A startup should be interested in Inbound Marketing for at least four reasons :

1. This is by far a much more cost effective way to "market".

If you're just getting started with little staff and little money at your disposal, you can, through Inbound Marketing, build an audience of followers, fans, and potential customers.

This acquisition is possible with much lower expenses than " classic " digital marketing.

Inbound Marketing? A long-term investment for sure savings

2. An Inbound Marketing approach builds the foundation for your future.

One day you'll have the money, and then you'll be able to leverage your follower, fan, and customer base to help you grow.

It will be much easier for you to convert them into customers and share your message with other future customers.

3. You will be able to show investors that you have a huge audience of well-targeted potential customers already interested in your product or service.

This will help you tremendously when looking for funding.

4. Inbound Marketing is not rocket science !

This is not a concept that requires years of study to understand, and one does not need a graduate degree to do it well.

To do this, all you need to do is read some books on methodology, consult blogs, on a regular basis, follow influential leaders in your field, download podcasts, watch YouTube videos, and/or subscribe to an all-in-one program to acquire an understanding of the principles.

Then you'll begin to test your strategy  in order to determine what works for your business and your audience.

Here is the plan to help you to start 

Know your audience

Who are you really selling to? Before you answer that, really think about the people you want to get the attention of in order to make a sale.

Who influences these potential customers to you? Where do they get their information and where do they spend their time?

This will help you define your "target buyer profiles", which are called " buyer personas " and develop Inbound Marketing campaigns to attract and convert them.

Define your purpose from the start

Before you start posting on Twitter and Instagram, or embarking on the production of your YouTube video series, start by defining your final goals and how you want to achieve them.

For example, if your goal is to gain 1,000 new paying subscribers per month, but people need to try your program before committing to pay for it, then you will need 10,000 trial downloads per month in order to get 10% of testers to make a purchase.

So, in this example, your Inbound Marketing goal should be related to getting those 10,000 monthly trials, and you need to use content to get people to download a trial.

Now that you know your goal of getting people to download a trial, you can focus on the related message (not yet towards the final sale, that will come later).

Thus, each campaign in your strategy would start from building trust with your Buyer Personas, to capturing their interest, to converting them into a free trial download. 

Be a " all for everyone ", not " a part for everyone "

 You need to focus on what you value most, your core business!

Startups, and new businesses in general, often ineffectively try to focus on everything, such as having a presence on all social media channels.

This waters down the effect they might have had by focusing solely on one impactful channel.

Resources are extremely limited in the early stages of a business, so it's important to focus your efforts on the limited number of methods and target markets where you can have the greatest impact.

Avoid the (quite legitimate) desire to try to reach every potential customer.

It's one of the hardest things for an entrepreneur to do, but creating a buzz in a limited number of markets will allow you to capture new customers and achieve far more results than spreading your resources too thin.

Capture attention !

One of the best things about starting your own business is that you set the rules!

Have fun with your message and your target market will too!

You don't have to be closed off like the big companies, you can make your customers laugh to get them to remember you.

Take a chance and try a few things you think will get people's attention.

There is no secret recipe for making an impression, just be yourself and let your creativity speak for itself!

Keep track of everyone

When you drive people to your website via social media, email, videos, podcasts, and events, it is imperative that you get them to give you their contact information.

At a minimum, their name and email address will ensure that you can start building a marketing database, which is fundamental for the future.

Give them something on a landing page (landing page), such as an e-book, a demo, a free trial, or VIP access to your product at launch so that they have a reason to give you their details.

Use Google Analytics (free but limited) or Hubspot (paid but robust) to gather key information such as how they arrived at the landing page, what types of visitors are most likely to convert, or what posts are most likely to catch their attention.

Transfer these leads to your CRM marketing system to then follow up via email.

This will build your customer base, and their email addresses will be the vital link to help you reach them in many ways in the future.