Introduction
2025 is the year when established companies and even startups are truly leaning into embracing digitization. These days, to have a strong presence and visibility online, even before launching your startup, you surely need to have a digital marketing strategy.
At BrandPipal, we believe that integrating digital marketing strategies is vital for marketers from all types of industries or businesses to make the most of emerging opportunities.
In this article, we have compiled a list of the top five essential marketing steps, especially focusing on startups and small businesses’ marketing.
2025 Trends Shaping Startup Marketing
Marketing trends have shifted significantly over the years, especially with the growth of AI tools. Here are some trends for you to catch up on before we get into the core guide:
- 42% of marketing professionals are already prioritizing AI for personalized content creation. 64% of organizations are using AI to improve employees’ workflow efficiency to achieve better outcomes. [1]
- 41% of adults use AI tools for search.[2] Traditional SEO strategies that focus on search engines like Google and Bing need a serious rethink to make them competitive for AI platforms like Perplexity AI and ChatGPT search results.
- A connected approach will be essential as people interact with various platforms and points of contact.
- 73% of consumers prefer a personalized shopping experience, making it essential for marketers to embed AI for tailored experiences and adaptive messaging. [2]
Importance of a Digital Marketing Strategy for Startups
Digital Marketing strategy stands for a data-driven marketing framework that defines the flow and goal you want to achieve through online channels. To reach potential customers in a cost-effective way and to build brand awareness, digital marketing for startups is a must.
Globally, around 50 million startups are emerging every year, which means on average 137,000 startups are launching every day. But only 10% of startups manage to successfully sustain them in the long run.[3] With lots of competition, it’s hard to sustain brand awareness and build customer loyalty. Startups can attract customers who might otherwise choose established brands by investing time and money in a strong online marketing plan.
Below is a step-by-step guide explaining how to create a marketing strategy:
Step 1: Define Your Business Goals & Buyer Personas
An effective startup marketing plan should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) in the long run. You should spend a good amount of time on thorough market research to get a clear understanding of the industry. Based on the insights, set clear your buyer persona and business future objectives. A customer persona is a comprehensive, detailed profile of your ideal audience. It includes information about their gender, demographics, behaviours, motivations, and pain points.
For instance, your business goals can look like:
- Expanding share in the market.
- Tapping into new markets.
- Enhancing customer satisfaction.
- Raising product quality.
- Increasing business revenue.
- Boosting brand awareness.
Step 2: Choose the Right Digital Channels
Your marketing efforts should be aligned with your audience’s preferences and business objectives. The following are the activities mainly in a good marketing plan:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
- Social Media Marketing.
- Content Marketing.
- Email Marketing.
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising.
- Influencer Marketing.
- Affiliate Marketing.
You need to have a clear understanding of your budgets. Analyse the cost of each channel, including content marketing, influencer marketing, and performance marketing. If you are an early-stage startup, you should prioritize allocating your funds based on the potential ROI on each channel.
Next, assess your competitors’ activities, observe which channels your competitors are using, and how effective they are. You can even take inspiration from outside your industry to look for gaps or new ideas in your industry and how you can approach them differently. This broader perspective can help you identify gaps in your industry, whether it’s a lack of personalized content, underutilized platforms, inconsistent messaging, or missed customer pain points. Once spotted, these gaps can become opportunities for your brand to differentiate itself and connect more meaningfully with your audience.
Step 3: Build Your Core Content Strategy
Content marketing is considered to be the core of a digital marketing strategy. With quality content, you can attract, engage, retain, and build a high-quality audience base.
Below are some popular types of content marketing strategies to reach the targeted customers:
1. Blog Posts
Blogs help improve SEO rankings by targeting specific keywords while allowing brands to share their insights, experiences, and industry expertise. They serve as a space for storytelling, thought leadership, and personal perspectives. Over time, consistent blogging helps build brand visibility and trust.
2. Email
Email marketing is a direct and personal way to reach customers, offering updates, product promotions, and tailored communication. When crafted well, emails can nurture leads and maintain ongoing relationships.
