Are you pre-product, post-product, pre-revenue, or funded (pre-seed, series A)? Depending on the stage of your startup, you may have different needs and priorities. Accordingly, you’ll need to set up clearly your business goals and find a marketing partner that suits you.
Speaking of which, we made a list of the top startup marketing agencies.
1. GrowthRocks
GrowthRocks is a growth hacking marketing agency that helps startups and well-established companies to achieve rapid and sustainable growth. It is headquartered in London with worldwide partners from India and Finland to the US and Greece.
One of the top startup marketing agencies, GrowthRocks also has a thing for education and training. Accordingly, it has created several academies and courses throughout the years. SEO Academy, Content Marketing Academy, Growth Hacking Academy, and now AI for Marketing and AI for Hospitality are the most notable ones.
And what’s more, GrowthRocks’ CEO, Theo Moulos, himself accepts free 30′ consulting calls, when he is not teaching at NYU or GHU. Book him here.
2. GrowthGirls
GrowthGirls is a startup marketing agency by women for women. The ranks of GrowthGirls are taken up by women and the agency itself mostly works with brands that are also run by women. The motto of GrowthGirls is “The truth is in the numbers” which gives away their data-driven approach in anything they do.
GrowthGirls also specializes in the US market through a wide range of services, including social selling, social media strategy, and performance marketing. Some of the clients the agency has worked for and is still working with include the Sundance Film Festival, Lana Bank, and Oh app.
Would you like to book a free call with GrowthGirls’ CEO, Effie Bersoux? Book a slot here.
3. Elysian Fields
As exited marketing agency founders, Venture Partners, and VC Investment Committee members, they understand the metrics investors are looking for in founders and they know that hitting funding milestones comes down to creating an Unfair Advantage for any company. They see this as a structured way of working that combines a powerful value proposition coupled with marketing operations to deliver sustained marketing testing and growth.
So they help customers treat marketing as engineering, with every insight validated and your CAC/LTV ratio below competitors. This process greatly stacks the funding odds in the customer’s favor.
Would you like to book a free call with Elysianfields’ Executive, Noah Bergman? Book a slot here.
4. Growth Division
Growth Division specializes in scaling pre-seed and seed-stage startups. Over the last five years, they have worked with over 100 different startups, helping them grow. Growth Division is founded on the principle of using channel-level experts to execute. They have a community of 80 vetted, high-quality freelance experts they call upon to build custom growth teams for startups based on their needs.
Having founded and scaled a startup of their own, the founders of Growth Division understand the need for flexibility in the early stages of growing a business. They are strictly against the idea of hiring a generalist marketer, their approach is to hire freelance, proven experts to put in place quick wins and best practices.
5. LaunchSquad
As stated in their manifesto, LaunchSquad is “an eclectic community of people producing amazing work for clients we love.” The agency works with startups as well as with bigger companies and brands. Regardless, LaunchSquad has the DNA of a startup as they are flexible, quick, and produce high-quality results at a fast pace
Furthermore, a number of case studies from working with companies like Coursera and iHeart Radio, testimonials, and practical results, highlight the top-quality services of this agency. Besides having a roster of big clients to showcase, Launchsquad was recently named one of PRWeek’s Best Places to Work and one of Inc.’s 5,000 fastest-growing privately held companies for the past years.
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6. Odysseus Arms
With the motto ” Someone has your market share, let’s go out and get it,” this startup marketing agency uses freelance creatives and specialists to create a stellar team for any one of its projects. As a tech-oriented firm, Odysseus Arms has partnered with some of the largest tech companies like Facebook, Kodak, and Microsoft.
The agency has many impressive case studies to show like the Asana rebranding or the historic OUYA Kickstarter campaign, which raised $8.5 million (almost nine times their goal of $950,000). Also, there’s a case study about how the gaming platform OUYA turned to O-Arms to invigorate conversation about their product among hardcore gamers.
7. Wallaroo
Wallaroo Media is a social advertising and digital marketing agency based in Provo, Utah. They can help clients from their launch to their full scale-up, as their services include development, design, and marketing. Their specialization is eCommerce brands.
Wallaroo pairs members of their team with members of their clients so they can work together. Since 2012, Wallaroo has worked with brands like Gatorade, Disney, and NBA. Overall, this startup marketing agency has a big of experience in managing projects, growing brands, and bringing results.
8. Inbound Labs
Inbound Labs is about building a product and making it a market success story. Having partnered with some of the world’s best companies, nonprofits, startups, and incubators, Inbound Labs has gained experience in growing businesses. The agency covers a wide range of digital marketing needs. In this fashion, it makes high-converting web websites and landing pages and builds website integrations as well. It also provides both PPC and SEO services.
The team of Inbound Labs consists of 50 agents, including strategists, engineers, and creatives, located in 10 different countries, led by a handful of serial entrepreneurs. Inbound Labs focuses on helping businesses grow, and they have done so for more than 200 companies.
9. Creative Agency Secrets
Headquartered in New Zealand, Creative Agency Secrets works with local and international brands. Using a variety of marketing tactics that all aim to grow a business, the firm “unlocks marketing success for you using robust, proven techniques that only a wealth of experience can deliver”.
