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What Measures do VCs Take to Manage the Financial Metrics of Their Portfolio Start-ups

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By Sujata Sangwan

Human resources and marketing are the two areas where the majority of companies spend the most of their money. The proactive strategy taken by VCs entails close collaboration with their portfolio firms to thoughtfully plan and get ready for these critical areas well in advance, ensuring they are well-equipped to handle possible obstacles.

Highs and lows are unavoidable since markets are always changing. To assist the company’s founders in overcoming any unique difficulties that may arise, the investors keep in close contact with them. The founders also continue to engage with and seek assistance from their investors’ extensive networks, which span numerous nations and industries.

Based on a structure they hope will keep businesses honest throughout all phases of the start-up lifecycle and help them through challenging times by prioritising important areas of emphasis, VCs have continued to work alongside their portfolio in light of recent events over the previous 12 months.

Here are a few steps that venture capitalists have taken to control the financial parameters, including burn and runaway, of the firms in their portfolio.

Closely works with founders

3one4 Capital works with its founders to plan and actively manage financial metrics including burn and runway. According to Nruthya Madappa, Partner, 3one4 Capital, “These are critical aspects we help them monitor and gain control over on an ongoing basis regardless of the macro scenario.”

The VC firm drives continuous, collaborative financial planning across its portfolio, to explore and capture cost optimisation and business model efficiencies to help founders make their companies more resilient.

Encourages concentrating on core businesses

Kae Capital asks that its portfolio companies aggressively concentrate on their key competencies and start reducing costs in non-core competencies where there is no significant PMF (Product Market Fit). In some circumstances, “we suggest that they search for bridge rounds as well,” according to Kae Capital Partner Gaurav Chaturvedi.

Vishesh Rajaram, Managing Partner of Speciale Invest, continued, “Startups occasionally might have to let go of their employees as well. We advise founders to spend all of their remaining funds only on endeavours that advance technology and company, which will lower risk, boost chances of success, and help them raise additional money.”

Run a special program and connect with the right partners

Inflection Point Ventures has set up unique initiatives like a ‘Lets Grow Start-up’ program for deep engagement with 4-5 identified experts from various domains who work closely with its portfolio companies advising on strategy and have a regular check on burn and runway.

Apart from the cash conservation and management exercise on a case-to-case basis, “we do assist companies in connecting to right partners (like other VCs, RBF companies) for intermediate financing arrangements,” stated Ankur Mittal, Co founder, Inflection Point Ventures.

Look for a M&A target

During these times, in addition to locating funding sources, cost reduction and—most importantly—standing by the founders when things become rough could mean the difference between success and failure. “Our portfolio management team gets involved when it becomes crucial for the start-up to hunt for an M&A target to sustain or increase shareholder value. Several of our companies, including Supr Daily, Belita, and AHA Taxis, have been acquired throughout the years, giving investors an exit,” as per Lead Angels Founder and CEO Sushanto Mitra.

Recommend being creative, freezing new experiments, & prioritising profitability

According to BEENEXT, it keeps in close contact with its founders to assist them in overcoming any unique difficulties that may emerge. “For instance, we advise being creative to lessen the burn if the firm has less than 18 months of runway and is still attempting to identify its Product Market Fit. Prepare for a hard reset with just the core staff and be ready for the worst-case scenario,” advised Chinmaya Saxena, Partner – Community Strategy, BEENEXT.

But if the start-up has already achieved Product Market Fit and has a longer runway than 18 months, the priority should be finding new funding as quickly as possible. “We advise doubling down on the primary product’s monetisation while halting any new experiments and hires. Additionally, it is essential for these start-ups to provide a clear route to profitability, perhaps by securing longer revenue contracts or subscriptions,” Sexena said.

On the other hand, if start-ups have less than 18 months of runway but have not found their Product Market Fit, efforts need to be on low-cost Product Market Fit discovery by reducing burn and preserving runway for as long as possible. “If the start-up has achieved Product Market Fit and has more than 18 months of runway, then they need to prioritize profitability over growth by doubling down on channels that are working well and cutting down on low ROI experiments,” emphasised Saxena.

Feature Image Credit: Freepik

By Sujata Sangwan

Sujata is an engineering graduate and has done her Post Graduation in Human Resource Management. She has a deep interest in startups, venture capitalists & technology. She can be reached at [email protected].

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

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Is the Barbie movie a bold step to reinvent and fix past wrongs or a clever ploy to tap a new market?

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After a months-long marketing blitz, the much-hyped Barbie movie is released this week.

From a Malibu Barbie dreamhouse listed on AirBnB, an AI tool that transforms selfies into Barbie movie posters and multiple Barbie-themed brand collaborations ranging from nail polish to roller skates, Barbie is everywhere.

She has even gone viral as a fashion trend known as Barbiecore, exploding across social media with people embracing vibrant pink hues and hyper feminine aesthetics. A Barbie world is upon us.

Although some have criticised this saturation strategy, it is a very deliberate marketing ploy to revitalise and redefine a brand with a contested position and history.

As well as attracting adults who grew up with Barbie and are curious to see what’s changed, the reinvention is drawing in those younger fans swept up by the tsunami of marketing and merchandise.

Despite being one of the most trusted brands with a value of approximately $US700 million, Barbie has long attracted feminist criticism for fuelling outdated and problematic “plastic fantastic” sexist stereotypes and expectations.

The Barbie backlash

Only a few years back, Barbie was a brand in crisis. Sales plummeted across 2011 to 2015 against the cultural backdrop of a rise in body positivity and backlash against a doll that represented narrow ideals and an impossible beauty standard.

