Top 21 Affordable Startup Marketing Strategies to Use in 2025

Starting up a business from scratch is often challenging. Building a brand presence and bringing customers is never easy for new businesses.

By creating effective marketing strategies, you can help customers identify your business as a potential solution to their pain points.

Read this blog and explore 21 key startup marketing strategies that allow your brand to scale and get wider brand recognition – in turn, sales!

Importance of Effective Marketing Strategies for Startups

Introducing effective marketing strategies and campaigns, especially digital marketing, has become relevant in this digital age. Marketing is crucial for startups to foster brand identity and generate revenue.

Below are some of the reasons behind using marketing strategies for startups:

1. Strengthens Brand Awareness

Employing a marketing strategy can raise awareness of your products and services among customers. The reason for this is that awareness is the first step of the customer acquisition procedure.

2. Gain a Competitive Advantage

Startup marketing strategies are also important to grow in competitive industries. Marketing strategies showcasing your unique selling point (USP) help you surpass your competitors in attracting clients.

3. Drive Leads

Implementing a marketing strategy for your startup will also help in generating leads and driving more sales. Using this procedure, you can easily create a permanent revenue stream for your business.

4. Market Positioning and Segmentation

Effective content marketing for startups helps startups identify niche market segments. Marketing strategies also allow you to analyze market trends and position your products according to their needs. 

5. Strengthens Bond with Customers

Marketing strategies also allow startups to strengthen their relationships with customers through continuous engagement.

6. Save Funds

Using digital marketing channels can help startups to get a wider reach of audience with lower costs compared to traditional channels.

Top Low-Cost Marketing Strategies for Startups in India

Implementing the right startup marketing strategies can help you target different demographics as well as generate more inbound traffic.

However, the cost of marketing nowadays has reached such an extent that businesses have to spend $50 to $6000 per month. But it does not need to be expensive in order to be effective.  

Follow these 21 low-cost marketing strategies for startups to strengthen brand awareness and gain a competitive advantage:

1. Hosting Webinars

In-person events might be less effective and costly. It includes booking the venue, payment for catering, and decor costs. However, hosting webinars or online seminars can address user pain points while reaching a wider audience – without having to spend on venue and catering.

These informative sessions can help you showcase your industry expertise and provide insights to the customers. This marketing strategy not only builds trust for your startup but also increases your visibility.

You can launch your new products or services using a webinar. 

You may share details and promote your webinar to the audience using different online platforms. Using social media platforms and email marketing are some common platforms.

2. Social Listening

Social listening is one of the most underrated startup marketing strategies that allows your brand to meet the needs and demands of customers.

This practice also helps you to understand the impact of your products or services on customers. This active listening allows you to work on customer loyalty and satisfaction if needed.

Social listening also includes the process of identifying and responding to the complaints of customers. This helps your startup to get rid of negative feedback and improve customer relationships.

Nevertheless, you can also track the performance and activities of your competitors, like how they are attracting customers to create a strong brand image.

3. Unique Selling Point

A unique selling point (USP) is an essential low-cost marketing strategy for your startup. 

Creating a USP can not only create a brand identity for your startup but also help customers differentiate your products from the competitors. 

You can use attractive taglines that highlight the uniqueness of your product or service. You have to make sure that these benefits address a particular pain point for your target customers.

Nevertheless, try to make your USPs more compelling so that they not only differentiate your products from competitors but also create a positive impression on your brand.

4. Implementing Content Marketing

To boost the overall performance of your business, you need to understand what is content marketing and implement it. Effective content marketing strategies will help to engage your audience with your brand at almost no cost.

It creates your authority in your industry and can drive more traffic to your website.

You can choose a specifi c type of content, it can be instructional posts, informational blogs, or listicle articles. You just have to choose a topic based on your consumer preferences and demand.

To make effective startup marketing strategies effective, you must create content with a strong point of view. This will help to establish your company as a thought leader in your sector.

5. SEO Marketing

Emphasizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) marketing techniques has become a necessity in marketing.

