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Communicating means transmitting a message through the right channels to achieve a specific goal. Startups and SMEs can leverage digital tools, particularly AI, to increase their visibility and optimize customer acquisition costs. Regularly creating high-quality content such as webinars, in-depth articles, podcasts, and real case studies helps strengthen your visibility and credibility. Combining style, tradition, and innovation will also enhance your brand identity.
Communicating means transmitting a specific message through a chosen channel with a defined objective. When applied to a startup or SME, this principle helps refocus on the fundamentals of your value proposition and the best ways to promote your offering.
Lacking the marketing and communication budgets of large corporations, startups and SMEs must be particularly creative to reach and retain a growing number of customers.
The exponential growth of digital tools powered by AI now makes it possible to launch innovative offers at minimal costs. While scaling up requires greater resources, the key challenge remains optimizing customer acquisition cost (CAC) relative to the cumulative margin generated by each customer, also known as LTV (Lifetime Value). When « the sauce is more expensive than the fish, » with an LTV/CAC ratio close to 1, it’s likely that your value proposition lacks substance and/or that your marketing and sales efforts are ineffective.
Balancing Personalization and Costs
The diagram below summarizes the best practices for promoting an innovative offer through digital channels. While not exhaustive, it highlights the most commonly used levers by innovative startups in content creation and distribution.
When organizing these communication vectors along two axes—one measuring personalization and the other increasing costs—it becomes clear that producing high-quality content via a website or blog is a simple way to gain visibility with a growing audience. This content contributes to improving your natural search ranking, commonly known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which refers to qualitative and quantitative improvements in website traffic from search engines.
Keyword purchases and other forms of paid search marketing are excellent ways to personalize your outreach, as long as competition for certain keywords doesn’t drive prices too high. This falls under the domain of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), which enhances the ranking of your content on search engines.
In digital marketing, the most personalized but also the most expensive way to engage a prospect is to create a digital prototype of your offer using real data from that (future) client, allowing for a precise qualification of their needs.
Webinars and Case Studies
Webinars can also be an excellent way to distribute high-quality content, with multiple segments that can be used before and after the live session. The same applies to podcasts, some of which can now be generated by surprisingly advanced AI tools.
Case studies or white papers are a great way to showcase your value proposition by illustrating a use case that highlights an archetypal client, their needs, and the value your solution creates for them.
By qualifying and quantifying both « the cost of the poison and the value of the antidote » through a real-world example, you create a powerful word-of-mouth effect—still the best way to expand organically.
Combine Style, Tradition, and Innovation!
To stand out in the overwhelming flood of information your audience faces, having a well-defined editorial style is essential, allowing them to combine usefulness with enjoyment. In the same vein, and to add depth to your offering, blending tradition with innovation can be a valuable strategy. This approach reinforces your understanding of the needs you address, by positioning yourself within a historical perspective—sometimes centuries old—where you recognize key milestones and anticipate future developments.
For example, the French company MP Groupe recently changed its name to MPH1865 to capitalize on its long history. Originally founded in the 19th century to recycle textile waste for industry, the company is still run by the Miribel family 160 years later. Today, with 290 employees, the group is a leader in innovation and sustainability in its sector, developing eco-friendly hygiene solutions under the « Renovelar » brand.
Leveraging High-Quality Content for Growth
Focusing on the type of content to create, the diagram below shows that a few high-quality « source materials »—such as original articles and expert interviews—can be amplified across multiple channels and AI-powered tools. This strategy not only promotes existing offers but can also generate new digital products and services, such as books, tools, training programs, consulting, or expertise services.
By regularly creating and distributing consistent digital content in the age of AI, you will strengthen your brand identity and effectively promote your innovations to key players in your ecosystem.
Best of luck in applying these principles to your own business and using digital tools to enhance your offer’s visibility!