After all, at life-size Barbie represents a body shape held by less than 1 in 100,000 real people. In fact, she is so anatomically impossible that, if she were real, she would be unable to lift her head, store a full liver or intestines, or menstruate.

The backlash has also been in response to growing concerns about how she influences child development, particularly how and what children learn about gender. Barbie has been identified as a risk factor for thin-ideal internalisation and body dissatisfaction for young girls, encouraging motivation for a thinner shape that damages body image and self esteem.

And despite the multiple careers Barbie has held over the decades, research highlights that girls who play with Barbie believe they have fewer career options than boys. This speaks to the power of toys to reinforce gender stereotypes, roles and expectations, and how Barbie has imported narrow ideals of femininity, girlhood and womanhood into young girls’ lives.

Reinventing a long-established icon

In response to this backlash, Mattel launched a new range of Barbies in 2016 that were promoted as diverse, representing different body shapes, sizes, hair types and skin tones. This was not without criticism, with “curvy” Barbie still considered thin and dolls named in ways that drew attention foremost to their bodies.

Hot pink dresses, shirts and other Barbie-inspired clothing on display in a shop.
Barbie merchandise on sale at a clothing store in Ireland. Shutterstock

From a white, well-dressed, middle-class, girl-next-door with friends of a similar ilk, Barbie has since been marketed as a symbol of diversity and inclusion. To signify the extent of the transformation, Mattel’s executives gave this project the code name “Project Dawn”.

Mattel – like many other brands joining the “inclusivity revolution” – knew that diversity sells, and they needed to make their brand relevant for contemporary consumers.

Diversity initiatives included a line of female role model dolls, promoted as “introducing girls to remarkable women’s stories to show them you can be anything”.

Barbie was also given a voice in the form of Barbie Vlogs, where she expressed her views on issues including depression and the sorry reflex. A gender neutral collection called “creatable world” was added in 2019 to open up gender expression possibilities when playing with Barbies.

Such efforts were crucial to undoing missteps of the past, such as a “Teen Talk Barbie” that was programmed to say “Math class is tough!”, or the compulsory heterosexuality that Barbie has long advanced.

The latest step in Barbie’s transformation

Barbie the film is simply the next step in an evolution to make brand Barbie inclusive. And with a rumoured film budget of $100 million, the supporting marketing machine provides a critical opportunity to reset the Barbie narrative.

Fair skinned and dark skinned Barbies sitting in wheelchairs.
Part of the range of Barbies introduced in 2016 to promote diversity and inclusion. Shutterstock

With Greta Gerwig, acclaimed director of female-led stories such as Little Women and Lady Bird at the helm, and a diverse cast of Barbies of different races, body types, gender identities and sexual preferences, the film and its creators have sought to assure audiences of the film’s feminist leanings.

Addressing the complicated history of Barbie is crucial for audiences who grew up and played with the doll and are grappling with introducing her to the next generation of doll consumers.

Yet, Robbie Brenner, executive producer of Mattel Films, has explicitly stated that Gerwig’s Barbie is “not a feminist movie”. Indeed, the main character still represents a narrow beauty standard – tall, thin, blonde, white – with diverse characters in place to support her narrative.

Which begs the question: are these inclusion initiatives simply emblematic of diversity washing, where the language and symbolism of social justice are hijacked for corporate profit? Or do they represent a genuine effort to redress the chequered history of a brand that promotes poor body image, unrealistic ideals and rampant materialism?

What is clear is that in today’s climate where brands are increasingly rewarded for taking a stand on socio-political issues, brand Barbie’s attempts to reposition as inclusive have paid off: sales are now booming.

Seemingly, Barbie’s famous tagline that “anything is possible” has shown itself to be true.

Feature Image Credit: Ryan Gosling (left) and Margot Robbie who play Ken and Barbie in the “Barbie” movie. Shutterstock

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Sourced from The Conversation

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The Myth of Omnichannel Marketing and the Rise of the Branded Ecosystem

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By Mike White

A few years ago, you couldn’t go three sentences at an advertising conference without hearing the word “omnichannel.” The notion of omnichannel marketing went hand-in-hand with digital transformation, and promised to seamlessly integrate the consumer experience across digital and physical environments.

It was the ultimate challenge for the CMO in 2015. But since then, many of us have come to understand that omnichannel marketing is a myth. Seamlessly integrating experiences across environments, it turns out, is not exactly what humans want. What we actually want is context-dependent experiences that are customized based on channel and behaviour. And for those experiences to be personalized, but also make us feel like part of an exclusive community – all while protecting the sanctity of our data.

Enter branded ecosystems

So what’s the next iteration of omnichannel? How do you capture the touchpoints that you have with consumers, but honour that those interactions should look different depending on the moment and the environment?

Today’s best brand marketers are those that thoughtfully orchestrate interactions across an ecosystem (a collection of brand touchpoints) in ways that build sustainable and context-based relationships with audiences. In other words, being intentional about building ecosystems can foster deeper relationships across environments – from mobile devices to in-person events and immersive web experiences.

One of the best environments to create those relationships has always been in real life. The dwell time and actual engagement with in-person events consistently over-delivers compared to other areas of channel marketing and the post-pandemic landscape has shifted attention toward physical touchpoints and experiences.

Capturing this formula and experience and implementing it into bespoke ecosystems is the creative challenge of marketers today. Moreover, owned ecosystems can give advertisers first party data at a time when direct relationships with consumers is more critical than ever.

The new data landscape

When Google introduced paid search, it solidified our ad-supported internet. For a while, advertisers felt like they had hit the Holy Grail – brands had never had access to such rich and actionable data about how consumers behave.

Fast-forward to 2023, and consumers are increasingly aware of the ramifications of an internet that’s powered by ads. From political polarization to mental health crises, it turns out that exploiting our digital behaviour has serious consequences.

