Top 10 Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups in India

Responsive website, SEO, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing are some of the best digital marketing strategies for startups.

India boasts the third-largest startup ecosystem globally, with over 130,000 recognized startups. In the last decade, the number of Indian startups has grown more than 300 times. However, many of these ventures struggle to survive in the market, with one of the primary challenges being poor marketing strategy. 

If you are a startup owner or planning to become one, it is essential to follow these key strategies for digital marketing for startups to build a foolproof structure for your business. These strategies will not only help you establish yourself in the market but also drive business growth through customer engagement in competitive online arenas.

Every strategy has advantages; when done right, it can deliver measurable results. 

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy? 

Digital marketing strategy refers to a comprehensive blueprint that focuses on reaching specific marketing goals, such as increasing website traffic, reaching the target audience online, or boosting visibility.

It involves selecting the right digital platforms to promote your product/services through posts, campaigns, advertisements, and more. These strategies are formed keeping target audiences, competitors, and marketing goals in mind. 

Importance of Digital Marketing Strategy for Startups

A clear digital marketing strategy when starting a new business can help in many ways. Here are some examples:

It’s an Excellent Way to Get Started: A well-defined strategy is an excellent way to get started because it provides startups with a clear, structured approach to reaching their target audience and building brand awareness. It helps your brand set strategic goals in terms of what it wants to achieve online and build lasting relationships with customers. 

You Get Deeper Insights into the Online Market: Today, there is a market for almost everything online. Without a clear strategy, you underestimate the demand for your product or services. Using valuable data and analytics, you can learn more about the online marketplace dynamics, competitors, customer behaviours, profiles, and more. 

Your Customers Are Online: India has over 462 million social media users, making it a great place for businesses to promote their products. Moreover, having a clear digital marketing strategy for startups can help you reach an audience more efficiently. You will target them at their preferred platforms before your competitor does. 

You Will Stand Out From Your Competitor: A significant part of digital marketing strategy involves analyzing competitors. By doing this, you will know how to differentiate yourself from your competitors and do better. You will learn their strengths and weaknesses, helping you avoid the mistakes they made and effectively add value propositions to your brand. 

You Need Continuous Progress: We have many examples of startups launching big and failing miserably over time. One of the main reasons is that they are unable to progress in key aspects like brand building, lead nurturing, customer relationships, and user experience. = give hands-on data and insights on how to progress continuously and drive sustainable success.   

Strategy Helps You Save Costs: Many large companies purchase multiple marketing tools to perform similar tasks, which leads to wasted resources and money. A well-defined digital marketing strategy can help optimize these tools and platforms effectively, reducing unnecessary expenses and saving both time and money. By streamlining efforts, businesses can focus on the most efficient solutions.

For larger organizations, investing in corporate digital marketing training or an online digital marketing course for top leaders will ensure that teams are aligned, knowledgeable, and capable of utilizing digital tools cohesively and cost-effectively. This not only maximizes productivity but also fosters a unified approach across the business. 

Top 10 Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups

To establish a solid online presence, build a brand, and grow your business, it is important that you carefully select digital marketing strategies that will help you achieve your goals.

For example, if you are a small startup, you may not have the budget to spend on video marketing; hence, you can avoid this strategy. The key is finding the right digital marketing strategies for your startup.

Here are the top 10 digital marketing strategies for startups that you can consider:  

1st Digital Marketing Strategy is Responsive Website

Google processes about 8.5 billion searches per day, about 99,000 searches per second. People are online looking for answers or finding products and services they want. A professional website allows users to find your brand and make their purchase decisions.

Having a website not only helps you reach customers but also expands globally. Incorporating website building into your plan should be the first step towards online marketing. 