As per the findings of Semrush, 62.9% of startups became beneficial after utilising SEO in the last six months of 2024. However, only 9.5% experienced a decline in traffic.

Besides posting blogs or articles, try to optimize the content on your website. It will improve the rankings and visibility of your search engine. This marketing approach not only increases your website traffic but also drives revenue.

Identify your target audience and their needs. Creating high-quality landing pages can be an effective strategy to convert users into customers.

6. Prioritize Social Media Marketing

Posting engaging content on social media platforms is one of the cost-effective startup marketing strategies. 

The primary objectives in social media marketing are interacting with customers directly and maintaining consistency by posting new content regularly.

You can also align with the trends of each social media platform and user behaviors. Try to adapt the marketing strategy that fits these trends. It can be user-generated content or educating people to implement sustainable practices.

Considering the content sample, you can also create and publish it to attract customers to avail your offerings. 

Although it is an organic and cost-effective approach, you can also pay for social media advertisements to experience better results.

7. Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most effective startup marketing strategies that you can take into account. You directly communicate with your potential customers and create awareness about your offerings.

Besides driving sales, the email marketing strategy provides an open channel of communication for your clients. 

Implementing advanced email marketing strategies can offer highly personalized content to the audience. Using advanced email marketing, you can use automation and rely on predictive analytics to optimize your marketing strategy.

The advanced automation in email marketing also uses dynamic content that adds personalisation to your emails. For instance, users are likely to receive emails based on their browsing behaviors.

8. Emphasise Public Relations

You can also use public relations (PR) to reach new customers as well as maintain a positive relationship with the existing ones.

Using effective PR campaigns can also help you to strengthen relationships with relevant journalists, influencers, and industry experts. It also builds awareness of your product or service offerings and brand.

Organizing press coverage can create a lot of social media mentions that will impact your brand image. As a result, it will also increase website traffic and generate sales for your startup.

9. SMS Marketing

Setting up SMS marketing is a unique marketing strategy to trigger customers to buy your products.

The strategy of sending SMS to the mobile numbers of your existing customers includes special offers and discounts for them. The above image highlights the example of the SMS marketing approach of Tata 1Mg. The above example highlights how Tata 1Mg retains its existing customers offering them a discount of ₹50.

However, you must also avoid over-saturating SMS subscribers with updates. The primary focus of using SMS marketing is to announce new product offerings or special offers.

The approach to SMS marketing helps you to connect with customers based on their known preferences.

10. Referral Programs

Using a customer referral program is also an effective startup marketing strategy. It allows existing customers to refer a brand’s products or services to someone who is not aware of the brand.

As a result, brands reward both existing customers with a discount once the new customer makes a purchase.

Referral programs not only foster customer loyalty but also allow your startup to grow and reach a wider audience.

Think about yourself. As a customer, you would like to avail products or services from an unknown brand if your friends or siblings recommend them.

Implementing a referral program, you may also try to offer special incentives like discounts to retain them.

 11. Employ Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing is the initial step for informing your new customers about what you offer. This can be a conversation between two friends or a YouTube advertisement.

The process of WOM entails extending your circle and catching the attention of new people. Once your existing customers become brand advocates for your startup, they start providing WOM promotion. It can save your costs and boost sales.

To employ startup marketing strategies like WOM, you must reach your family, friends, and even existing colleagues to make them aware of your brand.

You also need to focus on high-quality products or services to earn positive recommendations and reviews.

12. Community Building

Whether it is online or offline, community building has become a crucial part of today’s marketing. It will help you to gain more exposure for your startup.

Community building fosters brands to directly connect to their customers. Famous brands often use community platforms like Reddit, Facebook groups, or Discord to interact with customers.

One of the important activities in community development is sparking community discussions. Keeping the space active and steering the conversation is important to make a stronger community.

You have to make announcements for launching new products and publish quality content that adds value to the community.

13. Guerrilla Marketing

This startup marketing strategy considers creativity rather than focusing on expenditure. Guerrilla marketing strategy is a cost-effective approach for your startup to provide a roadmap for potential customers to identify your brand.

