What Marketing Tactics Startups Wish They Could Implement

The available technology creates constantly changing digital trends – some that can significantly benefit the business of a startup. New tools that gather analytics data, manage social media presence and help to engage consumers are up for use, as long as you have the means to do so. These entrepreneurs share their thoughts on the popular business marketing tools they wish they had to time to use or focus on more at their own companies.

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

We asked: Which digital trend do you wish you had the bandwidth to implement in your own business marketing efforts?

1. New case studies

New case studies have come out from organizations showing how Twitter has fundamentally changed the way big media reaches its consumer base. While Promoted Trends are way too expensive for most small businesses, we can't help but wish our service could have one. The idea that online dialogue about a service could instantaneously generate demand is an idea any marketer loves.

— Michael Costigan | Youth Leadership Specialist

2. Social Media Analytics

We are just at the start of improving the way we use advanced data analytics on social media. Right now, it involves a pretty high amount of manual work, but I'm looking forward to having more tools that provide advanced analytics on social media activity, as there is so much ROI that is locked up and unknown/uncertain. It's coming, but it's not quite mainstream yet.

— Eric Koester | Zaarly

3. Social Media Auto Management

With so many social media tools available, there are many ways to increase marketing. We launched our mobile music application, Tunebash, recently, and it has been doing amazing. We had a huge user base develop overnight in Italy. Using social media and APIs, we can double or triple it by creating auto responders. If I had the budget, we could do so much more. It's all about aggregation.

— Joseph Ricard | Tunebash Inc

4. A/B Testing

If I had the bandwidth, I’d take the time to hire and sit with an analytics/optimization person who could scientifically break down our online marketing efforts. Split testing for conversion rates and open rates and analyzing all the data behind our landing pages should probably be our next big investment.

— Matt Wilson | Under30Media

5. Integration Among Tools

With enough time and the right APIs, we could write programs that would allow all of our tools to talk to each other. There would be much less duplicated effort in adding information to new tools, and we could also push our marketing efforts to a wider audience. But, even if you have the programming skills to set up good integration, you've got to have a lot of time to make it work.

— Thursday Bram | Hyper Modern Consulting

6. Big Data

We have collected a ton of user data, but we don’t yet have the systems in place to get the logic out of it quickly. We mine it occasionally, but I wish we could do it more in real time so we could see trends quickly and react to them. We are almost at the point where we can have someone take on that role, and I am convinced it will be really valuable.

— Jim Belosic | ShortStack/Pancake Labs

7. Videos

I keep trying to get a video produced about things I am interested in -- a video that explains an awesome idea via a kickass whiteboard video -- but my production department is always full. I never get what I want. If I ever get some time with production, the first two videos will be about Elon Musk and his plans to go to Mars and Sheryl Sandberg and her plans to get more women around the table.

— Andrew Angus | Switch Video