Mediastreet
Tag

startups

Browsing
In News

31 Actionable Tips For Promoting Your Business On LinkedIn

No Comments

By Kandia Johnson

Whether you’re looking to establish yourself as a thought leader, recruit staff, or connect with key influencers, LinkedIn is a powerful branding tool for businesses.

Whether you’re looking to establish yourself as a thought leader, recruit staff, or connect with key influencers, LinkedIn is a powerful branding tool for businesses. And with more than 800 million members globally, there’s an incredible opportunity to expand your company’s reach.

TO MAXIMIZE ON LINKEDIN, CHECK OUT THE BUSINESS TIPS BELOW:

WeKinFolk, social media, LINKEDIN
via istock
  1. Before a presentation, update your LinkedIn profile; attendees will review it to assess your credibility.
  2. Transform a generic link to your website into a call to action, especially on company profiles.
  3. Create entries for every role you have performed within each job title. It’s OK to have overlapping dates.
  4. Share high-quality information with your network to create connections that become alliances.
  5. The ideal length for LinkedIn long-form posts is 500 to 1,200 words. Tailor the length for your audience.
  6. Skip the “How do you know this person” step. Click “Connect from search results instead of profiles.
  7. Want another user or company to see your LinkedIn status updates? Use @mentions when you post.
  8. Don’t be a wallflower. Your profile is 5x more likely to be viewed if you join and are active in groups.
  9. When introducing yourself, don’t be self-centered. Be generous, genuine, and focus on the other person.
  10. Looking for a new job on LinkedIn? Don’t let your boss know; turn off your activity broadcasts.
  11. LinkedIn users who update their profiles regularly get more job offers than peers who contact recruiters.
follow up, email, contact, birthdays, small stuff, LinkedIn, message, conversation point
(Photo: Katleho Seisa/Getty Images)
  1. Censor yourself. If you wouldn’t say it in a job interview, don’t say it in a LinkedIn group or post.
  2. Schedule time to be active on LinkedIn. Review your profile, monitor updates, and participate in discussions.
  3. Evernote and LinkedIn integrate and can organize business cards, LinkedIn info, and networking notes in one place.
  4. Use your LinkedIn profile as a sales tool. Add a short video about your company to your profile.
  5. Add value to LinkedIn groups: share visual presentations that will interest group members.
  6. Profiles with pictures are 14x more likely to be viewed. Use a professional image with a neutral background.
  7. Avoid profile buzzwords, such as creative and motivated. Minimize adjectives. Emphasize verbs.
  8. Don’t use the automated invitation message: “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”
  9. LinkedIn has found that 20 posts per month can help you reach 60% of your unique audience.
  10. The best times to post on LinkedIn are Tuesdays and Thursdays, between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. local time.
  11. Company updates with images have a 98% higher comment rate than updates without images.
social media, employees, office, guidelines, policies,
(Photo: PeopleImages/Getty Images)
  1. You are unique. Prove it. Use a creative headline instead of defaulting to your current job title.
  2. Help recruiters, prospects, and potential partners find you; use keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile.
  3. Successful LinkedIn content often provides ready-to-use takeaways in a list format.
  4. Endorse people you respect. Send a thank-you message when someone endorses you.
  5. List volunteer experience on LinkedIn; 42% of hiring managers value it as much as formal job experience.
  6. LinkedIn groups provide one of the best personal branding opportunities you have with social media.
  7. Are you struggling to fill a role in your company? Instead of hiring a recruiter, consider joining LinkedIn’s Recruiter service.
  8. Share original content; “content is now viewed six times more than jobs-related activity on LinkedIn.”
  9. Use visuals; embed SlideShare presentations and infographics into your profile and long-form posts.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Kandia Johnson

Sourced from Black Enterprise

 

Read More
By
In News

14 Marketing Mistakes Startups Often Make (And How To Fix Them)

No Comments

Sourced from Forbes

For many new entrepreneurs, one of the most exciting stages of starting a business is getting the word out to potential customers. This is the stage when you can finally start to generate interest in what you have to offer, which means more customers and more profits. However, marketing can involve a multitude of different strategies and tactics, leaving plenty of room for error and overcomplication.

Thankfully, like most things in business, marketing mistakes create a great opportunity to learn and adjust for future success. To help, 14 experts from Forbes Communications Council discuss some of the most common marketing mistakes they see a lot of startups make, as well as their recommendations for what they should be doing instead.

