Technology startups and those new to the sector have often wrongly focused on marketing and advertising once the product is built and ready for market. The focus is generally on perfecting the tech and ensuring that it meets the needs as expressed out there by their customers. Successfully marketing your tech is essential if your business is to meet its potential. This article provides five easy ways to market your tech business and suggests that this should be an ongoing a process and not a one-off project.

Freebies, giveaways and coupons

Everybody likes a freebie and it’s a great way to have your brand out and about. From pens to stickers and branded key rings, they’ve all been used to build identity and put a smile on a potential or actual customer’s face. Just make sure that they are useful; the idea is to keep it pragmatic and lift it above the norm. It’s about giving out or selling custom hats with your branding in summer, when there is a definite need for these items. Giving away branded items that end up in the bin is both wasteful and bad for the brand. So, it must be contextual, useful and well thought through.

Social media marketing

This is a must for any tech firm worth their salt. Being on social media and using it as a platform to interact with your customers and potential customers is now the norm. As a tech company, it shows a sense of immediacy and an understanding of the current technological context. Social media marketing is thus a modern necessity given the number of people on social media and that these platforms are now also social marketplaces.

Communicating with existing and prospective customers

Find and create specific ways to talk to your customers. Create feedback loops associated with product upgrades, provide an ongoing 24/7/365 chatbot and ensure that the brand is front and center, yet still subtle, so it’s not seen as a hard-sell. Use the latest apps and tech forums to start discussions about your products or services and keep the brand in the conversation.

Launch events

If there’s a specific product about to be released, then you and your marketing team should consider the cost benefit of having a launch event. The ability to interact with the product and then provide feedback is essential for brand building. Furthermore, it is a great way to make loyal customers feel special, leading to brand loyalty and the ability to create lifelong customers who will begin to expect the next invitation for the next product launch.

Innovative marketing

It’s tech and as such your marketing must say something about your forward thinking approach and while related to tech, it should also be innovative as an extension of your tech brand. Some call it guerrilla marketing, but it’s essentially about using technical creativity to market your product.

Marketing has got to be executed throughout the product lifecycle as well as the lifecycle of the business itself. Being able to build a credible backstory and a reliable relationship with customers and clients is the key and all of the aforementioned ideas must be deployed according to this ethos.