Four tips for marketing to people who are about to launch businesses

Targeting pre-launch startups provides a lot of perks. These founders are open to support, are making buying decisions – and you can build brand loyalty from the get-go.

This is particularly important if you sell services people need from the very beginning, like company registration, website builders or business bank accounts.

However, targeting pre-start business founders isn’t always an easy task. There’s no way to know if someone who has an idea is about to pull the trigger and register a company. 

Here are a number of ideas on how you can target them successfully.

1. Use seasonal trends as a hook

If you’re creating a marketing campaign to reach pre-launch startups, it’s worth considering when to focus your activity.

For example, we tend to see a spike in business launches in January, so you could focus on inspiring and informative content that will help them launch at the start of the year.

Wider societal trends can also have a big impact on the numbers of new startups – think of all the businesses launched in COVID. 

Ask yourself, what’s happening in your industry? What’s happening in the world? Is there a hook you can identify that will get you on their radar?

2. Give them a reason to contact you

To raise awareness of your business to people who are thinking of starting up, try offering an incentive for them to contact you, such as running a competition.

Simply Business did this in 2021, offering a £25k grant to one lucky founder. In doing so they managed to get 12,000 applications, massively increasing their data pool and demonstrating a clear ROI.

Another way to get pre-launch entrepreneurs to give you their details is by having useful downloadable assets and asking them to provide some simple contact details in exchange for your content.

By obtaining basic information from these pre-launch startups, you can build up your email list and add them to campaigns, which can really help nurture leads and manage your customer relationships.

3. Inclusion matters

Another thing to consider is how you’re marketing. You need to make sure you’re keeping up with marketing trends and not falling behind.

Ensure you make an effort to be as inclusive and diverse as possible, so that potential startups of any background can feel a connection with your brand.

For instance, with more female founders arriving in the startup scene, you want to make sure that you include representation of women in your marketing content. Women are more likely to be put off ads if they only see men included.

However, it’s not enough to just use diversity and inclusion as a marketing ploy; they need to be an integral part of your brand values. Business founders are savvy and know when a brand is being inauthentic.

4. Start by providing value

Finally, make sure you’re inspiring founders and helping solve their challenges. Creating useful content that resonates with your target audience helps build trust.

If potential startup founders see your work and are impressed, it’s likely that they will remember you. This means that even if they don’t use your services or product immediately, they’re more likely to in the future or they’ll recommend you to connections in their network.

If you have any questions about what we do, or think you would like to work with us, please feel free to contact us.