Besides providing their expert services as an agency, they also have training programs. These programs are tailor-made for your startup and include intensive courses on marketing and business development. In other words, you can choose if you want to get an expert’s coaching session or get work done by the expert himself. Last but not least, Creative Agency Secrets excels at B2B marketing and content marketing in the form of podcasts.
10. Kexino
Kexino is a French team of marketing, creative, and business development specialists. Their goal is to help start-ups and small businesses produce better, more relevant marketing strategies and tactics. Kexino specializes in services for startups and small-to-medium-sized companies. What they do best is offering a range of integrated marketing services because they believe that’s what companies need today, according to the firm.
With an inspiring blog full of tips and tricks on marketing tactics and business development, Kexino creates an entrusted environment for a startup to grow. The startup marketing agency combines branding, communication, design, SEO, social media, and CRO, with a range of inbound and outbound marketing initiatives.
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11.SeeResponse
Are you looking to grow in the B2B industry? This is one of the startup marketing agencies that have great expertise in B2B marketing, along with SaaS Marketing and Lead Generation. SeeResponse is a full-service B2B marketing agency with offices in the US, the UK, and India. Some of their services include Marketing automation & demand generation, sales operations & CRM support, as well as UI/UX design & development.
Even if your budget doesn’t allow for a full outsourcing of your marketing activities, SeeResponse also gives you a second option. According to that, if you are looking for a partner solely for execution, SeeResponse could be that partner and let you pull the strategy strings. Last but not least, the agency has won a few awards, such as ‘Best SEO Experts in Washington DC’, and ‘Top Email Marketing Agencies’.
12. Abz Creative Partners
Abz Creative Partners hates the word “vendor” and sees itself more as a partner. They take pride in their creative endeavors and emphasize data-driven results. Their mission is to help brands realize their potential, grow their customer business, and solve their communication challenges – all within their budget.
This startup marketing agency offers its services in 6 categories: Marketing Strategy, Branding, Digital Marketing, Advertising & Design, Photography & Video, and Corporate Communications. From SEO and content to video production and PR, the agency offers a plethora of services.
13. Write 2 Market
Founded in 2006, Write 2 Market brands itself as a “tech public relations firm”. It comes as no surprise that public relations and content marketing are at the heart of this startup marketing agency. Reaching a national audience through conference speaking is another strong point of the firm.
What’s more, the agency has built its own methodology, called ‘Triple-A Industry Leadership Methodology®’. According to this method, the three A’s stand for Access, Awareness, and Awards, and are the pillars that will help you share your story on recognized media, attract top people from your industry, and, ultimately, generate more leads.
14.The Modern Agency
The Modern Agency is one of the newest startup marketing agencies. Founded in 2017, the self-proclaimed ‘creative agency for the modern age’ offers its branding and marketing services for start-ups that are looking to grow. The firm puts a big emphasis on design and aesthetics. Its team is made not only of marketers and developers, but photographers, retouchers, and illustrators, too.
In the company’s portfolio, you will find some of its latest collaborations. One of them was with Maddox Quirke, a premier furnishings retailer, for which The Modern Agency made a fully responsive eCommerce website, launched its marketing campaigns, and also did SEO. The boutique serviced office space in central, 47 Dean Street, is another case in which the firm shaped the brand identity of its client, as well as reshaped the whole interior.
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Top Startup Marketing Agencies – Epilogue
Finding the most suitable partner and establishing a fruitful relationship is up to you!
When 9 out of 10 startups fail, you know how hard it can get.
Always do your homework before you talk with any of these startup marketing agencies. Prepare a basic plan including your goals (what you want to achieve). You need to be determined to change your mindset. For example –
- Do you know what your goals are, or should be?
- Are you ready to split your time 50-50 between product development and getting traction?
- Do you have at least one person in your team committed to growth?
Similar to startup marketing agencies, you can also think about working with a startup consulting firm.
If your startup is in the SaaS industry, you can also consider working with a SaaS marketing agency.
Regardless, it would be a good idea to follow these 6 steps before hiring a consultant.
Either way, set clear expectations and decide what’s the right agency for you.
Theodore has 20 years of experience running successful and profitable software products. In his free time, he coaches and consults startups. His career includes managerial posts for companies in the UK and abroad, and he has significant skills in intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship.
10 Responses
There are some great options in there. To be honest tho, you are going to be paying 5k-10k/month with any of those agencies at a minimum. I have been using an agency called SNOBmarketing.com and they have been awesome. Their full social media content creation and management package is $500/month. I’d give them a try if you budgets are tighter.
Thanks man. We will write shortly a new article about lower cost agencies
condensed.io is also a great agency, we only work with startups, and come up with solutions that work with tight budgets! check us out Vicky !!!!
Very great post. I simply stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your weblog posts. After all, I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I am hoping you write again very soon. Thanks for sharing.
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Have you heard about this one arising agency: tuskventures.com/about/ Has quite famous partnerships.
Hey Mike, thanks for the heads up!
I like this Article.
Thank you for sharing list of startup marketing agencies for this year 2021. Happy New Year, Theodore!
I just came across this article, as am looking for a modern, flexible and aggressive marketing agency specialized in the fields of startups, AI and SaaS technologies and B2B (and B2B2C) markets…Any suggestion would be appreciated.