This low-cost marketing strategy focuses on surprising customers in public spaces. Some common examples of this category of marketing are pop-up events, street art, and flash mobs. 

14. Implement User-Generated Content

The tactic of implementing user-generated content (UGC) is one of the most important startup marketing strategies to generate increased conversions.

According to Statista, the Instagram story format has been a popular tool for UGC. In 2024, accounts with more than 50,000 followers have posted an average of 46 stories each week.

In this strategy, customers help the brand to reach audiences by posting photos of the products and making review videos. The e-commerce industry is one of the top industries that leverages these activities on social media platforms and other websites to drive more enquiries.

15. Marketing Automation

Utilising automation as one of your startup marketing strategies allows you to execute personalized marketing campaigns effectively. The benefits of utilizing marketing automation include automating repetitive tasks, increasing customer engagement, and providing predictive analytics.

The advanced technologies reduce repetitive tasks in email marketing or running ad campaigns. This approach primarily saves your time and maintains your brand awareness.

This strategy also personalizes the website experience of your startup among individuals. For instance, if your startup focuses on offering oversized T-shirts, customers prioritize oversized T-shirts over normal ones and can see the content in different marketing channels.

This means marketing automation helps startups showcase offers or products that are most relevant to customers’ interests.

16. Cross-Promotion and Partnerships

Cross-promotion is a collaborative practice that can help two allied 

startups. This can result in a win-win situation for both brands that are trying to target the same audience segment.

However, you must partner with a brand that does not offer the same product or service related to you. Choosing a brand for cross-promotion that is not your competitor can help you reach your desired customer segment with almost zero cost.

Let us get back to 2020 when Indian food delivery app Zomato released a mailer in collaboration with Amazon Prime Video India.

The cross-promotion campaign hinted at the concept of binge-watching the popular series ‘Mirzapur 2’ with a snacking session.

17. Hosting Events

Hosting events is one of the best examples of low-cost startup marketing strategies that can bring exposure to your offerings. You can show your products and services offerings with this cost-effective approach very easily.

Although running an event increases your expenditure, you can still organize it according to your plan within a small budget.

You just need to find out what type of events are most relevant to your brand and offerings. After that, you can easily organize an event and advertise it in different sales and marketing channels.

18. Run Competitions and Offer Prizes

Most of the customers want to participate in competitions run by brands and win prizes in return. Running competitions for something that your customers want is an effective startup marketing strategy.

This approach can help you attract and retain customers with minimal expenses.

You may also conduct different polls and let the customers choose an answer from several options. This is a great strategy for obtaining information regarding their needs and desires by asking simple multiple-choice questions in return for getting a prize.

19. Purchase Business Cards

Purchasing business cards is an effective traditional marketing strategy that can be used to create brand awareness. Using business cards is considered a low-cost marketing approach if you purchase them in bulk.

By sharing details of your brand on the card, you can easily make your brand memorable to the customers. These cards include essential information about your brand, like business name, contact information, and email address.

Creating attractive and pleasing business cards will help your brand gain new customers as well as retain them.

20. Content Repurposing

Content repurposing is one of the most affordable startup marketing strategies that you can implement to increase the reach of your published content. 

This strategy includes transforming the content into a new format. It is important to repurpose your content as it can reach new customer segments and earn more traffic or followers.

For instance, choosing an evergreen content writing topic is must in this strategy since it gives a long-term value and remains relevant over a long period.

21. Audio Advertising

Almost all of us have experienced listening to ads while listening to music on Spotify. The global music streaming platform allows brands to connect with music and podcast lovers and make them aware of their offerings.

As per market research, more than 50% of daily podcast listeners made a purchase after hearing an ad in a podcast.

You can also promote your products or services using audio advertising on music streaming platforms. This creates an engagement among the listeners to take action.

However, you must track your spending for your ads to ensure a cost-effective approach.

Best Examples of Successful Marketing Strategies by Indian Startups

Effective startup marketing strategies foster customer engagement and build strong brand loyalty. Successful brands in India have implemented marketing strategies highlighting some quirky aspects.

