Grab yourself a coffee because this is a good one! I’m sharing EVERYTHING you need to know about:
- What kind of content is most effective for growing a tech startup quickly and organically
- Pro-tips on how to streamline and minimize the amount of work required to start and maintain a content marketing for startup initiative, and…
- The best way to allocate your startup marketing budget for maximum growth – based on details of marketing budgets for different phases of startups.
As founders, we’re ideas people! And if you’ve been at it a while, you know that this abundance of ideas can be a total liability.
My goal for this article is to provide you with the guidance you need to get started leveraging content marketing for startup growth – for FREE!
All I ask from you is… take 20% of the time you currently spend spinning wheels looking for ways to acquire customers on your own, and invest that time into content marketing. Believe me, this effort will help you establish and grow brand equity that eventually pays off in spades.
Looking for something specific? Scroll straight to what you're looking for by clicking a link below:
- Why You Need Consistent Content Marketing for Startup Growth
- Proven Content Types To Quickly & Organically Skyrocket Your Growth
- 2 Categories of Content You’ll Need To Get Started
- Content Types That Perform Well for Early-Stage Tech Startups
- Pro-Tips On How To Streamline & Stay Consistent
- Tech Startup Marketing Budgets
- Wrapping Things Up
Why You Need Consistent Content Marketing for Startup Growth
Consistent content marketing helps build trust with potential customers by providing them with valuable and relevant information on a regular basis.
By consistently creating and distributing high-quality content that addresses the needs and interests of your target audience, you’ll establish yourself as a credible and trustworthy resource in your industry. This can help to build brand loyalty and increase the likelihood that potential customers will turn to your business when they are ready to make a purchase.
Additionally, consistent content marketing can help to improve your search engine rankings, making it easier and faster for potential customers to find your business online.
The key to success with content marketing for startup growth is the ability to produce quality content consistently over months and years. It’s a marathon, not a race!
In a recent survey by DemandGen, 32% of internet users that were polled responded by saying they are overwhelmed by the amount of content available.
Despite that, a majority (44%) of these same respondents say that they typically consume three to five pieces of (free) content before engaging with a vendor (DemandGen).
In another study, Demand Metric concluded that content marketing generates over 3x as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less. Pretty good, right?
With as necessary content marketing for startups is to the lifeblood of a business, it’s rather surprising to note that most early-stage tech startups have no content marketing programs in place whatsoever.
While there are a variety of reasons for that, one of the biggest reasons early tech startup founders don’t invest in content marketing is that they feel afraid to “put themselves out there” to be judged by the world.
If that’s you, just remember:
Proven Content Types To Quickly & Organically Skyrocket Your Content Marketing for Startup Growth
The first thing you’ll need to know about content marketing for startup growth are the categories of content that are most relevant. Afterward, I’ll show you what types of content work best for tech startups.
2 Categories of Content You’ll Need To Get Started With Content Marketing for Startup Growth
When it comes to content marketing for startup growth, there are two main categories…
Free Content
Free content forms the heart of your content marketing for startup growth efforts because it proves to your audience and prospects:
- That they can and should trust you as an expert in your area, and…
- That your products or services are valuable and worth paying for
Paid or Gated Content
Paid or “Gated” content pieces are generally information products like e-books, reports, white papers, software, ads, online courses, or market research.
Payment might come in the form of actual currency – or, it might just be acquiring someone’s email address (which is also worth money if you know how to use email marketing in a way that helps people and converts to sales).
PRO TIP: Creating a “freebie” that is gated by an opt-in form is a great way to build your email list.
At its core, content-as-a-product is paid-for information. These products can be purchased via a one-time payment, a payment plan or on a subscription basis.
Here are a few examples of content-as-a-product:
- Online and continued learning programs
- Photographs or stock images
- Competitor or market research
- Apps and even some software programs
- E-books, white papers, PDFs and other long-form texts
Content Marketing for Startup Growth: Content Types That Perform Well for Early-Stage Tech Startups
In this section, I’ll share several different types of content that I’ve seen perform exceptionally well for tech startups. Don’t try to do them all though! Determine what type of content you want to produce based on your business model, target audience, and offer.
