Blog—DIY Marketing: Can't Hire a Marketer? Fake It!

And before marketers everywhere come for me: I’m a marketer, too! So I understand how important it is to have a marketing manager (or a specialist, at the very least) in-house. But let’s face it: the market isn’t there right now.

Not all early-stage startups have the deep pockets marketing usually requires. Let alone the budget to staff an entire team. What’s more: the majority of the time, startups don’t see marketing as a worthy investment.

I know this because I've heard it from the founders themselves. Product-focused founders who believe they "aren't at a stage to invest in marketing yet". Founders who may invest in a consulting project, but never execute a single strategy. Technical founders who, remarkably, believe that "marketing isn't a full-time job anyway, right?"

Wrong.

Marketing is fundamental for business growth at any stage of your venture. 

I understand where this misconception comes from, though. It's rooted in the idea many founders have that their product needs to be “perfect” before showing it to the world. Or that you need to be making big bucks before thinking of allocating an ad budget.

I have deep consideration for the overworked founders of small teams that run these startups. I know they carry a heavy mission and that there are only so many things you can juggle at once. But I also feel for my marketing colleagues. Professionals who repeatedly try to explain the fundamentals of marketing as a long game. Guerrilla campaigns and virality are wonderful, but they'll only take you so far.

I come bearing a middle ground through this article. For my marketing fellows: here's a quick guide to kickstart operations in your startup's blank canvas. For startup teams without a marketing department: here are simple ways to run a marketing strategy without a dedicated team.

Must have. No excuses:

Google Analytics 4 Property.

Google Search Console Dashboard.

Google Tag Manager.

Google Ads. (Even if you aren’t using it yet.)

If these things sound alien to you or you don’t have the time to run the set-up: hire someone to do it. Ask them to give you a quick overview of your dashboards and main metrics.

Services like this go for only a couple of hundred dollars on sites like Upwork. The value you get out of it is ever-lasting. You'll understand your audience better, track top-performing content, and see what converts in real-time.

If you do hire a pro, pay a little extra and ask for customized reports with key metrics relevant to your business. Landing pages, cart checkout, CTA clicks—whatever matters the most to you. Check them at least once a month and see what insights stand out immediately.

Website performance will tell you a lot about what visitors (AKA potential customers) resonate with. Is it your blog? Your landing page? You won't know unless you track it.

Do you want search engines to love your website, too? Of course, you do. Revise your Google Search Console, then. Check for indexing errors or other problems and solve them quickly. Running an SEO-optimized site may not be your top priority at the moment, but your website can still stand out by simply keeping it clean for the web crawlers.

Your site is the homeland of your product. Your ads, social media, and content across the web should all lead back to your website. Whether you are testing out audience-specific landing pages, running A/B tests for a promotion, or showing a single “coming soon” homepage as you prepare for launch day, your site ought to reflect the dedication to the mission you are fulfilling.

In an ideal world, you’d have a homepage full of branded, captivating copy, with a product description so crisp people will want to move straight to checkout. But if a copywriter is out of the question right now, aim to at least have a clean offering and eye-catching CTAs.

The goal is the same: to move people down the pipeline and into a sign-up or demo call.

A great way to uplift your website is through reviews. Let customers do the talking (and create the copy) for you. Highlight top reviews from G2, Capterra, or your own store’s comments. If you have awards or certificates, showcase them front and center. People need to know right away why they should choose you over any other product, so give them every reason to.

Update information on your website at least quarterly. On top of Search Console health, it's also crucial to ensure your metadata is SEO-friendly. Include ALT text in your imagery, and check for broken links to replace or remove them. Remember: SEO is more than keywords, and a healthy website goes a long way toward getting you at the top of page one of search results.

Ever heard the line “A job worth doing is worth doing poorly”? Well—get on your socials game. Even if it sucks.

Social media is a full-time job. One that these days is better off in the hands of a chronically online Gen-Z’er who can edit a TikTok faster than you can choose an Instagram filter. Leave that to the pros and, when you are ready, hire one.

But you don’t need a fully defined brand identity or a social media team to begin threading your way in the social waters. That would be ideal, but if you are in a frugal position, you can still build a memorable online presence for your business.

Social media may seem like an overkill these days, with how oversaturated it's become. But it's still necessary. Nine out of ten times people will fire up their apps and search for your handle before even thinking of googling your website. Give them something to find.

And please—I implore you—put some content out at least once a week. It doesn’t have to be revolutionary. Just let your audience know the lights are still on in your business.

(Nothing will have you clicking away sooner than an X account with a ‘last post’ from eight months ago.)

Talk about your product. Discuss challenges you encounter and customer experiences that impact you. Speak about the roadmap and goals for the next quarter. Ask the team to pitch in. Creativity doesn't only spur from the creative department.

A tweet is only 280 characters long and it won’t take you more than ten minutes to draft. And even that is better than nothing. 

Strapped for content ideas? Look within.

Your budget for marketing assets may not be grand, but your content still can be. Just because you can't invest in a communications manager (yet), it doesn't mean you can't create great content that sells.

Take people behind the scenes. Show them parts of your process—without compromising sensitive information—and involve the team. What are you working on right now? What exciting updates can users expect soon? What do they want to see next?

Share these insights in your newsletter or social media and ask your customers to reply. This will build a sense of community and belonging to your product. Be mindful of your daily work routine and think about, what would our audience like to know about us. About our product?

Chances are is more than you think. People don’t only follow brands for their products, but for the stories they share and the sense of “relatability” they find in those brands, and the people behind them.

Ah, to go viral on TikTok. Isn’t that the dream…but it doesn’t have to be the only dream.

Instead, strive as well to build a sense of community among your followers. Whether as a  recurring subscription or a one-time purchase, you want to keep people engaged with your brand in the long term. To achieve that, you need to provide value beyond the product.

A lot of software companies are choosing to host exclusive communities these days. And for a good reason: communities increase retention. As we all know, it costs more to acquire a new client than it does to retain one (up to five times more, per industry standards).

I know what you are about to say—Hanna, if I don’t have the time to run marketing, how do you expect me to do community management, too?

And to that, I say: you do have the time. If you are finding ten minutes in your day to put out a post on the BTS of your latest product update, you can find an extra ten minutes to reply to comments you get on that post.

Sure, you may not be building the Kajabi or Circle communities just yet. Perhaps even a Facebook group sounds a tad too daunting (and definitely like something a dedicated Community Manager should do). But while you get there, focus on getting back to people where you can. Show them there’s a face behind your brand. That alone is already several steps in the right direction.

As someone who’s been on both ends of the line (as a strapped-for-cash founder, and a strapped-for-time marketing manager), trust me when I say you are making your future marketing team rejoice with these simple foundations. Most of these strategies require a minimum time investment, and an even lower monetary one, and they are guaranteed to change your company’s marketing game for good by helping you grow your audience and position your brand from its early stages.

When the time comes—and the dollars flow—you can hire your dream marketing team and 10x your campaigns’ impact. But for now, and as you venture into the wild world that is launching an early-stage startup: keep it simple. Keep it authentic, and see how far that alone can take you.

P.S. I’ve specialized my career in marketing strategy and content creation for startups. If you would like some help with anything discussed in this article— drop me a line! I’d be happy to chat :)