Importance of Website For Startups

• Build Brand Awareness: Every startup owner targets getting visibility and creating brand awareness. A website can create your brand presence online and be the first point of interaction for your users. 
• Get Crawled by Search Engines: Building a website with appropriate SEO techniques can help customers find your business through search engines. It is an organic way to reach customers and grow your online presence with consistent efforts.  
• Comparatively Cost-Effective: For startups, developing an e-commerce website is an excellent way to start a business. It makes launching new products, announcing discounts, and hosting sales all cost-effective. 
• Improve Customer Experience: A website is the first point of contact for any customer to raise a query or share feedback using a contact form or chatbots. Startups can also use their website to post special offers and discounts and share the latest news, creating more engagement amongst website visitors.  
• Website is a Portfolio: A website is a great place for startups to showcase their key elements, such as client records, customer testimonials, case studies, awards, etc. This gives potential customers and partners confidence that your quality of product and service is unparalleled. 

2nd Digital Marketing Strategy is SEO

Search engine optimization, aka SEO, is a critical digital marketing strategy for startups. It involves optimizing a website and its content to boost its search engine results (SERPs) ranking. This makes the website more visible to users searching for relevant keywords or phrases.

SEO is an integral part of a digital marketing plan, which helps a brand attract organic traffic, increasing visibility, credibility and the potential for conversation without depending on paid ads. And for startups, it’s a cost-effective way to grow their business online and build a customer base.  

Learn four easy SEO Tips to Rank #1 on Google by Sorav Jain

Importance of SEO for Startups 

• Boosts Brand Visibility and Traffic: Search engine optimization is an excellent strategy for creating content so that search engines move your website up in search results. This increases your website’s online visibility and drives organic traffic. According to Backlinko, the #1 organic result on Google search is 10x more likely to get clicked than a page running on the 10th spot. 
• Cost-Efficient Marketing: Traditional advertising and Pay-per-Click (PPC) can be expensive for startups, especially with limited budgets and resources. SEO, on the other hand, is a more cost-efficient marketing strategy that drives steady traffic without ongoing ad costs. 
• Credibility Building Tactic: When your website ranks higher in the search results, it automatically builds trust and credibility among users. Users perceive your website as more credible, helping startups establish a strong reputation from the start.  
• Drives Targeted Traffic: Startups must attract visitors who are particularly searching for their products and services. By optimizing their website with relevant keywords, they can drive targeted traffic, leading to higher conversion rates and better ROI. 
• Long-Term Growth: SEO is one such digital marketing strategy for startups that drives organic traffic and provides long-term results, leading to sustainable growth as the business scales.  

3rd Digital Marketing Strategy is Content Marketing 

Content marketing is the most significant part of driving a targeted audience to your brand. However, what’s important is that you make your content informational, valuable, relevant, and consistent to make it consume-worthy for the audience.

Like, your content should focus on solving pain points and staying relevant, not using black hat SEO to get on top of search engines. Content marketing for startups should especially include mobile content strategies in their plan.

That’s because over 83% of Indian consumers use their smartphones to shop online, making mobile content marketing essential to promote the brand. 

Importance of Content Marketing For Startups 

• Increase Brand Awareness: Most startups do not thrive because they lack recognition and fail to create their unique identity. With content marketing, you can create a buzz, grow audiences, and increase awareness around the brand using posts, blogs, and other content marketing strategies.   
• Great For Creating Demand: Content is an excellent medium for startups to create demand for their products or services. Generating and distributing valuable content through blog posts, long-form articles, ebooks, and newsletters will engage the audience and generate demand for the product.  
• Improve SEO Rankings: Google appreciates original and high-quality content. When you strategically add content on your website with valuable keywords and phrases people are searching for, your SEO rankings go up in the search results. It is also smart to create content for social media platforms, which further increases your visibility in search results. 
• Building Customer Relationship: It can be extremely challenging to connect with an audience on a deeper level when you are just starting your business. By providing helpful content, addressing their pain points, and offering solutions, startups can engage, build trust, and foster long-lasting relationships with their customers. 
• Excellent For Driving Sales: Startups can encourage users to sign up or subscribe to their email lists by producing influential and informative content like ebooks, articles, and how-to guides. This list can share offers and new product launches and drive sales.   

4th Digital Marketing Strategy is Social Media Marketing

Adding SMM to your digital marketing plan can reach over 462 million people in India alone. That’s the number of people using social media in India. Startups should leverage social platforms to promote their products and services, build brand awareness, engage with audiences and create brand advocates.