This has spurred a call for legislation which has been codified with Europe’s GDPR and California’s CCPA and subsequent CPRA. These pieces of legislation are largely felt to be incomplete, but they signal the beginning of a reckoning with the “surveillance capitalism” structure that’s been the bread and butter for Big Tech.

Even Google responded, vowing to rid Chrome of the third party tracking cookie by next year. This move could turn digital advertising on its head and leave advertisers and publishers scrambling for ways to meaningfully target consumers online. Meanwhile, digital ad practices have made it all the way to the US Supreme Court, with a case about the potential for algorithmic distribution to lead to violence.

In light of heightened sensitivity to data privacy, in addition to emerging technologies like generative AI that threaten to use data in more invasive ways, the major consulting firms point to trust as a key focus area for consumers.

What does this mean for brands? Traditional digital ad targeting is on the decline, and a premium is placed on direct relationships between brand and consumer. Put another way, first party data is the new Holy Grail in the advertising ecosystem and the brands without a first party data strategy are at risk of becoming obsolete.

Experiential media

Advertisers pairing back investments in social media and programmatic advertising are likely to point to brand safety concerns and budget cuts as a reason to moderate display ad spend. As social media content becomes more extreme and polarizing, and targeting becomes less certain, brands forced to rethink their digital ad allocations are looking at where display advertising is most effective in their customer journey.

What they’re learning is that display advertising, at least with respect to conversion and ROI, may be more lucrative in theory. In The Subprime Attention Crisis by Tim Hwang, Hwang paints a picture of an advertising ecosystem built on a house of cards, rife with fraud and falsely attributed ad conversions.

Faced with budget cuts, an uncertain economy and a precarious tech industry and supply chain, advertisers need to identify media buys that are sure to provide a return on investment while authentically engaging with and providing value to real audiences. It turns out, the road to ROI is to own the supply.

Investing in building owned ecosystems is one way to have unmitigated access to data that’s not corrupted by advertising fraud like bots or beholden to the walled gardens of Big Tech. We call this type of media buy “experiential media,” and it’s attracting advertisers for good reason.

Creating an owned infrastructure for meaningful touch points with brand ambassadors has several perks. Ensuring accurate and transparent relationships with consumer data enables a brand to personalize without overstepping privacy bounds. Moreover, owning the media channel eliminates a large percentage of ad spend that’s traditionally spent on fraud at a time when marketing leaders need to be more agile with their approach to brand-building. The media channels that will earn spend focus on advertising that leads directly to conversion and increased lifetime value of the consumer.

Moving fans through the ecosystem

In short, experiential media understands that brand experiences are far more than data points. It captures an understanding of how to build a brand across all landscapes simultaneously while fortifying relationships into increased lifetime value of the consumer through reciprocal exchange of value.

It’s different from omnichannel marketing, in that it activates a customer base through meaningful campaigns, and leverages the power of different channels for different events while capturing data transparently and mindfully to serve and delight members of the ecosystem.

Here’s how it works: brands orchestrate touch points across platforms in the ecosystem, from display advertising and earned media to digital and in-person events. Touch points serve as an entry point into a platform of brand-managed exclusive experiences that enhance relationships and move customers from a transactional piece of data to a complex individual in an enriching and engaging community.

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that integration and collaboration is a must and real human relationships matter. Advertisers that are thoughtful about the integration across channels through experiential media spend will be the brand leaders in the new age of advertising.

Feature Image Credit: TTstudio

By Mike White

Mike White has been a leader in the brand experience industry for 25 years. His agency, Lively Worldwide, is leading the charge for the future to be hybrid. The agency was launched in 2017 to champion Live Marketing, which Mike describes as the sweet spot between physical and digital where they create engaging campaigns for brands. Mike has created immersive, interactive, and entertaining experiences for Spotify, Ericsson, Twitter, Virgin, Mazda, and The Guardian, making him one of the leading figures in the world of hybrid activity. Mike is a hybrid and virtual strategist, live marketing leader, speaker, and influencer.

Sourced from Brandingmag

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5 Mistakes Business-to-Business CEOs Make in Marketing

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By Samuel Thimothy

As an industry expert who’s had the privilege of advising hundreds, if not thousands, of B2B CEOs over my career, I often notice recurring misconceptions about marketing. There is a common belief among companies that their unique problems can’t be solved with conventional tactics. Some excuses are all too frequent and they’re simply not true.

It’s important to keep in mind that any business (big or small) today has access to powerful digital strategies, which can really give them the edge. In this article, I want to talk about the most frequent marketing mistakes in more detail so you know how best to utilize your resources for success and achieve the best return on your investment.

Mistake 1: Looking at Marketing as a Cost Centre Rather than a Profit Centre

One common mistake B2B CEOs make is investing in their marketing based on the allocated budget rather than the lifetime value of a customer. While it’s easy to estimate the profit from hiring another sales representative, you can’t estimate immediate ROI by trying a different marketing strategy. You need to monitor progress and tweak it all the time based on the reaction of your audience. Also, what works for your competitors will not necessarily work for you. And what worked for you once might get zero results the next time you do it. In a sense, marketing is a combination of creativity and psychology. That’s why adjusting your efforts to the budget reduces your chances for success. It should be the other way around.

Mistake 2: Treating Your Website as a Brochure with Texts and Images

We’re way past the times when people only visit your website for pretty pictures and location. Your website is a digital storefront of your business. And as your customers explore their options, they research the alternatives from cover to cover. Make no mistake: They will check your website, directories and social media. Based on their findings, they will make their buying decision, and you won’t even know. Remember that by the time your prospects reach out to our sales team, they have already completed most of their buyer’s journey.