I’ll break down these content types into (1) suitability for each business model, (2) ideal customer, and (3) offer type.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, here’s a quick overview of what types of content work well for different business models.
- B2B (Business-to-business) marketing content is all about showing how your product or service can help other businesses solve specific problems. Think white papers, webinars, and e-books that go into detail about how your solution can make a difference.
- B2C (Business-to-consumer) marketing content tends to be focused on making a connection with your customers and building your brand. This might include things like social media campaigns, influencer partnerships, and product videos that show off your brand or offers in a fun, relatable way.
- D2C (Direct-to-consumer) content is about building a direct relationship with your customers and getting them to buy. This could include things like product demos, user-generated content, and email campaigns that make it easy for customers to buy what they want.
Remember, no two businesses are the same. So whilst you can use the above as a guide, you do you!
Blog Articles
Companies that actively publish blogs have 126% better lead growth (Yourblogworks.com)
Writing and publishing blog posts is one of the best investments a tech startup can make.
On top of that, publishing regularly shows that you have your finger on the pulse of the industry, have advice and insights at your fingertips, and are committed to supporting your products with supplementary documents, guides, and insights.
Blog articles are the swiss army knife of content marketing for startups. You can use them to:
- Improve search engine rankings: Blogs provide fresh, relevant content that can be optimized with keywords, which helps improve a website’s search engine rankings (meaning, more website visitors). Having a library of great content also helps to keep people on your website for longer.
- Become a thought leader: Giving valuable insights and information on topics relevant to your audience can help you establish yourself and your business as the ‘go to’ expert in the industry.
- Generate leads: Using blogging as a lead generation strategy will help you attract new customers by providing them with helpful, valuable content.
- Build brand awareness: A blog is an excellent platform for you to tell your story and share your values and your mission.
- Enhance customer relationships: By engaging with your audience and building trust, blogging can help to build stronger customer relationships (it’s also a good place to direct people to FAQs).
In short, blog posts accelerate your content marketing for startup growth efforts because they’re free and they have a very high ROI potential (if done correctly).
Whether you’re a software developer with a proven track record for delivering incredible freelance services, or a SaaS founder who’s taking the DIY approach to their startup marketing, a blog helps show off your skills, intuition, work ethic, and up-to-date knowledge about your sector.
Whether you’re a software developer with a proven track record for delivering incredible freelance services, or a SaaS founder who’s taking the DIY approach to their startup marketing, a blog helps show off your skills, intuition, work ethic, and up-to-date knowledge about your sector.
Just remember, SEO-optimized blog articles are an effective long-term strategy for growing your tech startup, but they’re a marathon, not a race!
General guidelines I suggest are as follows:
Consider Blog Articles if Your Business Model Is:
- B2B
- B2C or
- D2C Products & Services
Consider Blog Articles if Your Ideal Customer Is:
- Anyone – blog articles can be tailored so that they’re helpful to any ideal customer!
Consider Blog Articles if Your Offer Is:
- Saas or Information Products
- Tech Implementation or Consulting Services
- Even Affiliate or Partner Products & Services
Examples of Blog Formats As Used By Tech Startups
Wondering what the heck to talk about in your blog? I’ve got you covered! Here are a few different blog content types you may want to consider:
Technical how-to guides
How-to blogs provide step-by-step instructions on how to perform a specific technical task or process. They are designed to help readers learn a new skill or solve a specific problem related to a particular technology or software.
Visual aids such as screenshots and diagrams are often included within these instructions to help make them clear and understandable.
Check out some of these technical how-to guides published by tech startups for some inspiration:
- “Get Started with Flutter Authentication” by Auth0
- “Dialogflow CX Onboarding Guide” by Twilio
- “How to Train Your Own Object Detector Using TensorFlow Object Detection API” by Neptune.ai
Checklists
Checklist blog posts provide readers with a list of steps or items to assist them in completing a specific task or process. By breaking down a complex process into manageable steps, checklist blogs make it easier for readers to understand and follow along.
Here are a few examples of ideas for technical checklists that a tech startup might publish:
- Server deployment checklists: This type of checklist could include tasks such as configuring firewall rules, setting up monitoring and logging, and testing backups.
