In this fast-moving, ever-evolving business world, it is becoming a challenging task for new-born companies to grow and get a hold of the market. When your company deals with or sells artificial intelligence (AI), the challenge becomes huge. Every year, a significant number of startups are getting established and with that, the competition is also becoming tough. And the reality is that not every startup will grow to become a huge company — some will even struggle at the nascent stage as well.
And the ones who succeed in this race of becoming a core AI company, they are not only technologically strong but also smart and creative when it’s about getting the hold of the market. Talking about marketing, there is no definite budget to it — it all depends on the points the company wants to touch. However, in general, a company from the technology industry spends about 10% of the funds on marketing.
Here are some of the tips every new-born AI company should consider when they are trying to grow in the hyped-up AI market.
Be An Example Rather Than A Claim
Just because you want to appear relevant in the industry, do not invoke AI your marketing strategy. Market yourself as an AI company only when you actually know AI and you are experienced enough to show its use cases and deliver the best-of-breed AI products.
When you are in the domain of Artificial Intelligence, you can never have a casual approach to your AI innovations. When you are saying you are an AI-powered company, you have to have a proven record of how your offerings are leveraging AI.
Customer Testimonials
This is one of the prime things when its about marketing a company. But when you are a startup and haven’t got a lot of traction in the industry, how would you manage to get customer testimonials? One of the best ways is to reach out to potential clients or customers and ask them to use your AI offering and let you know how well or bad it works.
You cannot expect to mint money from your offerings right from the get-go — you have to let clients use it and let you know whether your offering actually does what it claims. Also, be prepared for negative feedback as well.
Have Transparency
Marketing in this era is not just about words and banners and flyers, you have to show how you work and how your offerings are making the best use of AI. Be transparent to your consumers — giving a look under the hood to consumers would help you form a strong connection with your consumers as they wouldn’t be left out with any confusion about your company’s technology.
Educate
Artificial intelligence might not be a new concept, however, there are a significant amount of individuals and firms that are not aware of the wonders that this sought after tech can do. And to make the most of this scenario, your startup can take a step ahead by educating those same people.
The best ways to do that is by conducting meetups, seminars, webinars and conferences. You can always conduct tech talks at your firm and invite folks from other industries to attend. It would not only help them understand AI but would also help you in forming a strong bond with those folks who could be your potential clients.
Another thing you can do is to reach out to colleges and schools and conduct seminars there. By doing so, you would be able to make students understand how technology is and how the industry is seeking AI like never before. This would open doors for you to hire the next AI engineer for your firm.
Show Them Money
One of the major reasons why a client would opt for your offering would definitely be ROI. When you market your AI to the world, make sure you talk about profit — not just talk, show them how your AI offering is better than others and how it would help them make the amount of profit they are looking to make. Accept it or not, profit does talk loud.
Make The Best Use Of Demo As Well As Beta Versions
It is considered to be a good practice to always have a demo version ready every time you for marketing. A startup should always invest both capital and talent on the demo as it would be playing a crucial role in generating leads.
Also, the beta version of your offering should also be made available for clients and users. It would not only help you deal with bugs and flaws but also drive a sense of trustworthiness among your clients and consumers that their feedback matters.
Use Cases
The reason behind this point being at the end is that it takes time to gain traction. And you would be able to show use cases only when you successfully complete a project a client. This method of marketing could be used at the next level when you plan to expand your offerings to other industries. Use cases are proof that your services have done wonders for others and are capable of solving pain-points of others.