Mistake 3: Making Future Strategic Decisions Based on the Failed Attempts

It’s smart to learn from your mistakes. However, when it comes to digital marketing, people often generalize and find faults in the wrong things. Let’s say you tried blogging for a couple of months but only wrote 300-word-long blogs while Google requires 500 to 3,000 words to have a blog ranked for keywords, would you consider blogging a mistake? Or if you started a podcast and gave up after 10 episodes, would you say podcasting doesn’t work? When you implement a strategy and it doesn’t work, make sure you identify the real reason behind the failure before you move on to something else.

Mistake 4: Being Unwilling to Share Your Knowledge With Your Customers

This is a very common concern among our B2B clients and I can understand why. When advised to share their insider information with a wider audience, many B2B CEOs and marketing leaders take it literally. They don’t want to share their insights or business processes for fear that their competitors will use them or that their prospects will solve their problems on their own. While this is a valid concern and you certainly don’t have to reveal trade secrets, we always advise looking at it from a different perspective. Your customers are trying to solve their problems. Will they find advice from you or from your competitors?

Mistake 5: Undervaluing the Brand Equity

Many business leaders underestimate the value of a brand and hardly ever consider it as a measuring rod for why they should invest in digital marketing. However, even if you don’t get enough leads in the process, you’re still building your brand. With a well-established brand name, you can create long-term customer relationships as well as higher profits and ROI over time. Once your brand is really known for something positive, it can stand out in a crowded marketplace and differentiate itself from the competition.

When it comes to B2B digital marketing, some misconceptions can damage your success if not addressed correctly. It is crucial to take a more thoughtful approach, utilizing powerful digital strategies and avoiding common mistakes. With a strategic approach and understanding of the target audience, your company can find success in the digital world.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Samuel Thimothy

VP at OneIMS.com, an inbound marketing agency, and co-founder of Clickx.io, the digital marketing intelligence platform.

Sourced from Inc.

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‘The perfect marketing tool’: marketers on the resurgence and future of the QR code

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By Sam Anderson

We ask a bumper crop of marketers from The Drum Network why the humble QR code it still enjoying its long renaissance, and where the tech will head next.

Packaging, payment, a gateway to augmented reality worlds, and a star of the organized response to the Covid-19 pandemic: the QR code has emerged as the little technology that could. But, deep down, is it all just a gimmick? Is it living on borrowed time? Or is there more growth on the horizon?

Here, leaders from The Drum Network tell us why that relatively low-fi tech has become quietly indispensable to advertisers despite being almost 30 years old, and what tricks it’s still got up its blocky sleeve.

Alessandro Camaioni, UK strategy director, Momentum Worldwide: “February 2022. The humble QR code, mocked for a decade as a useless gimmick, was rescued by turning into an unlikely metaphor for social distancing, eventually surging as the most popular and talked about ad of Superbowl LVI.

“Was that the peak of QR fever? No. As one of the most democratic forms of smartphone technology, it will only become more ubiquitous in line with universal smartphone adoption.

“QR code payments alone are projected to grow from $8bn (2020) to $35bn (2030).

“Behavioral science can explain why QRs are the perfect marketing tool. Visual, immediate, able to offer a kick of instant gratification and reward our curiosity: QRs cut through the noise in a way no other medium can (until AR contact lenses enter our lives).”

Jim Hare, digital creative director, Bulletproof: “Over-communicating the ‘reason to scan’ remains the key challenge – otherwise all content stays hidden. People are happy to scan if the execution is novel enough. Cygames’ drone show, forming a QR in the Shanghai night sky, is a spectacular example.

“But, like anything that takes effort to engage with, QR codes are only as effective as the payoff they provide. Ritual driving is where we’re headed now. Codes that recognize how many times they’ve been scanned and serve up new, sequenced content, provide people with a fresh reason to retain and revisit QRs. Repeated scans form habits and therefore give the tech a longer, more meaningful lifespan – brilliant for brands seeking to drive ritual building or instructive learning.”

Yahye Siyad, diversity & accessibility lead, Cyber-Duck: “As someone with a serious visual impairment, if QR codes (as typically used today) died out tomorrow, almost nothing would be lost in terms of my engagement with brands. Blind people simply don’t know they’re there unless we’re told, and they mostly link off to sites incompatible with screenreaders. For people with motor control impairments, it’s hard to hold a phone (and the object the QR code is on), and scan it. And taking people who’re deaf to audio descriptions or videos without captions is a dead end.

“It wouldn’t take much to rethink this to deliver brilliant, inclusive brand experiences. QR alternatives like NaviLens can be used at long distances, scanning the environment. Near-field communication (NFC) integration could directly ‘ping’ a disabled user’s device via assistive technology rather than having to scan.

“QRs should lead to a choice of accessible content. Without this type of inclusive design thinking, any brilliant potential QR use cases are simply beside the point.”

Del Credle, head of strategy & media, Laundry Service: “Having lived in China, where QR codes are part of daily life, I’ve seen their potential. I used them multiple times a day: buying groceries, exchanging personal details, renting bicycles, opening doors, and paying bills.

“They are not yet being fully realized here in the US. And, while there are endless implications for marketers, the meaningful opportunities lie in their potential for e-commerce and to ease our use of technology in everyday living. We should push to integrate them natively first in our social ads and organic posts.”

