What are some good marketing strategies for an Internet startup?

QUESTION:

My company runs a social site focused on food. Any suggestions for good marketing strategies?

ANSWER:

by Alex Salkever, Journalist & Marketing Executive

First of all, recognize that you are in an extremely crowded space and that you need to do something to stand out. So crystallize exactly what is different or unique about your site/business into a one or two sentence statement. Then, work on your story. Without a strong story about how the site came about, its mission, where you hope to go, what your goals are, then it’s much harder to nail down a marketing strategy.

After that, start thinking about how to market and what you want your message to be. Then think – where does your target audience hang out? What types of content do they read? How can you reach them? Even better, how can you bring them to you?  Contests? Trivia? Check-in deals with food stores? Whatever you decide on, plan it out thoroughly.

Lastly, a solid touchstone for all of your marketing should be your company blog. This is the best place to articulate what you are doing, what your marketing strategy is, etc. Blog posts can easily be converted into press releases, case studies, and other forms of written content. Videos or presentations posted there can become collateral in other channels (YouTube, SlideShare). Since you are social site, you may not even need to create the content yourself – your users may do it for you. Regardless, figure out a way to get quality content that reflects what you want to do with the company.

Hope this is useful. It’s definitely vague because, frankly, there a million permutations that might work but not guaranteed formula. Try as many as you can within reason and without losing focus. Good luck.