How to Market Your Tech Business

Given a choice, every tech entrepreneur would prefer to spend most of their time in building the product, iterating its features and taking it to the next level with constant improvements.

But that alone would not sustain the business. You’d still need to learn how to take your product to the market. This aspect of building a tech startup may seem challenging to you, but you are not alone.

Every year, thousands of tech professionals jump into entrepreneurship and learn this very aspect of business the hard way.

In this post, we will summarise key marketing strategies that can help get started with marketing your tech business website effectively right from the start.

Strategy #1. Product Marketing Begins with the Website

The first thing that you need to promote your tech business is a website. It’s recommended that you finalize a brand name and register an exact match domain name as early as possible so that you don’t have to compromise on your product’s identity.

Till a few years ago, finding two-word, keyword rich domain name was quite challenging. However, that’s not the case anymore.

With new domain extensions such as .TECH, you can find the most suitable domain name for your tech business and create a memorable brand.

An ideal business domain name should be:

• Short and memorable.
• Descriptive and contextual.
• Innovative.
• Free of hyphens, numbers, abbreviations, misspellings.
• Free of previously copyrighted names.

Just as .com means a commercial and .org means organization, .TECH means technology. This is a domain extension that fits in quite well for tech businesses.

For example, by looking at the domain name www.shadow.tech or www.weshape.tech, one can gather that these entities are from the technology industry.

This instant identification helps in building a strong positioning for the business.

Another fantastic example is www.breakinto.tech, a business which helps individuals from non-tech backgrounds ‘break into tech’.

Here, the domain extension is being used as an integrated element of the business name itself.

Thus, new domains help in bringing innovation into your online identity while adding a layer of meaning and relevance to it.

Here are some ways in which you can choose a domain name for your technology business:

• Choose your exact match brandname.tech domain.
• Pick your productname.tech domain.
• Use industry relevant keywords.
• Include product and geolocation.
• Pick a phrase and transform it into a domain name.

Strategy #2. SEO Can Do Wonders for the Business

Search Engine Optimization is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to your website by ensuring that the site appears among the top results offered by a search engine in response to a relevant query.

To put it simply, if someone is searching for your product or service, they should be able to find you organically through search engines such as Google.

Most entrepreneurs tend to think that SEO can wait for later. What they don’t realize is that SEO takes a lot of time to show results.

The sooner you start keyword optimization on your website, the more organic leads you will get for your business.

Google has thousands of algorithms at play that assign the organic search ranking to every website for certain keywords.

However, the two key deciding factors are backlinks to the home page and inner pages from other credible websites. As well as authentic, fresh content relevant to the search terms you want the website to rank for.

A keyword-rich domain name can add more value to every on-topic backlink that you receive.

If your website is called mexicofood.tech and it gets backlinks on anchor text ‘Mexico Food Tech’, then it works as a positive indicator to search engines about the relevance of that website for the keywords ‘mexico food tech’.

Strategy #3. Content Marketing Pays off in More Ways Than One

Content marketing helps you establish your authority over the industry that you are in. The more information and thought leadership you can offer through content, the more your business will benefit.

The two key elements of content marketing are posting content on your own blog and guest posting on other blogs. Email marketing and influencer marketing also fall into the realm of content marketing.

Here are some of the key benefits that your tech business can derive out of content marketing:

• It helps you build the brand and brand perception.
• It builds trust and loyalty.
• It engages the audience that may never respond to advertising.
• It increases organic traffic.
• It can become a lead generation tool by offering specific pieces in exchange for an email.

Content marketing yields the best results when it is executed in a consistent and steady manner.

Identify the key subjects that your business needs to build an authority in and then create topics based on keyword research and search trends.

Strategy #4. Social Media is a Great Branding Tool

A lot of tech businesses create their social media profiles but do not use them. As a result, their social profiles remain inactive.

However, an active social media presence is a fantastic value-add for your business. Especially so when customers, investors and potential partners are looking you up on the Internet.

Social media can help you build trust and comfort with others because your updates and social posts give them a better understanding of your brand’s personality as well as the latest news and updates from your business.

It’s alright if you don’t have the time to invest in social media management.

Here are some tricks that you can use to keep your social media handle operating without having to spend too much time on it:

• Share key industry related news.
• Share team photos or what the team is doing whenever possible.
• Follow relevant journalists and industry influencers on social media. Engage with them when appropriate.
• Share links to any news and updates about your business.
• Share customer reviews and stories.
• Share and re-share content from your blog multiple times. There are many free social media tools to make this process easier.
• Share updates from any industry events that you attend.

A fantastic way to increase brand recall for your business on social media is to use branded links. For instance, instead of sharing links such as https://goo.gl/iy9cKn and http://bit.ly/2tNESp1, you can brand these links with a domain name you own, such as https://go.tech/micro.

By using this simple technique, you can increase brand visibility and brand credibility for your business.

Most URL shortening services allow the use of custom domains.

Strategy #5. Offline Event Marketing is Equally Important

Startup events and tech fests such as SXSW, Web Summit, Collision, Tech Day NY are a wonderful place for you to get plugged into the tech and business community.

These events are a melting pot of opportunities for partnerships, brand exposure to media and industry influencers, customers and investors.

Exhibiting your tech business at a key event gives an opportunity to:

• Grab attention through quirky marketing.
• Give product demo to a relevant audience.
• Interact with journalists and influencers.
• Get noticed by investors.
• Find customers.
• Build partnerships.
• Increase interaction on social media through event-related conversations.
• Network with the technology and business community.
• Get traffic to your website through on-ground promotions.

A lot of startups miss out on participating at these events due to the excessive cost involved. However, there are programs such as the Startup League that do sponsor early-stage startups to exhibit at various relevant events.

If you are an early stage startup, it’s worth checking out how you can minimize the expenses while maximizing the benefits you derive out of these events.

Since each of these marketing tactics exist in a dynamic space, it is recommended that you keep track of the latest trends and the revised rules of the game.

You could also keep track how your industry is responding to these marketing techniques and draw trends that might be specific to your business area.

By understanding these facets of business marketing, you can create an appeal for your tech business in the minds of your prospective target group.

The sooner you recognize that business marketing and promotion deserve equal, if not more, attention as product development, the faster you will be able to meet your business objective – be it sales, adoption or customer acquisition.