If you’re planning to launch a startup company, that’s great! You’ve probably already made some plans for it, for how you will run it and probably for Marketing it. But there are some things you need to do before you launch your startup if you really want to give it a chance to succeed.

1. Contacts

Organise all your contacts into a customer relationship management system. Get contacts from Outlook, Gmail, and anyone who you’ve had contact with over the last few years. Go through them and decide who can be useful to you in what role, such as “influencer” or “press contact”. Using LinkedIn profiles can also help you get a quick view of who someone might be.

2. Webpage

Create a landing page or full website for your company for people to find you online. Make sure the landing page or website home page includes a sign-up form. This can offer them a behind-the-scenes look at your company and let them be first in line to free access to your product. Monitor your sign-ups daily. Add their emails to you contacts. Be sure to send them a “thank you” follow-up Email.

3. Social Media

Get active on social media, especially popular ones like Facebook and Twitter and start promoting. Ask your friends to follow you and start campaigns to get followers. “Like” and engage with competitors, influencers, press outlets who might cover your launch. Make sure, too, to take advantage of Linkedin and your connections there. Always include links on your landing page to your social media pages.

4. Blog

Start a blog where you can share information about your company and product before your launch. A blog is a great way to not only share information but can also help build your SEO in relation to your keywords by sharing quality informative content. Be sure to immediate share your posts to your social media pages as soon as you publish them.

5. E-mail

Once you have your email contacts list started and growing, start your email marketing campaigns. Invite them to your launch, and make it sound as personalised as possible. Send weekly emails to those interested in your launch and tease your newest blog posts in the email, and include links to the bog post.

6. List It

You need to get backlinks to your site, and a great way to do that is to get your company listed on business directories.

7. Research

Research market trends so you can understand what is going on in your area and with your customer segments so you can better reach and serve them. Also look at what your competitors are doing so you can know what’s working for them and what’s not and so you can think of ways to do what they’re doing better.

8. Tracking

Track and analyse your posts on social media and on your blog, and also website visits. Figure out where the most activity is coming from and what the most popular posts seem to be, and do more of them. Check engagement rates on Facebook and Linkedin posts to see what’s earning the most clicks, likes, and shares. Check your email marketing data to see who’s opening your emails and who’s not, and send a follow-up email to nonresponders.