What are some great "marketing strategies" for startups on a budget?

1 points by passwert 12 years ago | 1 comment

After more than 12 months of development time, I've recently started a course/educational website and we're facing the egg and chicken problem: Without courses, no students, without students, no teachers (who offer courses).

What are some effective (and maybe crazy) marketing ideas to get some traffic (from both sides) to the website?

We tried spreading flyers and scraping the web for school/teacher email addresses (email campaigns), but both ideas were not very effective without having 5 figures to spend on it.

Thanks for any input :)

PS: I live in Switzerland, which is quite small and only has a population of 7.x million people..

codeddesign 12 years ago |

Business cards are an absolute. Moo.com has great "Lux" business card that will surely impress. Then visit every possible event and conference in your general area. These are usually fairly cheap to attend (if not free) and use that time to network and pass out your card(s). Event exhibit area will be key to just getting your name out. An actual booth isn't absolutely necessary and since you are on a budget it would be best to just walk around and share what you guys are doing.

Of course social media (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter..etc) is always a must with starting out. Create a Graphic and ask friends, family, and whoever you can to place it either on their Facebook banner area or on their timeline posts.

just a few examples ^