However, social media marketing is a varied landscape and is constantly changing. Each platform you choose will require its strategy and metrics to target your audience; hence, keeping social listening as part of social media marketing is necessary. 

Importance of Social Media Marketing For Startups 

• Creative Mode of Marketing: Startups usually have interesting and creative ways to promote their products and services. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are great for creatively sharing marketing ideas, videos, live streams, polls, and more to generate interest in your brand amongst the audience.    
• Targeted Advertising: Social media channels allow for precise targeting based on gender, location, demographics, customer behaviours, etc. This ensures your startup can reach its specific targeted audience, optimizing its marketing efforts and boosting the probability of conversion.   
• Building Authority: Social media trends always change, and the key to being successful on every platform is posting content regularly. Consistently posting interesting content will build a fan-based audience and authority in your market, driving steady growth online.  
• Receive Feedback and Insights: Whether small or large, startups can use social media insights such as customer behavior, preferences, and trends to provide a better user experience. They can act on the feedback received through social media to better their products and services, building brand loyalty. 
• Creating Brand Ambassadors: Startups can create loyal brand ambassadors on social media platforms who can convince other people to indulge in their brand. These ambassadors can spread the word about your business, boosting sales, conversions, and awareness. 

5th Digital Marketing Strategy is Email Marketing 

No, email marketing is not dead, but it has definitely evolved. It is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, and it still works. This internet marketing strategy involves nurturing leads, building brand loyalty and promoting products and services.

Today, email marketing has become an almost necessary digital marketing strategy for startups. It allows startups to engage with people interested in their products and services.

According to Forbes Advisor, over 81% of companies use email marketing as a marketing strategy. That’s because email marketing allows businesses to deliver highly personalized and relevant messages to their customers. 

Importance of Email Marketing For Startups 

• Direct Communication with Customers: Email marketing strategy allows startups to communicate directly with their audience. Startups can send personalized marketing messages, which build relationships, keep customers informed, and convert leads. 
• Cost-Effective Marketing: Email marketing is comparatively a budget-friendly strategy for startups to reach a large number of potential customers. By using the right tools and valuable content, startups can generate high returns on minimal spending. 
• High Return on Investment: One of the biggest advantages of incorporating email marketing into your digital marketing plan is the high ROI. According to Webfx, on average, email marketing has an ROI of $36 for every $1 invested. Remember, only well-timed and relevant emails help guide leads through the sales funnel, leading to higher conversion rates. 
• Personalized and Targeted Campaigns: Startups can use email marketing tools for audience segmentation, which segments their email lists based on customer behaviour, location and search preferences. This lets them create tailored offers, product updates, and follow-ups, increasing relevance and engagement and leading to higher conversion rates.   
• Measurable Results: One of the perks of email marketing strategy is that it offers measurable results. You get key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. This can help startups analyze the effectiveness of email campaigns and make data-driven decisions to improve their strategy. 

6th Digital Marketing Strategy is Instagram Marketing

Over 25 million businesses worldwide use Instagram to promote their products and services. Additionally, over 200 million Instagram users visit one or more business profiles every day.

This makes Instagram a key platform for customer engagement and business growth. Instagram marketing is the holy grail for startups to establish and grow their brands because of its massive, engaged user base and ability to create strong brand-consumer relationships.

You can promote your brand on Instagram using images, videos, stories, and paid advertisements. 

Importance of Instagram Marketing For Startups 

• Large Audience Base: India has over 385 million active users on Instagram, the largest in the world. With this substantial user base, the platform allows startups to reach a vast and diverse audience, including specific demographics, through targeted ads. 
• Visual Engagement: Visuals are always better at grabbing attention, conveying messages, and creating emotional connections. Instagram is a highly visual platform, making it perfect for startups to showcase their products, services, and brand personality through different content formats.  
• Attract Younger Generations: 78% of Instagram users are young, aged about 18-29. So, if your startup wants to attract younger generations like millennials and Gen Z, Instagram marketing is a must-include digital marketing strategy for startups. 
• Great For Direct Sales: Instagram has enabled on-platform e-commerce sales. This lets users discover and shop directly from the brand’s Instagram profile. Startups can use shoppable posts, which help users shop through their online store.
• Cost-Effective Branding: Instagram marketing allows startups to boost brand awareness without any significant advertising budget. Organic posts, influencer collaborations, partnerships with brand ambassadors and user-generated content can help build credibility at a low cost. 

