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Startup marketing agency for founders ready to scale smarter

You know your startup needs a smart go-to-market strategy.

But maybe you don’t know the first thing about marketing or don’t have the time to bother with it. Even taking the time to find the right marketing agency can feel like too much work.

Fortunately, devising an effective marketing strategy for startups can be straightforward especially when guided by a marketing consultant who understands lean teams, limited budgets, and growth-stage traction goals.

Our marketing agency has walked countless clients, including early-stage founders and seed-funded teams, through building effective marketing systems from scratch. We’ve seen firsthand how impactful it can be when startup leaders understand the fundamentals of sustainable, scalable marketing.

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Why choose Take the Stairs as your marketing agency?

Take the Stairs isn’t the only digital marketing agency. So why should you choose us instead of somebody else?

We focus on ICPs, not vanity traffic

We don’t waste your startup’s burn rate pushing content that speaks to no one. Instead, we target specific founder-defined buyer personas most likely to convert, advocate, and grow with you.

Once we identify your ideal customer, we create content and campaigns that speak directly to them and launch them on the platforms where they already hang out. Less noise. More ROI. Stronger GTM.

Transparent, founder-friendly pricing

Our model is built for clarity: every hour is tied to a clear deliverable. You’ll get a breakdown of monthly proposals, outcomes, and tasks, no guessing, no scope creep, no last-minute surprises.

Whether you’re managing a tight seed funding runway or tracking your monthly marketing spend for investors, you’ll know exactly where your money is going and why.

Brand-first strategy that scales

We believe that a successful marketing strategy is built on a strong foundation of brand identity. That’s why every campaign starts with a brand your audience believes in. Before we ever build a funnel or touch an ad, we help you clarify your brand identity, positioning, and value proposition.

Unlocking the power of your brand helps you stand out from the competition and build a loyal following.

Learn what marketing is from a startup marketing agency

What is marketing (for founders, not MBAs)? Marketing is the strategy and toolset you use to attract, convert, and retain the customers most aligned with your business. For startups, that often means creating focused messaging for specific customer segments and delivering it through high-leverage digital tactics.

In other words, marketing efforts try to find like-minded consumers who will value your products or services.

Marketing involves any tool, strategy, or process that has the main goal of developing and connecting with specific segments of customers

Brands do this by learning their demographic’s buyer personas and creating ads specifically for them. This tactic wastes less of the marketing budget and provides a higher conversion rate than old-fashioned transactional marketing.

Since you have to put your company out in front of people in order to connect with them, that makes marketing one facet of branding. An easy way to think of it is that marketing tools are always focused on attracting like-minded customers using:

  • Advertising campaigns
  • Social media promotions
  • SEO strategy
  • Email marketing

On the other hand, branding is concerned with establishing a connection with your audience, and marketing’s main goal is to win a sale.

Types of Marketing for Startups

Depending on when you started doing business, marketing might mean something very different to you than to someone who opened their doors a few decades before or after you. And with the rate the world and digital landscape are changing these days, marketing will certainly continue to evolve to keep up with changes in society.

Two types of marketing

Generally speaking, though, you can break marketing down into two distinct categories:

  • Traditional
  • Digital

Depending on your business and target market, you might prefer to use one category over the other. This is definitely an option, but it’s worth considering combining both in your marketing strategy.

Both traditional and digital forms of marketing have their place, and each comes with its share of pros and cons.

Traditional marketing

Traditional tactics — like PR, direct mail, or live events — can support a startup’s credibility in niche verticals. But they’re often slower, harder to measure, and more expensive.

Traditional marketing services include:

TV

Print

Billboards

Direct Mail

Radio

Conferences / trade shows

Public Relations

Traditional marketing tactics are usually more expensive than digital marketing, which can make them less accessible for smaller businesses. For those companies with larger budgets, a successful TV ad campaign can, for example, make your brand into a household name.

Digital marketing

As you might imagine, digital marketing involves any marketing activities that use the power of the internet to communicate to target customers.

Digital marketing services include:

Content Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Social Media Advertising

Social Media Management

Website Development

With 5 billion active social media users in the world in 2024, it’s clear that digital marketing is reaching more people than ever. Digital tactics are often much more cost-effective than traditional marketing, making them an important part of a modern marketing strategy for any business.

Marketing FAQs

Our marketing agency gets a lot of questions from small business owners who are considering implementing a new marketing strategy or updating their existing processes. We understand that sometimes you just want your questions answered, so we’ve compiled some of the most common ones. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions not answered here.

There was a time when your customer only had one or two options. Today, they have hundreds and in a digital world, they’ll never choose you if they don’t know you exist.

The playing field is global, and founders can’t afford to assume great products speak for themselves. Without marketing, even the best solution becomes invisible.

No matter how solid your business plan or that you have unique products or services, you won’t be in business very long if you don’t focus on marketing for your small business. As any digital marketing agency will tell you, leads aren’t just gonna show up on your doorstep.

Your competitors are out there:

  • Increasing brand awareness by targeting specific buyer personas
  • Growing a loyal following
  • Establishing themselves as industry experts

It’s wishful thinking to assume that potential customers will magically find you without any effort on your part to let them know you exist.

If you want to attract leads, retain users, and build trust with investors, you need a strong, modern startup marketing strategy, not just campaigns, but conversion-driven systems.