- Security audit checklists: This type of checklist could include tasks such as reviewing access controls, testing for vulnerabilities, and monitoring for suspicious activity.
- Network infrastructure checklists: This type of checklist could include tasks such as configuring routers and switches, setting up VLANs, and testing network connectivity.
- Performance tuning checklists: This type of checklist could include tasks such as identifying bottlenecks, optimizing database queries, and testing load.
Year-end roundups
Year-end roundup blogs reflect on past events, trends, and developments. Typically, this type of blog summarizes and forecasts the most significant or interesting happenings in your industry, as well as predictions for the coming year.
Examples of popular technical year-end roundups include:
- GitHub’s “Octoverse 2022: 10 years of tracking open source” report, which highlights trends related to: Infrastructure as code opening up, big tech building big open source communities, and first-time open source contributors starting with commercially backed projects
- Stack Overflow’s “Developer Survey Results” report, which provides insights into the developer community’s demographics, job satisfaction, and technology preferences.
- VentureBeat “10 recently-funded tech startups to watch in 2023” which lists the top startups that recently raised venture capital in the year before.
Guest blog posts
Guest blogging is when you (or someone from your team) writes a blog post and contributes it to be published on another brand’s blog. This practice can be an effective way for tech startups to increase brand awareness, reach new audiences, and generate leads.
Here are 5 steps that tech startup founders and leaders can use to start guest blogging in order to generate leads for your business:
- Identify relevant industry websites and blogs: Research industry websites and blogs that have a large audience and are relevant to your startup’s niche or industry.
- Build relationships with bloggers and editors: Reach out to bloggers and editors to introduce yourself and your startup. Building relationships with these individuals can make it easier to get your guest blog post published.
- Create high-quality, informative content: Make sure that your guest blog post is well-written, informative, and provides value to the website’s audience. Avoid using self-promotion and focus on providing helpful information that the website’s readers will find useful.
- Promote your guest post: Once your guest post is published, share it on your own website and social media accounts to increase it’s visibility and reach.
- Use it as a way to generate leads: Guest blogging can also be used as a way to generate leads by including calls-to-action within the post that encourage readers to visit your website or sign up for your newsletter.
Publishing Contributor Content
Contributor content is content that’s created and contributed by individuals outside of your company (e.g. guest authors, experts in a particular field, customers) and published onto your blog.
Blog posts by contributors can provide a fresh perspective and introduce new ideas, as well as extend the reach of your blog by tapping into your contributor’s networks and audiences.
Publishing this type of content also helps to take the content workflow pressure off you a little bit.
Tech startups can improve their overall content marketing results by using contributor content to:
- Diversify content: By featuring a variety of voices and perspectives, you’ll offer a more diverse range of content and appeal to a wider audience.
- Build a community: By featuring content from a variety of contributors, you’ll build a sense of community and engagement with your audience.
- Establish thought leadership: By featuring content from experts and industry leaders, you’ll establish your own brand as a thought leader in your industry and position yourself as a credible source of information.
- Drive traffic: By including internal backlinks to other pages on your website from within the contributor’s content, you can drive more traffic to important pages on your site.
- Enhance brand awareness: By featuring your company’s name, branding, and internal backlinks within the contributor’s content, you’ll be able to increase brand awareness and generate more leads for your business.
- Build domain authority in a cost-effective way: Using contributor content can be cost-effective as it allows you to leverage the expertise of others to create high-quality content without incurring the cost of producing it in-house.
Infographics
Infographics are visual representations of information, data, or knowledge designed to make complex information easier to understand. They provide a quick and easy way for startups to highlight their expertise and communicate key information to their target audience. They can also be rather effective at attracting new customers through Google Search, so long as the topic of the infographic is relevant to the offers of the company that publishes.
There are many popular infographics that have been published by tech startups in recent years. Here are a few examples:
- “What can we expect from Artificial Intelligence?” – This infographic from the startup FortySeven highlights the adoption of artificial intelligence within various tech industries.
- “Cybercrime Infographics: Illustrations Of The Past, Present, And Future Threats We Face” – This infographic from the tech publishing startup CyberSecurity Ventures provides an overview of the current state of cybersecurity, including statistics on data breaches and common attack methods.
