increase brand influence. When a company is promoting its brand, a clear theme is suggested to be set for its marketing campaigns with implementation of marketing strategies specifically aimed at conveying brand messages and increasing brand’s core values by providing to their audience a sense of brand trustworthiness.
Besides, startup brands must ensure delivery of product quality as promised since it serves as the best way to impress customers and retain their loyalty. Take MUJI, a Japanese brand which sells a wide variety of household goods, for example, the brand is known for its minimalistic designs and excellent quality. While most of its household merchandises are of higher prices comparing to products offered from other competitors, MUJI has not only survived the competition but also attracted a devoted following across Asia primarily because of its product quality. In other words, any products that are merely ornamental and deficient in both quality and functionality are certain to create negative public perception and damage brand reputation hence affecting profitability.
Once quality management is under control, brands are encouraged to divide their consumer bases into subcategories and develop merchandise according to specific groups of customer needs. With the intention of distinguishing from the the crowd hoping to generate more sales, products serving the same function as other competitors’ are advised to improve aesthetics and quality in product design, which is what MUJI does; whereas products within the same price range as others are suggested to add in more features and services.
Showcasing How My Brand Is Favored By Others
Branding is about social experience and conversation after all. Living in the digital age where running marketing campaigns on social media has proven to be more efficient and effective than running through traditional advertising, marketers are now capable of reaching more audience with a fraction of the cost. Since the majority of people perceive recommendations made by friends and family as more credible than all other forms of advertising, this is where micro-KOL marketing strategy comes into the spotlight in terms of marketing on social media, which falls under Viral Access’ expertise. The practice of micro-KOL marketing not only has the greatest potential in generating the highest return on investment and the same time can effectively build up brand or product reputation by sharing positive reviews and feedbacks on social media platforms, creating hype and conversations or even possibly trends and considerably influencing people’s purchase decisions.
By collaborating with micro-KOLs, such as Internet celebrities, bloggers, vloggers, and live streaming hosts, to craft and incorporate merchandise into influencers’ authentic and creative contents and having micro-KOLs constantly promoting and sharing such marketing campaigns on their social media channels with their followers, Viral Access is confident in assisting clients’ brands or products to achieve satisfactory results, including significantly increased brand awareness, and improved online traffic as well as better retention and conversion rate. The most critical thing for any startups trying to build their business is to not lose focus on developing products not only of great quality but address their customers’ needs. While marketing plays an important role in growing one’s business, never overlook the fact that product of high quality also mostly sells itself.
