How to Effectively Grow a Startup

Listen On:

Podcast Content

In this podcast episode on Marketing Mistakes, Hamlet Azarian, CEO and Founder of Azarian Growth Agency, speaks with Stacy Jones about the best SEO strategies and growth hacks for startups. Hamlet has a wealth of experience in growing startups and uses his marketing, technical, and operational skills to help companies of all sizes achieve long-term scalable growth.

How can one create authority with valuable content and relevant backlinks? What’s the secret of scaling effectively? And how can data help a startup’s growth?

Hamlet explains the significance of data in a startup’s growth and how it can help inform the go-to-market strategy. Hamlet suggests creating valuable content, acquiring relevant backlinks, and partnering with influential websites to build authority and scale effectively.

During the episode, Hamlet shares his experience in growing startups and the strategies he uses to increase monthly traffic through SEO. He emphasizes the importance of targeting the right audience and understanding their intent.

Hamlet shares his approach to working with early-stage startups, which involves humanizing the process and product, creating customer personas and profiles, understanding the problem, and finding the right audience.

Finally, Hamlet offers three valuable advice for startups looking to grow efficiently. He emphasizes the importance of not being afraid to create content, even if it’s not perfect, and the significance of finding mutually beneficial partnerships.

Ready to boost your startup’s growth? Listen to this must-hear podcast featuring expert insights from Hamlet Azarian. Discover the secrets to effective SEO strategies, the role of data in scaling, and valuable advice for founders. Tune in now and elevate your business to new heights.

From Merchandising to Digital Marketing: Hamlet’s Journey The Power of Psychographics in Marketing Helping Startups Find Their Market Building Scalable Marketing Strategies Key Takeaways for Founders Final Thoughts

What We Discussed

Transition to Digital Marketing: Hamlet shares how he transitioned from merchandising to digital marketing, combining customer psychology skills with emerging digital tools to help startups grow.
The Importance of Psychographics: Hamlet highlights why creating content without purpose is a mistake and stresses the importance of solving audience pain points and providing value.
Helping Startups Define Their Audience: Many startups fail to understand their target market. Hamlet explains how his team helps startups identify pain points, run micro-experiments, and refine their offerings based on real customer insights.
Building Customer Personas: Steps for creating detailed personas, testing assumptions with real people, and refining messaging and channels to effectively reach the target audience.
Developing Scalable Marketing Strategies: The balance between paid media (e.g., Google Ads, Facebook Ads) and organic efforts (e.g., SEO, content marketing) to build long-term growth.
The Pillar-and-Spoke Strategy: How to structure content in clusters around a central topic to increase SEO value and provide comprehensive answers to audience questions.
SEO Best Practices: A breakdown of on-site, technical, and off-site SEO strategies that build a strong foundation for search engine visibility.

From Merchandising to Digital Marketing: Hamlet’s Journey

Hamlet Azarian began his career at Saks Fifth Avenue as a merchandiser, where he developed a deep understanding of customer psychology and buying behavior.

However, recognizing the increasing importance of digital marketing, he decided to pivot his career. Leaving a prestigious job in New York, Hamlet transitioned into the emerging world of digital marketing, bringing his customer-centric approach with him.

In the early days of digital marketing, Hamlet and his team worked with startups to help them identify their target audience and grow their businesses.

This combination of traditional merchandising insights and innovative marketing strategies became the foundation of Hamlet’s expertise in understanding and meeting customer needs.

The Power of Psychographics in Marketing

Hamlet highlights a key mistake businesses make: creating content just for the sake of it. Instead of churning out content without purpose, Hamlet emphasizes the need to focus on psychographics—understanding why your audience behaves the way they do, their motivations, and their pain points.

Key Insight: Content should always aim to solve a problem, teach something valuable, or guide your audience toward a solution. When you focus on creating meaningful content, you build trust and engagement over time.

Helping Startups Find Their Market

Many startups fail to clearly identify their target audience. Instead, they focus solely on selling and scaling without understanding who they are marketing to or what problems they are solving.