- “Global Blockchain Technology Market in the Agriculture Sector 2018-2022” – This infographic from the tech market research company Technavio provides an overview of the growth and potential uses of blockchain technology across the agriculture sector.
Industry insight articles
Industry insight articles provide a detailed and in-depth look at the current state of various industries and predictions for the future, and they help to establish startup founders and leaders as thought leaders in their field, providing valuable insights to their target audience.
There are many popular industry insight articles published by tech startups (and large companies alike). Here are a few examples:
- “The Future of E-commerce” by McKinsey & Company.
- “The Impact Artificial Intelligence Has on Industries Today” by Ivy Partners.
- “Ericsson Mobility Report” – A 5G report by Ericsson.
On a side note, I’ve LOVED having the opportunity to do lots of event marketing and product marketing support for Ericsson, including for increasing distribution of its Mobility Report.
Examples of some of the deliverables and results from that work are shown below.
If you’re looking for product marketing and launch support for your tech startup, I encourage you to get in touch and submit your project details here.
Personal anecdotes, opinions, and reviews
Personal anecdotes, opinions, and reviews can be helpful with tech startup marketing in a few ways, including:
- You can use them to build trust with potential customers, as they provide a personal perspective on your product or service.
- You can use them to generate word-of-mouth marketing, as people are more likely to trust the opinions of people they know.
- You can use them to improve the visibility of your startup’s product or service, as these content types may be more likely to appear in search results.
- You can use these to create a sense of community and belonging around your brand and its values.
You can use these to generate valuable feedback on your product or service, which you can then use to make improvements.
Where to Find Inspiration for Your Tech Startup Blog
It’s always a good idea to find a few people or websites that you can use as inspiration. That way, when you get stuck, you can refer back to these sources and see how they handle that particular issue.
The site you’ll use for inspiration depends on whether you’re building a blog for your personal-professional brand, a community, or a small business.
If you’re building out a blog for a data startup, the following sites may help get you started in your quest for inspiration: Analytic Vidhya, R Bloggers, DataFloq, Revolution Analytics, Edwin Chen, Pete Warden, and Sebastian Raschka.
Make Sure You’re Utilizing Effective On-Page SEO
While blog posts are a great way to dial down into your audience and attract motivated buyers, you’ll need to start by conducting SEO keyword research to determine what those people are searching for.
You can launch an especially successful content marketing campaign using blog posts if you take special care to target the SEO keywords your competitors aren’t utilizing.
Social Media Content
80% of business-to-business social media leads come from LinkedIn (Source: g2.com)
Worldwide usage of social media has been on an uninterrupted upward trajectory for years, and the global pandemic caused a further 58% increase in users on these platforms.
The chief strength of social media posts is their versatility. Their chief drawback is their short lifespan.
Nevertheless, social media is a great tool when it comes to your content marketing for startup growth efforts.
Popular Social Media Content Types for Tech Startups
There are many social media content types that can be effective for tech startups, including:
- Demos and tutorials
- Short-form how-to guides
- Memes and funny content
- Educational or research-based posts
- Advance warnings about upcoming sales and promotions
- Contests and collaborations
- Testimonials
Example Topics for Social Media Content Published By Tech Startups
Some examples of topics and post ideas for social media posts published by tech startups include:
- A Twitter thread discussing the latest developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning
- A Twitter thread discussing the latest advancements in blockchain technology and its potential use cases
- A long form LinkedIn post discussing the latest updates in the field of quantum computing
- A YouTube video discussing the latest advancements in 5G technology and its potential impact on industries
- A TikTok video discussing the latest developments in virtual reality and augmented reality technologies
- A Instagram Reel discussing the latest advancements in the field of robotics and automation
- A LinkedIn slide show demonstrating the latest developments in internet of things (IoT) and smart devices
YouTube and Facebook are the most popular platforms, with 81% and 69% of U.S. adults using them, respectively. Also, the audiences on these platforms roughly represent the general population in age, gender, and racial diversity.
The rest of the social networks have market shares in the same general ballpark as one another. Hence, you could potentially shift your marketing spend from one network to another as you learn more about your audience.
