Your Olympics-Inspired Playbook for Startup Marketing Gold

Bonjour! Now that the 2024 Olympic Games are underway in Paris, we couldn’t resist mixing in a little bit of fun with our startup marketing advice. After all, startup marketing and sports aren’t all that different; they both require lots of strength and agility. So grab a croissant and a café au lait, and snag some insights from our industry’s version of the Summer Olympics:

1. The Email Marketing 100 Meters

The world’s best sprinters wow everyone in mere seconds, and the same can be said for the very best emails. Quick, targeted bursts of communication — think very concise, highly-compelling subject lines, preheaders, and body copy — are the only way to generate the engagement you so desperately need to guide leads down the funnel. Force your email recipients to scroll and scroll through every send, and you’ll end up with unsubscribes, lower open rates, and miniscule click rates.

2. The SEO 10,000 Meters 

Winning SEO gold requires endurance and consistent effort because, as much as we would like them to, Google doesn’t change its rankings on a dime. It can take months to rank for your highest-priority keywords — and that’s assuming you’re combining technical SEO optimizations with an SEO content strategy that includes glossaries, pillars, and clusters. Unlike our sprinters above, flying out of the starting blocks without a long-term strategy will tire you out long before the race is over.

3. The PPC Javelin Throw

The best PPC campaigns are all about precision targeting. Aim your ads accurately, write ad copy that’s highly-specific and offers solutions to your target audience’s pain points, create split-tests that will teach you more about what resonates best with this particular audience, and make sure all of those ad clicks send your audience to the perfect landing page. Then, once the “javelin” is out of your hand, watch its trajectory — in this case, carefully analyze critical metrics while the campaign is in flight and make optimizations as needed. That’s how you achieve ROAS gold.

4. The ABM 400 Meter Medley

Just like those Olympic swimmers, ABM success depends on your ability to combine a variety of “strokes.” Think of starting off strong in the backstroke as your research and targeting, where you identify key accounts and their specific needs. Then you switch to the breaststroke, where power and efficiency drive your 1:1 or 1:few outreach forward. After that, consider the rhythm and strength of the butterfly stroke as your nurturing phase. And finally, end with the freestyle, where speed and endurance are a must to reach the finish line of closed-won revenue before the competition.

5. The PR High Jump 

Successful PR professionals know the importance of setting high goals, getting a running start with lots of research, and finally making significant leaps to gain visibility and credibility in the market. Even better, the best PR campaigns take an ABM-like approach to media outlets that will make a gold medal-worthy impact.

6. The Content Marketing Gymnastics Floor Routine

Flipping through the air, acrobatic dance elements, sticking the landing every time — it takes creativity, skill, and some serious flair to be a great gymnast and a great content marketer. Just like those Olympic gymnasts, if the audience isn’t oohing and ahhing over your every content move, the judges in your target audience won’t give you top scores. And remember, content marketing is as big of a balancing act as gymnastics. If you rely on the same ol’ tactics and formats without ever mixing things up, you’ll never create the impact you want.

7. The Organic Social 4×100 

Team collaboration is vital for organic social media success. Your organization’s unique value must shine through on a variety of platforms, each with their own best practices. That means being in lockstep with your PR, content marketing, and product marketing teammates to ensure you’re highlighting your best and brightest updates at the right time. Just like the runners in the 4×100, if your timing or communication is off, you’ll drop the baton.

8. The Multiplier Marketing Gymnastics Team Event 

Aristotle was a huge fan of the Olympic Games so it feels fitting to use his quote here: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” That’s how it works in the gymnastics team event — you combine your team’s best individual skills to create one big score at the end. One teammate might specialize in the vault, another in the balance beam, another in the parallel bars, and they all pool those skills together for ultimate success. That’s how we view our unique Multiplier Marketing approach, where our PR, content, and digital marketing specialists all come together to create a compound impact for startups. These disciplines are strong on their own and can get you on the podium, but the true magic happens when they work in tandem. That’s when you really go for the gold!

Go behind the scenes of B2B startups that have already won big in our case studies section. From doubling marketing pipeline growth to triple-digit ad conversion increases, beating out giant competitors in share of voice, and more, you’ll be inspired by what’s possible with Olympic-caliber startup marketing strategies and tactics.