Which marketing strategy is the most effective for startups?

Gregory101

While it's a broad question, it's an important one, because you don't want to cripple your young business early with bad marketing practices that seem enticing... and that IS possible... both with consumers and the vehicles that deliver traffic to your website.

The best answer is to make sure you embrace organic digital marketing. That means you should stay away from spamming and black-hat SEO tactics. Combined, you could be cut off by email servers and search engines, and then nobody will find you.

Inbound marketing combines the use of white-hat SEO, social media, blogging, emailing, content creation, and a dynamic and engaging website. To be successful, they need to be executed in harmony, so they compliment one another.

For example, your blogging strategy should be developed around keywords, and distributed through social media. You should also have conversion paths, so your visitors have reason to exchange their contact information for something of value in return, like an informative guide about the problems you solve (notice how I have mentioned nothing about ads).

Over time, you will learn a lot about your customer-base through inbound marketing, AND you'll build credibility with Google... AND pull in a few customers along the way.

Inbound is slower than outbound, because it can take 6 or more months to truly take hold, but it's less expensive than outbound in the long run, because once that train leaves the station, it continues to gain momentum. You'll have blog posts from three or four years ago pulling leads when it is a distant memory.

Beth Fisher

3 is my first choice as it appears informational vs. salesy.

saravanan

Have a marketing baseline
Use targeted marketing to generate leads

Entreflow

Hi,

More context would be necessary to properly reply to your question, unfortunately. You need to define what is your objective, target and budget. This is the first questions we ask our clients when they come to us with marketing needs.
All 3 options are great, but the best one will really depend on the context. 
Contact a marketing consultant that could help you. 

Helina
Entreflow Consulting Group - Management Consultants for Growing Companies

arjun123

 1. Inbound Marketing 2. Outbound Marketing 3. Design Inbound Marketing * Building a Brand

Ernest Whaley

I highly recommend Case Base approach as they have already been proved as key to a successful startup. Newbie entrepreneurs learn to survive among tough competitors out there.