Developing a killer cost-effective content marketing strategy for start-ups

For start-ups, having a cost-effective content marketing strategy is very important because, unlike well-established legacy brands, leaving aside heavily-funded start-ups, not many of them have the privilege to burn money on marketing innovations, traditional ads, big sponsorships and experimentations.

Even if a start-up has inherited wealth to spend on large scale ad campaigns, having a fool-proof content strategy with well-thought-out formats in place will only facilitate the marketing job. 

Then there are three kinds of start-ups. The first kind thinks that content marketing is secondary and ads can fulfil all the marketing objectives. The second kind of start-up knows that content marketing is important but doesn't have a content strategy in place, so it doesn’t bear results. The third kind is the one that knows content marketing can do wonders for them and also has a proper content strategy in place. 

In the previous story, we discussed how start-up brands can choose between UGC & PGC and influencer-led content & brand-created content.

This story is about how the aforementioned third kind of start-up goes about deploying a smart content marketing strategy to not just build brands, but also fetch business leads. (The third story in the series would be about how measurement metrics of start-up brands differ from legacy and well-established brands.)

Chaitanya Nallan

The first and foremost thing to keep in mind is that while running a company, there is a place for product development, customer experience enhancement, research and other things. Similarly, marketing spends also have a place in the overall scheme of things. Chaitanya Nallan, Co-Founder and CEO, SkinKraft Labs, said, “Now if everything goes to zero and one just keeps pounding people with marketing messages, it is then a bad thing. If one rupee is spent making half a rupee, then the brand is in trouble. But if one rupee is spent to earn 2-3 rupees, then the brand is in good hands.” 

Ashish Duggal

Ashish Duggal, Vice-President, Chimp&z Inc, emphasised that in the end, everything boils down to how much funds a company has to invest in content marketing. He said that there is nothing like a perfect cost-effective strategy. Each company has a different genre, business model, plans, and a different budget at its disposal. Out of all this, funds play a crucial role in planning a strategy. 

Explaining the same, Duggal commented, “A well-funded start-up can think of large-scale campaigns to create a strong impact in the market with Category A or Category B influencers talking about the brand and its vision. However, for bootstrap start-ups, the best solution is to go for a zero-dollar plan by roping in nano or micro-influencers to amplify the voice of their campaign.” 

Although, he pointed out that the whole game is about well-thought creative ideas with smarter executions to obtain the much-needed traction. “Once it becomes a hit, the same can be pumped into the system again to create more campaigns. The idea is to generate revenue by adding a sense of virality to the content the start-up creates,” he said.

Shreyansh Bhandari

Shreyansh Bhandari, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, Lyxel&Flamingo told BuzzInContent that the first step is to ensure that start-ups test a smaller segment of their target audience rather than trying to reach out to everyone- to ensure that they build frequency along with the reach. 

Bhandari said, “Legacy brands have a thorough knowledge of their audience, they can be more generous in their experiments as well and can spend about 10 to 15% of their budgets on experiments. For a start-up, the entire budget ought to be utilised to identify what works and build on it effectively.”

From a marketing channel selection point of view, Bhandari said that it’s important to focus on the top two-three channels where there is better control to select the audience. “Phase wise start-ups should be looking at investing in SEO, Social and Search Engine Marketing and Automation, Influencer and Content Marketing,” he said.  

Manesh Swamy

Manesh Swamy, Sr VP - Creative, Social, PR and Marcom, Logicserve Digital, believes that influencer marketing content along with great support of UGC content and brand-led content can make a good strategy. Giving a percentage split of marketing spending that one can attribute to influencers, UGC and branded-led content, Swamy said, “To start off with a split of 40% influencer marketing, 30% UGC and 30% brand-led content is something I would recommend. This will drive results and also help the brand understand which part is working better for them and then, the brand can invest their time, efforts and money accordingly.”

Sahil Chopra

Sahil Chopra, Founder and CEO- iCubesWire, suggested that utilising repurposed and attractive infographics, having online sales presentations on the company website and building great relationships with journalists can be effective content marketing tools. 

He explained, “Several brands repurpose marketing assets such as infographics created by others after giving proper attribution to the creator. Infographics will ensure your audience relates your brand to a specific trend and build more credibility with factual information about the case.”

Talking about online sales presentations, Chopra added, “Sales presentations can be channelled online on platforms such as SlideShare that will allow your website visitors to directly access the presentation and know more about your offerings.”  

Marketing often boils down to conveying your message through connections. Therefore, building relationships with journalists and creating content to be distributed to various channels to attract the audience is another important cost-effective content marketing strategy, as per Chopra. 

Not just this, having a content calendar planned right at the beginning of the year helps chalk out content campaigns well in advance. With a content calendar in place, it also helps in refurbishing older content in new formats. For example, content created for a tax saving plan for a BFSI company can be repurposed around tax breaks content. Also, keep on measuring content marketing success from time to time and updating your strategy accordingly.