Feature Image Credit: Toa Heftiba via Unsplash

By Sam Anderson

Sourced from The Drum

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How To Use E-Books And White Papers As Lead Magnets For Your Marketing Campaigns

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By Vikas Agrawal

A lead magnet is a free resource or deal offered by marketers to customers in exchange for their contact information. They are a tool for capturing leads and building a list of interested prospects. Lead magnets can take the form of e-books, white papers, webinars, free trials and more. By offering lead magnets, businesses can attract and engage with potential customers, ultimately increasing the likelihood of converting them into paying customers. In fact, businesses with a mature lead generation process acquire more leads and are said to generate, on average, 133% more revenue.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the other benefits of using lead magnets and discuss how you can use lead magnets—particularly e-books and white papers—in your own marketing efforts.

The Benefits Of Using Lead Magnets In Campaigns

There are many benefits to using lead magnets. They can help you:

Attract a target audience. When lead magnets provide value to the target audience, it can incentivize them to exchange their contact information, effectively attracting and capturing leads.

Build relationships. Lead magnets can help you establish trust and build relationships with the target audience.

Increase engagement. Lead magnets encourage potential customers to engage with the business’s content, increasing the likelihood of them becoming paying customers.

Qualify leads. Lead magnets help businesses determine the level of interest and engagement of potential customers, enabling them to prioritize and qualify leads.

Establish thought leadership. By offering informative content, businesses can establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry.

Boost brand awareness. Lead magnets increase brand awareness by promoting the business’s products or services to a larger audience.

Provide valuable insights. Lead magnets offer valuable insights into the target audience’s needs and interests, enabling businesses to tailor their lead-generation campaigns and marketing efforts.

Utilizing E-books And White Papers As Lead Magnets

E-books are comprehensive, educational content that can provide valuable information on a specific topic related to the business’s industry. They can be a guide, tutorial or case study and can be used to educate potential customers on the benefits of the business’s products or services. Moreover, my company surveyed marketers and 55.9% said that e-book samples generate the highest conversion rate in short-form written content.

Follow these steps to create and promote an effective e-book:

Identify the target audience. Start by identifying the target audience for the e-book and their needs and interests. This will help you create an e-book that is relevant and valuable to them.

Choose a topic. You want to be strategic and choose a topic related to the business’s industry.

Plan (and write) the content. Outline the introduction, main sections and conclusion before you start writing. Ensure the content is informative, educational and relevant to the target audience.

Design the e-book. Use design elements such as images, graphics and headings to make the e-book visually appealing and easy to read.

Publish the e-book. Publish it in a format that is easily accessible, such as a PDF.

Promote the e-book. Promote the e-book through a variety of channels, including email marketing, social media, advertising and landing pages on your website.

Measure the results. Measure the e-book lead magnet campaign results by tracking the number of downloads and conversions. Use the insights gained to improve future campaigns.

Unlike e-books, white papers are in-depth, research-based content that provides insights and solutions to specific problems related to the business’s industry. They often demonstrate the business’s thought leadership and expertise in a particular area. You can often use the same process and strategy above for a white paper, and by offering white papers as lead magnets, you can further establish yourself as an expert in your field and provide valuable information to potential customers.

Best Practices For Using E-books And White Papers As Lead Magnets

There are several strategies for promoting and distributing lead magnets to your target audience. Here’s how:

Choose the right channels. Carefully research the channels through which you will promote and distribute the lead magnet, making sure the channels align with the target audience’s preferences and behaviors.

Offer the lead magnet on landing pages. Create landing pages on your website specifically for the lead magnet and offer it in exchange for the target audience’s contact information.

Use email marketing. Promote the lead magnet to your existing email list and encourage them to share it with their network.

Utilize social media and influencer marketing. Use social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to promote the lead magnet to the target audience. You can also partner with influencers in your industry to promote the lead magnet to their audience.

Offer the lead magnet through webinars. Offer the lead magnet as a resource during webinars or other events to encourage attendees to download it.

Utilize paid advertising. Use paid advertising, such as Google AdWords or Facebook Ads, to reach a larger audience and drive traffic to the landing pages for the lead magnet.

Monitor and adjust. Monitor the results of the lead magnet promotion and distribution strategies and adjust as necessary to improve the effectiveness of the campaign.

In conclusion, with the use of e-books and whitepapers, businesses can establish thought leadership, boost brand awareness and increase conversions by offering valuable and relevant content, delivered in a thoughtful, targeted manner.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Vikas Agrawal

Co-founder at Infobrandz, an elite team of visual communication experts taking content marketing to the next level.

Sourced from Forbes

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This marketing skill is in high demand—and can pay as much as $125/hour

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By Gili Malinsky

When it comes to marketing, many ― likely most ― companies are going digital.

“Businesses want to meet customers where they are, and that’s often online,” says Margaret Lilani, vice president of talent solutions at freelancer platform Upwork. As a result, she says, for anyone looking for freelance work or a side hustle, digital marketing skills “are going to be highly sought after.”

These include social media marketing, email marketing and lead generation. They also include search engine optimization, or SEO. Experts on Upwork offering this type of marketing charge as much as $125 per hour.

Here’s what SEO is, exactly, and how to get started.

‘Search engine optimization is paramount if you want to be found’

Search engine optimization is the process of ensuring your website gets picked up in organic searches, say, if someone is looking for the kind of products you sell or the kind of content you cover. Imagine doing a search for French fries, snowboarding or Donna Summer on Google. SEO helps sites show up closer to the top of the list Google shows you that aren’t ads.

Experts in search engines like Google and Bing study tactics to ensure the platform considers your site a go-to on whatever you’re offering. They’ll make sure it includes relevant keywords, links and content, among other tactics.

“Search engine optimization is paramount if you want to be found when people are doing online searches,” says Yolanda Owens, career expert at The Muse, adding that it’s “increasingly becoming more and more valuable.” And employers are on the hunt for experts in the field.

A search for SEO jobs on ZipRecruiter results in more than 14,000 open roles, both part and full-time.