YouTube Videos: A Special Form of Social Media Content
YouTube is a bit of a special case, because while the platform itself is a social media platform, the content marketing strategies you use there are very similar to what you’d use when growing a self-hosted blog.
According to Pew Research, 81% of U.S. adults used YouTube regularly.
The demographic breakdown on this statistic is:
~ 95% of individuals aged 18-29 use YouTube
~ 91% of 30- to 49-year-olds and
~ 49% of those over 65.
By looking at the above statistics you can get a good idea for yourself whether organic content marketing for startup growth on YouTube makes sense for your business.
For an example of how I use YouTube to grow my own business, check out how we used a YouTube video within this blog post on The Secret To Building AI Software That Actually Sells.
YouTube video content can be helpful to your content marketing for startup growth in a few ways:
- You can use YouTube videos to tell a story and build an emotional connection with your audience.
- You can use YouTube to create multiple series of valuable free video content that builds your audience and leads base as well as keeps your current audience engaged and loyal to your brand. This is akin to using Youtube to publish the same or similar educational or how-to content you’d publish on your blog.
- You can use YouTube videos to create a sense of community and belonging around your brand and its values by creating regular content and engaging with the audience.
- You can use YouTube videos to showcase your products or services in a visual and engaging way, which can help to directly attract potential customers.
- You can use video content to demonstrate how your product or service works, which can help to educate potential customers and answer any questions they may have.
- YouTube is a large and widely used platform, so creating video content for it can help you increase the visibility of your startup’s brand, products, and services.
- YouTube videos can also be optimized with keywords, titles, and descriptions so that your YouTube content attracts new leads and customers over the long-term future.
Some of the most successful video campaigns on YouTube fall into categories like these:
- Product demos: Provide an in-depth analysis of new technology products and compare them to existing products on the market (this is a good opportunity to showcase your own product or service).
- How-to tutorials and guides: Teach your audience how to use new technology products or services effectively and efficiently.
- Behind-the-scenes content (vlogs): Give your audience a glimpse into the day-to-day operations of your startup and give them a sense of the people and culture behind your brand.
- Industry insights and predictions: Share your thoughts and insights on the latest developments and trends in your industry, and provide your predictions for the future.
- Interviews with industry experts: Interview experts within your industry and discuss the latest developments and trends in the field.
- Case studies: Share how your product or service has helped other businesses solve problems or improve their operations.
Like other forms of content, YouTube videos position your brand as an authority in your sector. Moreover, they can also be used to showcase your company’s products and give prospects who may be “on the fence” the gentle push they need to make a purchase.
Coding Demos
If they’re an appropriate vehicle through which to generate targeted leads for your startup’s offers, coding demos can be one of the most effective ways to grow your tech startup.
General guidelines I suggest are as follows:
Consider Coding Demos If Your Business Model Is:
| Consider Coding Demos If Your Ideal Customer Is A:
| Consider Coding Demos If Your Offer Is:
|
Coding demos help attract new startups with IT needs as well as mature companies looking for products to help them scale.
Furthermore, coding demos help you show professional coders how your product, product suite or tools will help them generate next-level results.
The #1 Fastest Way To Quickly Establish Long-Term SEO Traffic for Your Tech Startup
If coding demos are an appropriate form of content marketing for your tech startup, you’re in luck! That’s because coding demos are the absolute very best way to generate website traffic from Google search and Bing.
Let me tell you a personal story to illustrate the awesomeness of using a coding demo to attract website visitors.
Back in 2017, I published a coding demonstration called Logistic Regression Example in Python (Source Code Included).
I already had the code from a small little project I’d been working on elsewhere, so it maybe took me 15 minutes to repurpose it into something I could share through WordPress (using Jupyter NBViewer hosted on GitHub). Creating the code from scratch would have added about 30 minutes to the content creation process, but luckily, I didn’t even have to do that.
Then, all I had to do was spend about 25 minutes adding 500 words of blog text around the demo to provide context / training and SEO optimize the page for Google Search.
I also used that space to link to my paid data science course and to my lead magnets, thus driving sales and generating leads on autopilot.
