Mediaboss Marketing

Once upon a time, a startup could issue a press release and get the word out.

If it were only that easy today . . .

Now a starup is confronted with an information horde from Twitter to TV to YouTube to Yelp to Facebook and on and on. It becomes a challenge just to rise above the noise, not to mention controlling the message across all these media. Add the need to manage its communications cost-effectively and you have all the ingredients for startup agita.

So whats a startup to do? Here are seven ways a startup can raise its profile without breaking the bank:

Take an unorthodox approach. Remember Dollar Shave Clubs breakthrough video that caused the company to get 12,000 orders in the first 48 hours.

Why was it so effective? The video is irreverent and funny, the CEO likeable and also the chief evangelist sales officer--and is everything an officer could be, says Maha Ibrahim, general partner, Canaan Partners, a global venture capital firm.

Obviously, most startups won't benefit from the initial bonanza of a Dollar Shave Club. However, any startup can exercise creativity and a little boldness in its marketing.

Accentuate the difference. Take Kabam, for example, a late-stage gaming company that issued a press release detailing its financial performance. Normally private companies shy away from opening the kimono. But by doing so, Kabam sharpened the difference between itself and some of its better-known, yet poorly performing competitors, like Zynga, according to Ibrahim, whose company is an investor in Kabam. Differentiation doesn't mean focusing on some obscure feature that no one cares about. Instead, draw attention to a feature or benefit or expertise that matters to customers.

Founders need to evangelize what they do. Often lacking the budget to employ a full-time marketing or PR person, founders need to assume the marketing mantle. Marketing and PR needs to be incorporated into a startups culture so they are talking up the company to everyone they meet and ingesting ideas, advises David Beisel, partner at early-stage investors NextView Ventures. Cross a politician's zeal and charisma with a business person's product knowledge, and you get some idea of what is required.

Avoid stealth mode. Avoid stealth mode. This cant be said often enough, according to Beisel and Ibrahim. Startups cant afford to be in stealth mode where everything is kept hush-hush. Doing that deprives them of valuable feedback, ideas and support when they need it most.

The rest is here:
7 Ways To Make Your Startup Stand Out