‘You spend all this time and all this money building your site’

How does one become an expert in SEO? There are various courses and certifications available online, including from search engines like Google itself. Colleges and universities offer courses as well. These range from free to as much as $1,000 each, so do your research before signing up to make sure you’re taking the best course for you.

Once you’ve learned the basics, the best way to build that knowledge base is by getting some on-the-ground experience. Create profiles on sites like Fiverr and Upwork and start picking up gigs on sites like ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn and Monster. The more experience you accrue, the more valuable you’ll become as an expert and the more you’ll ultimately be able to charge.

As long as search engines are a key way in which people find what they’re looking for, the skill likely won’t go away. “You spend all this time and all this money building your site,” says Lilani of companies’ attitudes, “if nobody can find it, again, why did you do that?”

Feature Image Credit: Envato Elements

By Gili Malinsky

Sourced from CNBC make it

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Why Brands Failed to Deliver on Welcome Emails

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By Chad S. White

Here’s what happened after I signed up for over 100 promotional emails. There were some surprises.

The Gist

  • Forget something? Testing out 100 email signups, more than 8% of brands didn’t send a welcome email, missing a valuable opportunity to deepen the relationship with their new subscribers through promotions, education, profiling, expansion or evangelism.
  • Send a series. Nearly half of brands sent a welcome series, with subsequent emails including reminders to use discounts, explanations of brand strengths, pitches for loyalty programs, encouragements to download mobile apps or behind-the-scenes looks at their organizations.
  • Welcoming fails. Some brands missed the mark by using senseless or overly corporate sender names in their welcome emails, while others failed to seasonally optimize or personalize their messages, or had quality control problems.

I shared takeaways from having signed up for promotional emails from 100 brands in my last column, so for this one I want to share what happened next: I received a lot of welcome emails!

But that’s not to say there weren’t some surprises. There were. Here are my key takeaways and the major opportunities I see for brands when it comes to crafting better onboarding experiences.

1. Shocking Number of Brands Didn’t Send a Welcome

More than 8% of the brands didn’t send a welcome email. Instead, they just dropped me into their promotional mail stream. Not only is that slightly jarring, it passes up a big opportunity to deepen the relationship in a way that your promotional emails just can’t.

Here are the five principle messaging strategies for welcome email calls-to-action:

  1. Promotion: trying to drive a purchase through incentives or product promotions.
  2. Education: trying to deepen brand affinity and loyalty by educating the new subscriber about your brand’s history, products, services, values and social causes.
  3. Profiling: trying to to gather more information about the new subscriber so the brand can send more relevant messaging.
  4. Expansion: trying to get the new subscriber to connect with the brand through additional channels.
  5. Evangelism: trying to get the new subscriber to refer their friends or colleagues.

For most of those, messaging them immediately after signup is the ideal time to drive action and establish a healthy long-term relationship.

2. Nearly Half of Brands Sent a Welcome Series

In contrast to brands that didn’t send even one welcome email were those at the other end of the spectrum that sent a welcome series of two, three or even more emails.

What were the subsequent emails in those welcome series about? Brands included:

  • Reminders to use the discount they included in their first welcome, which was very common for retail and ecommerce brands.
  • Explanations of their brand strengths in terms of what’s unique about their products and how they do business, which was popular among direct-to-consumer brands.
  • Pitches to join their loyalty programs, which was also common for retail and ecommerce brands.
  • Encouragements to download their mobile app.
  • Behind-the-scenes looks at their organizations, which was most common among service-oriented brands.

Surprisingly, none tried to collect any preferences from me or profile me in any way using polls, surveys or quizzes. That’s a missed opportunity, as that kind of zero-party data can power personalization and segmentation during a time in the relationship when there’s little to no first-party data yet.

But the bigger opportunity here is that if you’re only sending a single welcome email, consider testing ways to expand it into a series.

3. Sender Names Could Have Been Better

For some brands, their welcome emails felt like they were sent by a different department or marketing group because of the sender names they used. For example, some brands had senselessly different sender names from the one used for their promotional emails, adding “Inc.,” “Company,” and “USA” to the end of the brand names for only their welcome emails. It made their welcome emails appear unnecessarily corporate and stiff.

That’s not to say that there aren’t opportunities to extend your sender name with purpose. Extending your sender name for your triggered emails, in particular, helps them stand out — not only from your other emails, but from all the other emails in your subscribers’ inboxes. Yet, only two of the brands I received welcome emails from extended their sender name. One used “BrandName Welcome” and the other “BrandName | Welcome.”

If you’re not currently extending your from name for your welcome emails, consider testing it and seeing how much of a lift you get. Adding an extension like “Welcome” is a sensible place to start.

Again, avoid overly corporate-sounding extensions. For example, some other welcome emails I received used sender name formats such as “BrandName Account,” “BrandName Account Services,” and even longer “BrandName Account Member Services.” Another used “BrandName E-mail Subscriptions,” with the dated hyphenation of email. While all of those are descriptive and accurate, they’re not particularly friendly sounding. They seem like they were written by lawyers, not marketers.

4. And There Were Smaller Opportunities to Improve, Too

In addition to those three big areas for improvement, brands sent welcome emails that…

  • Weren’t seasonally relevant. Only one brand seasonally optimized its welcome email, adding in imagery and content to match the season in which I signed up.
  • Rarely used emoji in their subject lines. 😢 Only 13% of brands used emoji in any of their welcome email subject lines. That seems a bit low, given their usage in promotional emails.
  • Included little personalization. Many brands required my name when I signed up, but few used it. For example, only 3% of brands used it in the subject lines of their welcome emails. First-name personalization isn’t great personalization, but if you ask for my name, use it.
  • Had quality control problems. One brand’s welcome email was sent twice, and another’s contained multiple broken images (but thankfully lots of HTML text, too). Not a good look.