1. Trying To Tackle It All

The pace, the speed, the desire to “do it all”—these are the traps to be wary of as the team sets out to develop a brand or launch a product as a startup. Simply put, instead of tackling it all, take on one, two or maybe three short-term initiatives that can both drive revenue and build your brand. Stay disciplined and be willing to defend your decisions within the organization. – Blair Primis, Flagship Specialty Partners

2. Agonizing Over Their Online Presence

Startups often agonize over their online presence, taking on large web design projects, spending valuable time on logo work and delaying social media. They should invest time in developing products and services, getting the right employees and finding and supporting customers. Get started in practical ways online and upgrade over time versus going for perfection early on. – Tom Treanor, Snipp Interactive

3. Failing To Follow A Strategy Based On Research

Startups often take on random acts of marketing versus following a strategy based on research: market, buyer, competition. Further, many startups feel they can buy their way into leads and brand recognition with paid ads. But without strategy, experience and data, they will churn through the budget fast with very little quality or output to show for it. – Alison Murdock, Trusted CMO, Inc.

4. Putting More Effort Into Marketing Than The Actual Product

A pattern I’ve seen in many startups is the 80/20 mix: 80% of the budget and resources go to marketing, while 20% go to product. While this might be effective in securing early funding and a strong user base, empty hype around products with limited value and functionality will damage a young company’s credibility and diminish its potential for future growth (or acquisition). If you build it, they will come. – Nick Karoglou, ACI Worldwide

5. Rushing Toward A ‘Big Bang’ Approach

A common misstep I’ve observed is the rush toward the “big bang” approach in marketing without first understanding the battlefield. It’s like launching a spectacular fireworks display in broad daylight! The mantra should be: Observe, engage, then fire. Find out where your audience hangs out, experiment in those spaces with bite-sized, impactful messages, and then learn from the feedback and scale. – Vikas Agrawal, Infobrandz

6. Prioritizing Short-Term Gains Over Branding

Startups often prioritize short-term gains over branding. Instead, focus on defining brand identity, maintaining consistent messaging, delivering exceptional customer experiences, building trust, investing in content marketing and embracing authenticity. These aspects contribute to a strong foundation for long-term success. – Suneeta Motala, Stewards Investment Capital

7. Mistaking ‘Activity’ For ‘Strategy’

Too many marketers, especially early in their careers, mistake “activity” for “strategy.” To avoid this problem, brands need to clearly define their audience, understand the problem they solve and articulate their point of difference. Start there, and then create marketing objectives, strategies and measures from which to execute. – Dave Minifie, Terakeet

8. Focusing On The Bottom Of The Marketing Funnel

Most startups are so zeroed in on revenue that they tend to focus on the bottom of the marketing funnel. This is amplified by the fact that lower funnel marketing activities are easier to track and provide valuable data for startups. That said, startups are entering new markets with no brand awareness. Investing in brand building allows companies to broaden their pool of interest and be more efficient. – Roshni Wijayasinha, Prosh Marketing

9. Developing The Brand Before Conducting Market Research

It’s not about the logo. I’ve seen it time and time again. Many founders are too quick to spend time and/or money on developing the brand before they have invested in market research to establish the viability of their product or service, define differentiators and determine the target market among other things critical to the success of a startup. – Jen Iliff, 3X Marketing

10. Overlooking The Importance Of A Cohesive Brand Identity

Startups often fail to establish a consistent visual and messaging presence, hindering brand recognition. Instead, they should invest in creating a strong brand identity from the outset, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints. This builds trust, fosters brand loyalty and sets the foundation for successful long-term efforts. – Maria Alonso, Fortune 206

11. Assuming Media Coverage Will Generate Funding

Startups often think generating media coverage will automatically lead to funding. In reality, investors invest in founders. Startups should prioritize building founders’ market credibility and showcase their ability to scale the business. Strong leadership and a solid customer base will help make startups more attractive to investors, increasing their chances of securing funding in the long run. – Parna Sarkar-Basu, Brand and Buzz Consulting, LLC

12. Aiming To Make A ‘Big Splash’

Startups want to make a big splash and too often go for the quick hit that fizzes out. Startups need to start with a strategic plan that includes their vision and goals. From there, a marketer can develop a plan that aligns with the strategy, creating a regular cadence of brand awareness and important sales. This will help a startup last! – Kimberly Osborne, UNC Greensboro

13. Lacking Focus And A Plan

A startup has limited resources, yet founders often try to be all things to all people. Do the research, understand the market for your product, talk to customers directly for their insights and build a focused go-to-market plan. I built a GTM blueprint that includes the ideal customer profile, the company manifesto (unique selling point, messaging and more) and a comprehensive execution plan. But, above all, gain focus. – Doug Vinson, Secuvy Inc.