I spent less than 45 minutes publishing code I already had – and it indirectly generated at least $20,000 in revenues over the years.
Because people are always entering code snippets into search engines to look for solutions, and because there are a relatively small number of coding demos available on the internet, it’s very easy to use a coding demo to rank high in search and draw in those visitors.
The piece generated almost 60,000 new website visitors and if I updated it, then the piece could have easily generated twice the number of visitors.
Some of those visitors paid to take my data science courses.
Others opted-in to my newsletter and subsequently purchased a product or program.
What’s more, acquisition editors and tech leaders who stumbled upon the demo came along and offered me high-end B2B contracts to develop data science education products.
That’s not to mention the credibility that coding demos lend to your brand if you’re still trying to prove your technical chops.
How-To Use Coding Demos To Quickly Grow Your Tech Startup
Startup founders can use coding demos to quickly grow their tech startups in a few key ways:
- Creating a sense of community and belonging around the brand and its values by creating regular content and engaging with the audience.
- Generating buzz and interest around your startup and its product or service. Drive search traffic and leads to your startup’s website.
Educating your potential customers about how your product or service works, and how it can be integrated into their own projects or systems. Bonus points if you can teach them something they can use to get a quick-win for free, without actually having to sign-up for your offer.
3 excellent coding demo portfolio examples to inspire your startup marketing plan
Let’s look at 3 coding demo portfolio examples that would be especially helpful to startup founders and leaders who are looking to attract customers for a new data science startup.
Domino Data Lab: Startup
I can share this little tidbit simply because I helped Domino Data Lab with its startup marketing needs back in 2014.
Domino Data Lab is one of today’s leading MLOps platforms. But back in 2014, Domino was just getting started and they were looking to secure their first few cohorts of users.
Personally I helped them with their Twitter strategy and operations. I also helped to create coding demos that they could publish on their blog to attract members of their target audience.
How publishing coding demos has benefited the startup:
For a startup like Domino, it really made sense to publish coding demos from the beginning, because those demos leveraged organic Google Search to attract data scientists and programmers who would be interested in using the Domino product to scale their machine learning operations.
By publishing coding demos in their early days, Domino was able to quickly increase their brand awareness, lead base, and user base. These increases then, of course, made it a lot easier for them to secure more funding from partners and grow the business faster.
They’ve continued publishing coding tutorials throughout the years, because – well – it works.
The following are a few of the more recent coding demos they’ve published:
- Parallel Computing with Dask: A Step-by-Step Tutorial
- Evaluating Ray: Distributed Python for Massive Scalability
- Performing Non-Compartmental Analysis with Julia and Pumas AI
Sebastian Raschka: Consultant
Sebastian Raschka is an independent data science consultant and the assistant professor of statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
You can take a look through his portfolio, Github account, and LinkedIn profile if you like.
How publishing coding demos has benefited him:
Sebastian Raschka comes from a molecular biology background, not the strong statistics or comp sci background you’d expect from a world renowned data scientist.
That said, he’s successfully built his own little data startup which he monetizes mainly through:
- Information products (courses and books)
- B2B teaching deals that pop-up spontaneously due to the scale of his online reach and the quality of his contributions.
So, how did Sebastian establish the degree of clout he enjoys today?
He started by publishing immensely helpful online coding demos.
Jake Vanderplas: Consultant
Jake Vanderplas is a software engineer at Google on the Colab team. He is also a developer on a number of open-source Python projects. View his projects on Github or his site, or check out his LinkedIn profile here.
How publishing coding demos has benefited him:
Jake Vanderplas has an academic background in Astronomy and Physics, yet he’s become a household name in the world of data science and software engineering.
How did that happen? Well, it wasn’t because he is some sort of innate marketing genius. Nope. It’s all down to the coding demos and tutorials he created and shared through his portfolio on Github.
And while Jake is still technically considered an “employee” at Google, the online footprint he built for himself (using coding demos) led to him building out a pretty darn robust side-hustle which he’s monetized via services.
Services he offers / has offered:
- Speaking gigs
- Editorial positions and tutorial reviews (for journals, conferences, and websites)
- Event organization – Chairing and co-chairing of industry-related events
Pro-Tips On How To Streamline & Stay Consistent With Your Content Marketing for Startup Growth Initiative
Consistency is key when it comes to content marketing for startup growth!