3. Videos
Videos offer an engaging way to communicate ideas, tell brand stories, or demonstrate products and services in action. They appeal to both visual and auditory senses, helping retain attention and convey emotions effectively.
4. Infographics
Infographics present complex data or processes through clean, visually appealing designs that simplify understanding. They help convey statistics, timelines, or comparisons in a concise and digestible format. Due to their clarity, they’re often shared widely across digital platforms.
5. Podcasts
Podcasts are becoming the most popular form of streaming content. It can be in a digital audio or video file series that can be streamed online and accessed at any time by the user. They are a type of radio show that covers various discussions, interviews, storytelling, and more.
Ebooks and Whitepapers
Ebooks and whitepapers provide detailed insights on specific topics, backed by research, case studies, and expert analysis. These long-form assets are designed to inform, educate, and guide readers on complex issues. They also help establish authority and thought leadership in the field.
Step 4: Set Up Tracking & KPIs
If you are not monitoring your marketing efforts, how will you know you are working in the right direction? Having a clear understanding of what’s working and what needs improvement makes a real difference to the digital marketing strategy. Here’s when marketing KPIs or Key Performance Indicators come to play.
You need to set up tracking tools and KPIs to examine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. It allows you to analyze data from various marketing channels, including social media analytics, email, performance marketing, and others. With the right marketing analytics implementation, you gain more specific insights into customer preferences and can iterate your strategy accordingly to achieve a higher return on investment.
Some common marketing KPIs that you should monitor in your team are website traffic, conversion rates, cost per lead, customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, click-through rate, social media engagement, and bounce rate.
Step 5: Test, Optimize & Scale
Once you have set your KPIs, based on the inputs, start with the A/B testing, also known as split testing or bucket testing. In this, two versions of content are compared based on which one appeals more to the audience. A/B testing can be done on any digital marketing platform, including emails, advertisements, newsletters, website pages, text messages, mobile apps, and more.
To get the ideal results, you need to follow the basic framework of Run → Measure → Learn → Refine, which is:
Run: Identify your marketing goal and run your campaign based on it.
Measure: Analyse the results you are receiving. Try some other versions or methods to run your campaigns and measure.
Learn: A/B testing is an ongoing process. You have to analyse closely what’s performing well and strategize your marketing strategy accordingly.
Refine: Based on the analytics results, implement the best-performing strategy and continue to experiment with new ideas frequently.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is no longer something businesses can afford to push aside, especially in 2025. With more startups entering the scene and competition reaching its peak each day, having a thoughtful marketing plan is essential.
If you are serious about building a strong small business digital strategy, the best recommended choice is to partner with a professional digital marketing agency. Every move in the emerging digital world is crucial and should be deliberate and planned to get noticed by the right audience. So, it’s better to get professional assistance in the early period of establishing a brand.
FAQs
1. What is a digital marketing strategy for startups?
A startup digital marketing strategy stands for a data-driven framework that specifies the objectives you want to achieve and the online channels you will be using for the specific digital marketing campaign. You also set a budget for each activity and plan how to proceed further.
2. How do I create a digital marketing strategy for my startup?
Creating a startup marketing plan includes:
- Know your audience and establish your business objectives
- Choose the correct online platforms that suit your audience’s preferences.
- Establish a strong core content strategy that you will use across digital platforms.
- Run A/B tests, and keep implementing new ideas into your existing strategies.
3. Which digital marketing channels are most effective for startups in 2025?
Crucial channels for effective small business digital strategy in 2025 are:
- Social media marketing
- Search engine optimization
- Paid advertising
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Influencer marketing
4. How much should a startup invest in digital marketing?
A startup should usually set aside around 7 to 15% of its expected income for marketing. A part of this amount should go specifically towards digital marketing.
5. How long does it take for digital marketing to show results for new businesses?
It takes typically 3-6 months of dedicated time to become noticeable. Also, depending on the industry competition, it can take a year or more.
6. Should startups outsource digital marketing or build an in-house team?
Building an in-house team or hiring an outside agency depends on your long-term goals, in-house team capabilities, and budget. Outsourcing helps save costs and gives you access to experts with specific skills, whereas having an in-house team offers more control and a better grasp of your business’s day-to-day operations.