A marketing strategy is a blueprint for your business goals and tactics.

You can think of a marketing strategy as a blueprint that lays out your business goals and the tactics you plan to use to achieve them. If you work with a digital marketing agency, they might want to brainstorm with you to get a clear idea of your:

The more information your marketing consultant has, the better able they’ll be to develop a comprehensive strategy that takes your business from where it is to where you want it to be.

One of the main mistakes our marketing agency sees founders make is failing to develop a clear, measurable go-to-market strategy. The result? Scattered messaging, low ROI, wasted spend and missed funding opportunities.

Marketing for small businesses works by connecting the business with target markets that are most likely to appreciate the business’s offerings. In short, marketing:

  • Lets your targeted audience know that your business exists: using a combination of SEO tactics, content marketing, paid ads, and social media campaigns
  • Gets this audience interested in your products or services: by demonstrating why you’re the right business for them (based on things like your unique value proposition or brand authority)
  • Helps you convert interested leads into paid customers: targeted persona-based marketing focuses on attracting your ideal customers – not appealing to the masses who may or may not be the right fit for your offerings
  • Builds brand loyalty: Reminds returning customers why they love your company, so they have a reason to return over and over – and encourage their network to do the same

Top marketing agencies can help you build a marketing strategy that focuses on every aspect of the marketing process, from getting your name out there to increasing sales conversions and building a loyal customer base.

Effective marketing strategies for a small business

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy that will work for every business. For example, a small hand-made stationery shop will probably not be targeting the same market as Hallmark and will therefore need to tweak their tactics accordingly.

However, there are a few things that effective marketing strategies for a small business have in common, whether they’re a locally-owned shop in the US, or an online company with customers spread around the globe:

  • Brand clarity: It’s hard to tell potential customers why they should choose your business if you’re unclear about what makes you different. The first step to a successful marketing strategy is uncovering your “why“.
  • Target market clarity: Once you understand your business’s unique selling point, you’re ready to narrow down your target market, so you’re not wasting your marketing budget on people who aren’t the right fit for what you offer.
  • Use of diverse marketing tactics: Successful marketing for small business combines brand and target audience clarity with a variety of marketing tactics that will best deliver the brand’s message to prospective customers. Tactics might include:

Don’t feel like you need to develop the perfect marketing strategy overnight. The more time you take in the beginning to build a strong marketing foundation, the better results you get. An experienced marketing consultant can help you set up your strategy as well as provide guidance for tweaking it for optimal performance as time goes on.

Marketing for small businesses is about more than winning short-term sales. It’s about establishing a lasting relationship with your target audience and developing a loyal customer base.

The more established you are in your niche or sector, the more people will come to regard your brand as an industry authority. Once people see you as the expert, they won’t even think about going to the competition.

Find a marketing agency that knows how to make use of persona-based marketing, and focus on the people most likely to appreciate what you do instead of spending thousands on generic campaigns that appeal to no one.

The more your audience feels connected to your brand, the more likely they are to give you repeat business. Customers who love your brand are also likely to tell others about you, effectively giving you free advertising.

Working with a digital marketing consultant may cost a bit up front, but it will have a lasting, positive impact on your business. Digital marketing can increase sales, boost your company reputation, and make your brand a household name.

3 stages of digital marketing.

And remember – there are three main stages of digital marketing:

  • Initial set up and execution
  • Analysis and review
  • Refinement and updates

While we advise working with an experienced digital marketing agency for the setup, there are plenty of aspects of the maintenance that you can handle on your own, like updating existing content to keep your SEO rankings fresh.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with getting help from a marketing consultant or marketing agencies with your upkeep as well; it’s just a matter of your specific needs and preferences.

Most businesses nowadays use digital marketing because it’s far more effective and economical than traditional advertising methods like newspaper ads and billboards.

Digital Marketing Strategies

A digital marketing strategy might include:

  • SEO
  • Pay Per Click (PPC)
  • Email campaigns
  • Social media ads
  • Content creation

Digital marketing can take your business from where it is to where you want it to be, but it takes planning and consistency. Most small businesses and startups can benefit from hiring an experienced brand marketing consulting firm to show them the ropes, and guide them along as they develop and tweak their strategy.

No matter how strong your brand is or how impressive your offerings are, it won’t do you any good unless you have a strong digital marketing strategy in place to put your products or services in front of consumers. That’s where a marketing agency comes in.

If you have questions about marketing for your small business, our firm, one of the experienced marketing agencies would be happy to help.

Our marketing consultant services will not only help you develop and initiate an effective marketing strategy to grow your small business, but we’ll also teach you everything you need to know along the way so you can take control of your marketing plan whenever you like. Contact Take the Stairs now to set up a free discovery meeting.

Let’s Build a Marketing Plan That Scales With Your Startup

Our tailored marketing packages are built to match your stage, your goals, and your growth strategy whether you’re pre-launch, gaining traction, or fundraising.

Each package includes clear deliverables, transparent pricing, and a strategy rooted in your unique brand and audience. No fluff. Just what moves the needle.

Let’s find the right package for your startup. Schedule a Discovery with Take the Stairs today.

Ready to start climbing?

Take control of your business strategy by setting a discovery meeting with Take the Stairs right now.

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