Final Thoughts on Welcome Emails

Your welcome email — like all of your automations — are living campaigns. They need regular care and attention.

In fact, this goes double for your welcome emails since they are pivotal to making a good first impression and setting the tone for the emails that follow. If you haven’t reviewed your welcome emails lately, sign up for your email program with fresh eyes and see what improvements you can make or test.

By Chad S. White

Chad S. White is the author of Email Marketing Rules and Head of Research for Oracle Marketing Consulting, a global full-service digital marketing agency inside of Oracle.

Sourced from CMSWire

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7 Marketing Strategies to Accelerate Your Business

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By Kaloyan Gospodinov

These strategies will help you win and position yourself and your company in the best way this year.

A marketing strategy is the “plan identifying what marketing goals and objectives will be pursued to sell a particular product or product line and how these objectives will be achieved in the time available.” Keep in mind that you need to consider the following three pillars in your marketing strategy plan before execution:

  1. Core audience demographics
  2. Pricing and marketing budget
  3. Business goals

The following seven marketing strategies are vital for connecting with your target audience, achieving your marketing goals by promoting products and services, increasing brand awareness and engaging with your target audience through various channels.

1. Email marketing

Email marketing is an old concept that will be very relevant in 2023. Having lists of targeted audiences with a differentiated email structure for each can provide you with a great and “cheap” way to showcase the developments in your company and sell your products.

Here are three examples that you can implement in your email marketing. The first one is to increase your email interactivity. People are used to social media and the engagement they can give when reading or viewing content. Add videos, sliders, games and carousels of images that people can swipe.

The second one is the use of storytelling in your email copy. People are looking to connect to a brand’s values, and one of the best ways to do that is to tell your brand’s story. Tell them your origin story, show your personality, the company’s culture and team. Use videos, quotes and memes to build a relationship with your subscribers.

The last one is personalization. Personalization in the email body can improve your open rate by 13% and can increase the clickthrough rate by 28% while reducing the bounce rate by 18%.

Email is still thriving as you control how you approach your audience based on your marketing objectives without the need to comply with rules imposed by the platform you use.

2. Social media marketing

Social media marketing is here to stay, and we need to find the right platform for us to create content, connect with our audience and show our expertise or products. This will be dictated by your target demographics and where they spend the most time at.

It is also important to note that Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) companies will have specific platforms that can be used for their business model. For example, LinkedIn for B2B and TikTok for B2C. Remember that your audience can move to a different platform down the line.

One thing that you can integrate into your social media marketing strategy is to think of ways to incorporate user-generated content. This can be in the form of reviews, unboxing, tutorials, and product reviews. According to Stackla, 88% of consumers specify authenticity and relatability as crucial decision drivers to complete in-app purchases and increase their brand engagement.

The most important thing is to use your authentic voice and showcase the people in your company and their expertise, values and personalities.

3. Public relations (PR)

Another old-fashioned concept that still has a place in your marketing toolbox, especially in 2023. PR is relevant and can help you increase awareness around a milestone you’ve achieved or a product/ initiative you are launching. Media mentions will also help you with the SEO of your website/ brand name and how you rank in searches as you get authoritative websites mentioning your company.

According to Statista, the PR industry is expected to be worth $129 billion by 2025 or an increase of 68% from 2020, worth $88 billion.

4. SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a must-do strategy in 2023. SEO aims to increase the searchability of your brand name and specific keywords relating to your offers while helping you grow traffic and sales.

Organic SEO can help you rank your content for specific keywords. I recommend learning how to do the basics of SEO in your content and focusing initially on long-tail keywords, as it will be easier for you to rank.

The main pillar in your SEO strategy should be creating high-quality content and targeting your customers’ needs and questions engagingly while targeting keyword phrases. Create evergreen content that will help customers understand your company and products better.

SEO can be integrated with paid ads so your articles can show on top of the search results.

5. Influencer marketing

Collaboration with influencers can help you scale your business in a short period by increasing your brand awareness and reputation. The key here is to research and get numerous quotes from different influencers so you can decide on the best deal.

I’d say that it’s not always beneficial to go for the biggest names in a particular niche, as your business might not be prepared for that growth. A better strategy will be to find smaller accounts with a more engaged audience so both parties can grow simultaneously and be more sustainable.

One growing trend in influencer marketing is live stream shopping, which means that potential customers can buy products through a live video. Influencers can showcase products, give opinions and answer questions from their followers about the product they are presenting. Instagram introduced Live Shopping in September 2022, which allows users to purchase products from Instagram Live directly, so expect this to be prioritized on the platform in 2023.

6. Virtual events

Virtual events are here to stay, especially after the last couple of years when travel was almost non-existent. Showing your expertise and value through online events can help you increase your brand awareness and reach. The list of attendees can be reused and segmented in your email communication, which will benefit your company in the long run.

Another strategy is to attract experts in the industry you are operating in and create an event where they talk about various subjects related to your company. The event videos can also be reused on social media in long and short-form videos.

7. Video marketing

The most important strategy in the last few years is video marketing. Closely related to hosting virtual events, video marketing can help you present your company from various perspectives.

People from your company can have topics they are working on and record video presentations for the world to see. Behind-the-scenes and company events can showcase the human side of your team, and the sky is the limit regarding creative ways to create video content.

Authenticity here is key as your willingness to open up in front of the camera so people can connect with who you are and what your company stands for.

Short vertical video content will be one of the biggest trends in video marketing in 2023. According to Zippia, 85% of U.S. adults own a smartphone as of 2022, and on average, Americans spend 5 hours and 24 minutes on their mobile devices daily. As vertical video content can take more real estate on a device and people are using TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, you need to focus your time and creativity to investigate that type of video content.