It helps you to build a strong brand, to keep your audience interested, to improve your search engine rankings, and ultimately, to bring in more money. Plus, by having a plan in place and sticking to it, you can make sure your content is reaching the right people and making a real impact.
5 Ways To Quickly Generate Content Idea
If you’re struggling to come up with content ideas, here are a few ways to become inspired:
- Use keyword research to identify popular topics and questions related to your industry or niche. My favorite tool for keyword research is Keywords Everywhere.
- Look at what your competitors are writing about and see if you can offer a unique perspective or some form of added value. You can do this on most social platforms, but I recommend LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube.
- Use social media listening tools to track mentions of your brand, industry, or niche and see what topics are resonating with your target audience. Don’t be afraid to set up an inbox alert for this using Google Alerts.
- Look at industry-specific news, events, and popular discussions to see what’s happening in your field and what topics might be relevant to your target audience. Good places for this type of research include Reddit & Quora.
- Use feedback from your customers or audience to generate ideas for content that addresses their pain points, goals, or interests. Place you can look for this type of feedback:
- Within your existing content audits,
- Within social media comments, and
- Via email replies from your email marketing campaigns.
I find it easier to generate content ideas in batches, so I don’t have to scramble every time I need to publish. Generating a list of good ideas every month or two should be sufficient.
Set A Publishing Schedule & Stick To It
It’s a good idea to create a content / editorial calendar at least one or two months in advance. Having a formalized plan will help keep you accountable to your content publishing goals, as well as provide more structure to your content. Because no one wants a smorgasbord of technical topics spattered randomly across time!
Watch the video below to get my recommendations on how to create a content calender DIY-style.
It’s important that every effort you expend building your brand be spent in a strategic manner, to help you reach your overarching goals.
It’s important that every effort you expend building your brand be spent in a strategic manner, to help you reach your overarching goals. A content marketing plan and content calendar will help you work strategically.
If you’re scratching your head, wondering how to create a content marketing plan for startup growth. You can watch and learn from the video above or you can let me do all the hard work for you!
Using my Instructional Marketing Planner Trifecta, you will be able to plan and launch your startup’s most successful marketing initiative in 30 days or less.
Delegating Your Content Marketing for Startup Growth Needs
When it comes to content marketing for startups, the big question you need to answer is…
Will you create all the content yourself? Or will you hire a technical writer / content creator to help you?
For blogs, you can either create the content yourself or you can hire a technical writer to help. Most new startup blog owners write their own posts.
In my course for tech startup founders, I advise my students to create their own content for the following reasons:
- It’s a great way for you to keep current on the latest in the industry
- It’s a great medium across which you can initiate genuine working relations with people in your target audience
- It offers built-in quality control
- It’s the more affordable option
In some cases, though, you may be better off hiring a professional writer to assist you. Cases where this may be more appropriate would be:
- If you’re already earning $200/hour+ in fees and you don’t feel compelled to divert time from your earnings, then hire someone.
- If you already own a relatively successful start-up and you need content to act as a vehicle for in-bound traffic, but you have your hands too full in other areas of your business, then hire someone.
Pro Tip: If you opt to outsource your content creation, please know that good data writers are charging up to $3/word these days.
Expect to spend a fair bit of time sourcing someone who will create technical content for affordable rates, and if you find someone who will work for cheap – MAKE SURE TO QA THE HECK OUT OF WHAT THEY GIVE YOU AND COPYSCAPE EVERYTHING THEY SUBMIT.
3 Ways To Quickly QA Your Content Before Hitting Publish
The typical content marketing for startup pitfalls are usually related to either quantity or quality.
As far as quantity, we’ve already addressed ways to maintain consistency by:
- Brainstorming a list of content ideas, and…
- Creating a publishing schedule via an editorial calendar
These two things will help safeguard you against letting your blog / socials (and online presence) slide into oblivion.
As far as content quality QA tips, I suggest the following:
- Make sure your grammar and spelling are correct. Word’s Review features should be sufficient.