7th Digital Marketing Strategy is PPC Marketing 

If you are starting a business, maximizing the return on investment is your top priority. And Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing is an excellent way to generate leads and boost your ROI.

It is one of the top digital marketing strategies for startups to generate traffic quickly and leads for the brand. PPC marketing is an online advertising format that startups can use to list their ads. They pay a fee every time their ads get clicked.

While SEO is to drive organic traffic, PPC helps you buy visits to your site. These ads appear on search engines, like Google Ads or social media platforms, and advertisers bid on specific keywords or target audiences to display their ads to users.

Startups with an advertising budget must include PPC marketing in their digital marketing plan. 

Importance of PPC Marketing For Startups 

• Suitable For All Business Sizes: The beauty of PPC marketing is that most platforms on which you want to launch your ads will let you fix a budget. This budget can be adjusted depending on the returns you are experiencing to reap more benefits, making it suitable for all business sizes to place ads.
• Compliment Other Marketing Strategies: PPC advertising is highly measurable. Startups can gather data on clicks, impressions, click-through rates, average and position, conversion rates, ROI and more. This data and insights can be used to plan marketing campaigns on other platforms. 
• Instant Visibility and Results: PPC advertising offers immediate exposure on search engines like Google and other online platforms. Startups new to the market and want to gain quick visibility can launch their ad campaigns and enjoy instant visibility and results. 
• Ads for Target Audience: PPC ad campaigns can be customized based on chosen specific demographics, user behaviour, interests and locations. This enables startups to plan their campaigns for targeted audiences, ensuring their ads reach the most relevant audiences. 
• Brand Exposure and Awareness: Users landing on your ads when searching for relevant keywords may not click on your ads, but PPC ads still help with brand exposure and awareness. Your brand’s visibility in search results leaves an impression on users, making them more likely to remember your brand when making a purchase.

8th Digital Marketing Strategy is Influencer Marketing 

Influencer marketing is another excellent type of digital marketing for startups, where they can collaborate with influencers with a dedicated following to promote their products or services. 

This form of marketing is versatile and powerful, especially for building audience trust. Influencers have a robust online presence and following, which startups can use to sway the audience’s purchasing decision and build a good rapport with them.

These influencers can range from celebrities to industry experts and regular individuals with significant social media following. Today, 9 out of 10 marketers believe influencer marketing is an effective digital strategy.   

Importance of Influencer Marketing For Startups 

• Massive Reach: Influencers typically have a large follower base, and when they promote a product, it has a massive reach. When an influencer recommends a brand, their followers take notice, making it an excellent marketing strategy for startups.
• Precise Targeting: Identifying and targeting the right audience is crucial but tedious. However, influencer marketing takes care of this step, allowing for accurate targeting. 
• Considered Authentic: Influencer marketing is considered one of the most authentic forms of marketing. That’s because influencers are trusted by their followers, and any recommendation they make is considered authentic and trustworthy. 
• Boost Customer Engagement: Influencers interact directly with their audiences, which often results in higher customer engagement rates. Followers tend to trust influencers’ recommendations, which makes them a great option for startups trying to promote their brand and build a customer base.    
• A Flexible and Scalable Model: Influencer marketing is a flexible marketing model. Startups can initially target generating awareness for their products and services with a small budget. As the company scales, the marketing strategy can focus on getting clicks, conversions, and sales.    

9th Digital Marketing Strategy is Mobile Marketing 

On average, smartphone users spend 171 minutes on their mobile daily. That’s why over 80% of business owners target mobile marketing to engage with customers. Startups looking for a robust digital marketing strategy must invest in mobile marketing.

It refers to promoting products and services via smartphones and tablets. Mobile marketing uses various channels to reach the user, such as SMS, MMS, mobile apps, social media, email, websites, and push notifications.