The world is moving towards personal branding, and video is one, if not the best, way to open up to your audience.

Win with marketing in 2023

To summarise, test and see what works for you and your company. Do not focus and do all the strategies mentioned here simultaneously — experiment with what resonates with you as a personality and your business niche. Adapt and develop the best marketing mix for your desired outcome that will help you win in 2023.

By Kaloyan Gospodinov

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor. CEO and Founder at Aezir. Kaloyan is an entrepreneur with global experience. Past successes include 1m+ app downloads, six figures from Amazon FBA, and managing a million-dollar crypto project. Currently, he advises Swiss biotech and runs a London marketing agency. His motivation is helping people pursue their dreams.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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Marketing Trends You Should Not Ignore When Crafting Your 2023 Marketing Plan

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By Roshni Wijayasinha

In an ever-changing landscape, today’s marketers are required to stay on their toes. As technologies advance and business conditions shift, so do the components that make up an effective marketing strategy. This is especially important for startup founders, who consistently need to find creative ways to market their innovative products. Despite operating on a limited budget, startups can indeed execute successful marketing strategies and campaigns by leveraging trending tactics while remaining up to date on evolving sociopolitical and legal changes that impact marketers.

As a fractional CMO at a number of growing startups, I too must stay on top of the constant evolution of the marketing space, strategies, tactics and tools to provide accurate and timely marketing guidance. Here are four of the most powerful marketing trends I have come across that you should consider when you’re developing your startup’s marketing plan in 2023.

1. Data Privacy And User Centricity

The last two years brought about major changes to the way user data is collected and used. These changes were driven by increased government legislation; consumer mistrust and an extreme level of competition in the technology industry may also have contributed. Consumers seem to be more aware and outspoken than ever about who is collecting their data, how it is being used and what rights they should have to protect it. From the death of third-party cookies to Apple making significant changes to its privacy features, the management of big data is becoming rapidly more user-centric. Companies are handing power back to the user and letting them control how much data they are willing to share. I think this trend is only going to continue through 2023.

These changes could impact your startup’s marketing strategy, as marketers must now meet consumers’ high expectations when it comes to safeguarding their data. You should cultivate trust among your customers by being transparent, such as by including easily accessible privacy policies and terms and conditions on your website. And without third-party cookies to rely on, your startup may have to target consumers differently, without using their specific data. For example, you might do so contextually. Additionally, consider incentivizing your consumers by offering them a discount or promo code in exchange for their email address or phone number, and always provide an option to opt out. This way, you are connecting with consumers who feel that they are gaining something in return for their data.

2. Podcasts And Audio Advertising

According to Statista, “the number of podcast listeners [could] surpass 160 million in 2023 after increases of around 20 million each year.” The versatility of podcasts makes them a great opportunity for marketers in that consumers can be reached anywhere at any time about virtually any topic. In the case of startups, you can use podcasts to showcase the innovations and solutions you provide, which can help position your brand as a thought leader in the industry. Consider starting your own podcast or have your startup’s founder be a guest on a podcast with an established following.

Audio advertisements in podcasts also flourished this year, and I expect this to continue into 2023. A study by Signal Hill Insights and Cumulus Podcast Network found that three out of four weekly podcast listeners say they have taken action after hearing a podcast ad. Podcast listeners can enjoy a seamless listening experience when the host integrates ads into the show instead of using prerecorded audio ads that do not fit in and disrupt the content. Podcast advertising can be an effective tactic in your startup’s marketing strategy, as it can raise awareness among your target consumers, especially if you run ads on podcasts with topics that are closely related to your product.

3. Augmented And Virtual Reality Experiences

The Covid-19 pandemic’s acceleration of all things virtual caused businesses to invest in innovative technologies that would help them weather the storm. When physical stores were forced to close, many brands developed augmented reality experiences so that consumers could get the in-store feeling at home. For example, Burberry’s Pocket Bag AR campaign in 2021 allowed consumers to design and view their own 3D handbag sculptures based on Burberry’s new campaign. In years to come, I expect that AR and VR technologies will only become more integrated into marketing campaigns as consumers signal that they want unique experiences and interactions with the brands they love.

AR and VR experiences can provide a space for startups to flex their creative muscles and do what they do best: innovate. From virtual try-ons to wearable NFTs, there are plenty of ways to incorporate augmented reality into your marketing strategy. While it can be expensive, startups may also be able to find more affordable options.

4. Purpose-Driven Marketing

While purpose-driven marketing is not a new strategy, it seems to have become more prevalent in recent years in response to consumers’ interest in social causes. Purpose-driven marketing involves centering your organization’s marketing and communications efforts around a social cause. This strategy not only humanizes businesses but can also help consumers foster a deeper connection with the brands they use and trust. There are copious examples of purpose-driven marketing from small and large brands alike, but one of the most famous is that of the footwear brand TOMS and its “One for One” model that donated a pair of shoes to someone in need for every pair it sold. Supporting a social cause through your startup’s marketing strategy is a great way to build consumer trust and brand loyalty, especially when the cause is something closely related to your startup’s core values.

Staying up to date on marketing trends in your respective industry can help you understand what channels and tactics are in demand. By applying this knowledge to your marketing plan, you can ensure that it is timely and relevant and allow your marketing communications to reach their target audience exactly how and when they need to. Startups working with limited resources can start by implementing one or two of the above trending tactics to strengthen their 2023 marketing plan.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Roshni Wijayasinha

Founder of Prosh Marketing, a Fractional CMO & Marketing Agency that helps Startups & SMBs build their marketing practice and go to market. Read Roshni Wijayasinha’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

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