- If you’ve written an article, check your tone to see that it’s not too formal and academic. You want blog posts to be conversational in tone, as they are meant to help you establish a rapport with your readers.
Word offers “Speak selected text”, but I prefer to use ttsreader. I like to listen to my writing and edit its tone that way before I publish it. - Make sure to cite relevant sources with link backs and to avoid references that come from non-credible sources.
Details of Tech Startup Marketing Budgets for Different Types of Startups
When it comes to tech startup marketing budgets, it all depends on the stage of your startup.
If you’re just getting started and are still in the pre-seed phase, you probably don’t have a ton of money to throw at marketing! In which case, you’ll probably rely more on blogging, word-of-mouth and social media to get the word out.
But as you raise more money, like in the seed phase, you can start to put some real cash towards organic content marketing, paid advertising, and PR to get more eyes on your product.
Fast forward to series A or B and you’ve got a bit more money to play with. This is when you can start getting more targeted with your marketing campaigns and maybe even work with influencers to give your product a boost.
And if you’re in a later stage like series C or beyond, sitting on a bit more cash. This is when you can start thinking about big brand-building campaigns.
Self-Funded, Bootstrapped Tech Startup Marketing Budgets
New bootstrapped founders (like I was in 2012) are rarely able to spend more than 10% of their planned revenue on marketing. These days I reinvest 25% of our revenues to cover the marketing expenses of the business.
New bootstrapped founders (like I was in 2012) are rarely able to spend more than 10% of their planned revenue on marketing. These days I reinvest 25% of our revenues to cover the marketing expenses of the business.
If you’re a self-funded startup founder, you’ll be best off focusing on the more cost-effective content marketing for startup strategies (ones that usually only cost your time rather than physical cash) and can drive maximum growth.
Here are a few options to consider:
- Search engine optimization (SEO): Blogs are one of the best ways to start ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). Don’t expect to get results overnight, but trust me – they will come (when done right).
- Social media: Utilizing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can help you connect with potential customers and promote your brand.
- Collaborations: Partnering with industry influencers can help you increase the visibility and credibility of your brand (this could be a guest blog post, guesting on a podcast, etc).
- Email marketing: Building an email list and sending targeted, personalized campaigns can be an effective way to engage with customers and drive conversions. Create a freebie or low-paid offer to help build your list.
- Referral marketing: Encouraging your existing customers to refer friends and family can help drive new business at a low cost (consider offering an incentive).
VC-Backed Tech Startup Marketing Budgets
If you’re a VC-backed tech startup founder or leader, then you know that it’s important to focus on growth while also being mindful of the need to demonstrate progress and return on investment to investors.
Your tech startup marketing budget should typically be 30% – 50% of the funds you raise.
Here are a few options to consider:
- Customer Acquisition: Invest in customer acquisition strategies that have a clear ROI and can drive sustainable growth. This can include paid advertising, search engine marketing, and influencer marketing.
- Brand building: Build your brand and establish a strong online presence through content marketing, search engine optimization, and social media marketing.
- Performance marketing: Invest in performance marketing channels such as affiliate marketing, referral marketing, and email marketing that can drive conversions and provide a clear ROI.
Wrapping Things Up
Okay, as you’ve probably gathered by now… content marketing for startups is the secret sauce for growing your business organically online.
By creating valuable, informative, and engaging content, you can establish your brand, build trust with your target audience, generate leads, and make sales.
But here’s the catch… It’s not a one-time thing.
You gotta consistently put in the work and measure your results to make sure you’re on the right track. But trust me, it’s worth it.
How do I know? I’ve done it myself!
I used these content marketing for startup methods and strategies to 10x the revenue of our tech startup.
Wanna know exactly how it did it? Grab a seat in my FREE MASTERCLASS where I’ll be sharing my 4-step method for successfully repackaging your data & technology expertise, then selling it through a business you own.
If you’ve been following along, then you know that I had a baby at the beginning of February. This month has been packed full of all sorts of new-baby-tending activities like feedings, burpings, bathings, and napping. On the side, I’ve been trying to prepare things in the business for some new and exciting offers we’re building – but it’s not been easy. Thank you for your patience and support as I make this transition.