Mobile marketing is a crucial strategy because much of the world’s population uses the internet and engages with brands primarily through mobile devices.

Importance of Mobile Marketing For Startups 

• Cost-Effective: Most mobile marketing strategies, such as SMS and in-app ads, can be targeted based on customers’ interests, which makes them cost-efficient for startups with limited marketing budgets. 
• Wider Reach: Today, most internet users access the web using their smartphones. By adding mobile marketing to their digital marketing, startups can connect with larger audiences more easily and efficiently.  
• Mobile-First Audience: Users prefer shopping, researching, and engaging with brands through mobile devices. A solid mobile marketing strategy ensures startups can meet their audience where they spend the most time.
• Personalization: Mobile marketing allows brands to personalize and segment their content through location-based services, user preferences, and behaviours, which increases engagement, generates leads and boosts conversion rates.
• Real-Time Interaction: With mobile notifications and messaging, startup brands can interact with their audience instantly, offering timely offers or updates that can lead to immediate actions.

10th Digital Marketing Strategy is Chatbot Marketing 

Chatbot marketing is a relatively new concept in which brands can use automated chatbots to engage with customers, answer queries, provide support, and help with sales in real time.

Chatbot marketing gained tremendous momentum among businesses with the advent of messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. By 2025, 80% of companies will use chatbots in their marketing efforts.

By leveraging chatbots, startups can enhance customer experiences, automate repetitive tasks, and maintain a professional presence from the outset.

Importance of Chatbot Marketing For Startups 

• 24/7 Customer Support: One of the significant advantages of using chatbots is that they offer 24/7 support, helping startups manage customer queries and issues without needing constant human intervention. With mostly having limited staff, startups must use chatbots
• Cost-Effective: For startups operating on limited budgets, chatbots provide a cost-effective way to interact with users, automate tasks, and reduce the need for a large customer service team.
• Instant Engagement and Conversion: Chatbots can instantly engage website visitors, answer common questions, and guide them toward making a purchase, helping startups increase conversions without delay.
• Lead Generation: Chatbot marketing is great for gathering valuable customer data, qualifying leads, and streamlining them directly to sales teams. This helps improve efficiency in a startup’s customer acquisition process.
• Scalability: As the startup grows, chatbots can easily scale to handle increased customer interactions without hiring additional customer service agents, making it a long-term, reliable solution.

In a Nutshell

Digital marketing for startups is crucial as it lets them compete with larger businesses by creating a robust online presence at a lower cost. It helps startups reach their target audience quickly and efficiently, build brand awareness, and generate leads. With strategies like social media marketing, SEO, and email marketing, startups can drive traffic, engage with customers, and build lasting relationships. 

Hiring the best digital marketing agency in India is a brilliant idea for comprehensive and effective digital marketing. Digital marketing is a competitive space, and startups can use the expertise of professionals who understand the latest trends, tools, and strategies.

echoVME Digital is a digital marketing agency that will help you save time, optimize your marketing budget, and implement data-driven campaigns that target the right audience. Contact echoVME Digital now and take the first step toward building a solid online presence for your startup. 

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups FAQs

Should startups invest in digital marketing?

Yes, digital marketing involves promoting your brand, products, or services online. For startups, it is essential to use digital marketing to reach a wider audience, engage with potential customers, and build their brand cost-effectively. 

What are the top digital marketing strategies for startups?

Startups can invest in a range of digital marketing strategies to help them shine. Website building, SEO, SMM, content marketing, email marketing, PPC, and mobile marketing are must-use online marketing strategies for startups. 

Is SEO good for startups?

Search engine optimization can drive organic traffic from search engines like Google to your website, which can increase leads and conversions. SEO is great for startups as it is a cost-effective, long-term strategy that builds credibility and trust with your audience.

How can startups measure the success of digital marketing strategies?

Brands and businesses can use various key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of their digital marketing efforts. It includes website traffic, conversion rates, ROI on paid advertising, social media engagement, and click-through rates. These metrics help them understand what’s working and what requires improvement.