Hamlet breaks down his process for helping startups create a more focused and effective marketing approach:

Step Back and Learn from the Market: Hamlet advises startups to pause and take a step back to identify the pain points they are trying to solve. Without this clarity, marketing efforts will feel scattered and ineffective.
Run Micro-Experiments: Start with small, low-budget experiments, such as running ads, creating short-form content, or engaging in conversations with potential customers. These experiments help businesses gain real insights into customer behavior and refine their messaging.
Iterate Based on Insights: Hamlet notes that 99% of the time, a startup’s initial idea evolves based on market feedback. This process leads to a better product or service that truly meets the needs of its audience.

Steps to Identifying and Reaching Your Ideal Customers

Hamlet shares the steps his team takes to help startups develop customer-centric marketing strategies:

Understand Your Customer: Develop a detailed understanding of your target audience, their challenges, and their goals.
Build Customer Personas: Create detailed profiles that represent your ideal customers, including demographics, behaviors, and preferences.
Validate Personas with Real People: Find real individuals who match your customer personas and test whether your assumptions hold true.
Refine Messaging and Channels: Use insights from customer validation to determine where to reach your audience (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Google) and which messaging resonates most.
Focus on Cost-Effective Strategies: The ultimate goal is to connect with your ideal audience at the lowest possible cost while maximizing results.

Building Scalable Marketing Strategies

Hamlet explains how to build scalable marketing strategies by balancing paid and organic approaches:

Paid Media: Utilize platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and YouTube to quickly reach your target audience. Paid media allows for testing and optimizing messaging, offers, and targeting.
Organic Content Marketing: Invest in SEO and content creation to build a long-term presence. Hamlet stresses the importance of humanizing your brand and addressing your audience’s pain points through valuable content.

Content Marketing: Patience is Key

Hamlet emphasizes the need for patience when it comes to content marketing. While the impact may not be immediate, every piece of content you create contributes to long-term growth. Over time, this accumulation builds brand authority and drives consistent traffic.

3 Key Areas of SEO:

On-Site SEO: Focus on search intent and creating content that directly addresses the questions your audience is asking.
Technical SEO: Ensure your website is optimized for speed, mobile-friendliness, and functionality.
Off-Site SEO: Build relationships with relevant sites, blogs, and influencers to generate backlinks and improve your domain authority.

The Pillar-and-Spoke Content Strategy

Hamlet discusses the importance of structuring your content in clusters around a central topic (pillar content). This approach ensures that your content is interconnected and provides a comprehensive resource for your audience.

How It Works: Start with a broad, in-depth piece of pillar content (e.g., “The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing”), and link it to supporting blog posts that dive into specific subtopics (e.g., “5 Best Email Subject Line Tips” or “How to Segment Your Email List”).
Why It Matters: Google now prioritizes content that delivers real value and matches user intent, rather than keyword-stuffed articles. Providing clear, meaningful answers to your audience’s questions improves rankings and builds trust.

Final Tips from Hamlet Azarian

Hamlet leaves listeners with actionable advice for building a successful marketing strategy:

Don’t Strive for Perfection: Too many people hesitate to publish content because they fear it isn’t perfect. Just start creating—Google rewards consistent, valuable content over time.
Focus on What You’re Good At: Identify your strengths, whether it’s paid media, content marketing, or SEO, and hire experts to handle the rest.
Understand Your Customer Personas: Spend time researching and validating your customer personas. Listen to what the market tells you and adapt your approach accordingly.
Have a Solid Foundation: Ensure your website, content, and backend systems are optimized to support your growth.

Key Takeaways for Founders

Start with Customer Insights: Understanding your audience’s pain points and motivations is the foundation of any successful marketing strategy.
Use Micro-Experiments to Learn: Start small, test ideas, and use real-world feedback to refine your approach.
Prioritize Content Marketing: Commit to creating valuable, audience-focused content consistently—it’s a long-term investment that pays off.
Adopt a Data-Driven Mindset: Let data guide your decisions, from defining personas to optimizing ad campaigns.
Be Patient and Persistent: Growth takes time. Stay committed to experimenting, learning, and adapting as you scale your business.

Final Thoughts

Success in marketing isn’t about chasing perfection or trendy tactics; it’s about deeply understanding your audience and creating strategies that address their needs.

By combining patience, creativity, and a willingness to learn from your experiments, you can build a scalable marketing engine that drives long-term growth.

Don’t be afraid to start small, and remember, every step you take brings you closer to achieving your goals.