Relive some of the most attractive marketing strategies adopted by famous Indian startups that made the brand successful:

CRED

Famous Indian financial services provider, CRED has been influential in promoting quirky advertisements to attract people. One of its successful marketing strategies is the ‘Rahul Dravid – Indiranagar Ka Gunda’ social media campaign.

This advertisement was so well-received by the audiences that it helped CRED to expand its followers and customer base.

A lot of celebrities also retweeted after spotting this quirky marketing approach.

PharmEasy

Pharma and healthcare brand PharmEasy has integrated an omnichannel presence to market its products despite facing a lot of infrastructural challenges. It has developed a digital marketplace including its website, mobile app, and other offline and online platforms.

It also uses numerous pharmacy and consultation centers across different metro cities and even remote villages. This omnichannel marketing strategy brings PharmEasy’s medicines to the doorstep of customers in each part of the country.

Blinkit

Blinkit is an Indian quick commerce brand that has utilized some iconic startup marketing strategies to create strong brand awareness. Its famous marketing campaign ‘Doodh Mangoge, Doodh Denge’ slogan in a billboard got a ton of appreciation from experts.

The purpose of this campaign highlights that the brand can deliver almost all groceries to the customers. A lot of brands, including Zomato, have been influenced by it and joined them to follow this trend.

Dunzo

Meme marketing has been one of the famous startup marketing strategies. Indian delivery and transport services application, Dunzo has successfully implemented this approach to attract its customers.

Using its Instagram page, Dunzo creates and publishes meme-based posts that are relevant and humorous.

It also draws customers’ attention by using famous dialogues from Bollywood movies and phrases from songs.

Acko

Acko General Insurance has made a groundbreaking marketing move that helped the startup create stronger brand awareness. It has been an associate sponsor for three IPL teams, Kolkata Knight Riders, Lucknow Super Giants, and Gujarat Titans, back in 2022.

Earlier in 2020, the insurance provider partnered with other teams like the Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Digit Insurance

Digit Insurance has been instrumental in posting blog articles to empower customers with knowledge. Users can access different types of guides on insurance and finance from Digit’s official website.

These informational blogs allow the brand to attract new potential customers and increase website traffic.

Dream 11

Indian leading fantasy gaming brand Dream 11 considers celebrity endorsement as a primary marketing strategy.

Its latest IPL advertisement features the famous Bollywood stars Aamir Khan and Ranbir Kapoor and popular cricketers like Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma, and others.

Its humorous content and irresistible call-to-action strategy guide audiences to download the application and create their own team.

Swiggy

Swiggy has been phenomenal in implementing successful startup marketing strategies. One of its famous marketing tactics is a referral program.

Swiggy’s referral programs allow customers to invite new customers to order food from the app. It is an effective process of growing your customer base without breaking the bank. 

Its ‘Refer and Earn’ program converts its customers into brand ambassadors.

Nykaa

The leading beauty e-commerce giant, Nykaa, prioritized providing special offers and discounts as its top marketing strategy. It provides numerous seasonal discounts and offers to its users.

One of its biggest events, the Pink Friday sale, offers mouth-watering discounts on its products.

This approach not only attracts users to the brand but also creates a competitive edge for the brand.

Mamaearth

Skincare brand Mamaearth has implemented successful influencer marketing campaigns to generate more revenue. Being very active on social media channels, it uses famous influencers to promote its hair oils and shampoos to its followers.

Mamaearth also uses this strategy in television commercials. This effective marketing strategy allows the brand to reach its target audience.

Takeaway

Finding the right startup marketing strategy is crucial to build brand awareness and boost sales. As a startup, you should implement affordable marketing strategies to reach out customers and reduce additional expenditure.

Some of the most affordable strategies include SEO optimization, cross-promotion, referral programs, event hosting, social media marketing, and others.

To reach wider audiences and generate sales for your startup, you must use some of these 21 marketing strategies.

You may also hire top content marketing agencies in India to avail the best content marketing services.

Frequently Asked Questions on Startup Marketing Strategies