Cost Effective Ways Startups are Marketing Pt. 1

I have been doing quite a lot of Marketing and PR work lately both for myself and other brands/startups I am involved with. The more time I spend doing it, the more I discover unusual but very cost effective ways people are starting to get the word out. Many startups that are being run by gen-y’s don’t have the financial muscle to compete with the bigger, established companies and as a result we are always looking for ways to reach out to thousands without breaking bank.

1.) Chatroulette: As strange as it sounds, people are actually starting to use chatroulette as a way of pitching their ideas. Personally, I don’t see how effective this can be considering most people don’t spend more than 3 seconds on air before hitting “Next” if they are not keen on talking to you. On my first visit to the popular website, I left and promised myself never to return…no thanks to the 4 male genitals I saw in the space of 20 seconds. However, it does look like chatroulette is much cleaner and friendly these days. Last week when I went back on, I actually got pitched by this one really hot blonde about a vacation planning website and I must say I did go on the site during the chat. I don’t know how many people “nexted” her or how many stayed on to listen to her pitch, but it does look like something 5 out of 10 will stay to listen on.

2.) CNN iReport: Again, this is something I haven’t tried. If you own a startup whose product/service is something that will excite people or something you reckon people might like hearing about, then creating an iReport page could be a good idea. By having a profile here, you have a chance to leverage a good percentage of the millions of daily visitors on the CNN website. I have actually noticed a lot of companies doing this and gaining traction without having to spend a dime.

4.) Facebook Fan Page: With the amazing growth of Facebook over the past year or two, it’s no longer surprising to see some pages rack up as many as one 1 million fans in only a few weeks. In the past, it’s the popular brands like Dell, Coca-cola who had pages with such massive following. Lately though, random funny pages are even starting to overtake such brands in terms of number of fans. Take this page for example, and this. I have heard of companies starting to work with some of the owners of pages with such large following in a bid to leverage those fans, some are even purchasing the fan pages outright.

In the next few days, I will post a couple more ways I have discovered, but in the mean time, if you have any other ideas or ways to market a startup in cost effective fashion, do share!

Tagged as: iReport, marketing, startups, Website