Simona Covel - Marketing Your Startup: The Inc. Guide to Getting Customers, Gaining Traction, and Growing Your Business

W HAT IF DOLLAR SHAVE Clubs founder hadnt made that famous YouTube video, the one where he deadpans about razors, polio, and his big-name competitionto the tune of 25 million views? What if Dropbox didnt think a referral program was worth ita program that at times, generated 35 percent of the companys signups?

If those companies founders hadnt decided to spread the word about their companieseach in their own waythey may have never become household names.

The same goes for your business. So you have a killer product. Now, how will people find out about it?

Many startups faileven if they offer a great product or groundbreaking servicebecause they fail to get the word out. They may think the product will sell itself. Or they may think marketing is somehow underhanded, or dirty.

If that describes you, it may help to reframe your idea of marketing. The best marketing isnt about pushing a message or coming up with a slogan. Marketing exists to help you find people who love your product: If you dont plan to invest in marketing, you probably shouldnt invest in building a product, either.

If youre in the early stages of your business, know that its never too early to start. If youre worried about somebody stealing your product idea, consider another worry, says Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot and a small-business marketing expert. Worry about how youll get customers. And team members. And funding. All of these things are really hardespecially if you dont talk about your idea.

If youre a marketing skeptic, you may have a gut feeling that marketing is sleazy. Youre not alone. This book is designed to help you overcome thatto think about marketing in a new way. The best marketing is about building brand, reach, and credibility, and doing what you do best: helping customers.

We know a lot about that: For nearly forty years, Inc. has chronicled the victories of fast-growth small businessesand the bumps along the way. Over the years, weve talked to thousands of founders who grew their companies into household names about how they spread the word.

We learned something essential along the way: You wont win in the marketplace by shouting louder, placing bigger ads, or buying the fanciest booth at a trade show. Youll win by building a marketing strategy and applying the right mix of tactics for your businessno matter your budget.

Lets get started.

M ARKETING IS SURPRISINGLY difficult to define. Part research, part design, part salesat its core, marketing is any activity that makes it easier to sell your product. Were talking generating leads, running TV ads, using customer relationship management software, or authoring a blog: It all falls under the marketing umbrella.

Youve probably heard people use the terms marketing, advertising, and branding interchangeably. But if you want marketing to help drive your sales, you first need to understand the differences.

Lets start with marketing because it is the umbrella under which all of these other practices live. It includes branding, messaging, online presence, content, social media, PR, advertising, research... you name it, it lives under the broader canopy of marketing.

Branding refers to the visual elements of a companybut it doesnt stop there. Branding refers to specific elements that range from the logo to the color theory and how the logo is used on different marketing collateral, which is just a fancy name for websites, business cards, and letterhead.

But your brand is broader than your logoits about how your company makes people feel. The feeling that you evoke is at the heart of your brand. That can translate into the music in your stores, the chairs you choose for your conference rooms, or what your executives wear.

If youre an engineer or a researcher, the idea of devoting a meaningful amount of mental energy to a logo or a music choice may seem slightly bananas. But the brand is one of the most important parts of developing and invigorating your company. Its all about what emotions you want someone to feel when they come into initial contactwhich is critically important for a startup, which hasnt made any kind of impression yet.