14. Taking The ‘Faster, Better, Cheaper’ Route

“Faster, better, cheaper” is not a strong basis for long-term competitive advantage. Startups tend to focus on launching new products and branding based on functional benefits against a narrow target market. Build competitive advantage by ensuring your brand is differentiated from your competition and incorporates emotional benefits, purpose and identity. Build your brand—not just your revenue. – Toby Wong, Toby Wong Consulting

Check out my website.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

Sourced from Forbes

Expert Panel®

Communications, PR, public affairs & media relations executives from Forbes Communications Council share firsthand insights.

Read More
By
In News

Is Celebrity Endorsement a Futile Exercise For Many Startups?

No Comments

By S Shanthi 

According to a report by TAM Media Research’s AdEx India, 27% of the overall ad volume share on TV were celebrity endorsements in 2021

Celebrities continue to dominate the endorsement space even today when digital ads have taken over print and television ads. Even though there are multiple other avenues to market a product, new-age brands, just like their legacy counterparts, also seem to be going in for celeb marketing, even if it means burning a hole in their pockets. And, within celebrity marketing, film stars still dominate the industry, followed by sportspersons and now content creators. According to a report by TAM Media Research’s AdEx India, 27% of the overall ad volume share on TV were celebrity endorsements in 2021 while the remaining 73% were non-celebrities ads.

But, do these brands get the anticipated visibility and awareness post the release of these ads? Given that, every celebrity, be it movie stars, sportspersons or content creators, is today endorsing multiple brands at one time. For instance, actor Ayushman Khurana has been the face of many brands including The Man Company, Magicbricks, Toyota Urban Cruiser, Tide, Balaji Wafers, Nestlé’s KitKat Bajaj Allianz, Samsung Galaxy and many others. Amitabh Bachchan has endorsed Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, upGrad, Flipkart, Navratna Oil, Dr. Fixit, Gujarat Tourism, Mankind, Pepsi, Rin, Ghari Detergent, Tata Sky, Cycle Agarbatti, FirstCry, Tanishq and Kalyan Jewellers. The list goes on. However, not all these advertisements have been successful in popularising the brands.

With ‘skipping ads’ a choice today, does it make sense for startups to spend so much on onboarding celebrities? If yes, what is the right time to opt for these expensive marketing techniques?

Why do brands go for celebrity endorsements?

“Celebrities and brands have had a long-standing relationship for years across geographies, categories and media. In today’s time, with the smartphone generation, breaking through the clutter and grabbing your target audience’s attention is a matter of moments. Plus, India is a trust-deficit market and so tying up with celebrities builds a certain credibility as well as helps brands stand out instantly,” said Megha H Desai, Co-founder, ENGN, an athlete representation company.

Further, if you’re entering a crowded category like fashion, beauty, snacks, etc you not only want your brand to be noticed but you also want your customer to believe this ‘new entrant’ has some gravitas, she added.

Experts feel that a celebrity association if done well, can immensely help in the initial funnel metrics of consideration, intent, etc for a startup especially.

For established brands, celeb advertisements drive trust and give them a competitive edge. For brands that are just starting out, these ads are aimed to propel brand awareness. “We look at it more as awareness. We are young and we have ambitions. We want to reach out to more people and tell them that hey, we’re doing something and you should give us a chance. But what you have to imagine is that if you want to buy a mobile phone, you talk to friends, you read all the reviews online, and then you buy. But, if you’re getting surgery, which is our core job, it is a serious business. So, marketing is not a gimmick for us. It is just a means to create awareness about the availability of a choice in front of consumers,” said Harsimarbir Singh, co-founder, Pristyn Care.

Is it worth it?

Often, in this race to stay ahead of the curve, startups end up spending a lot of money on onboarding celebrities. But more often than not, they fail to build brand recall. This is because today most categories in India, be it in any sector, have too many brands and companies.

“Any good marketing idea needs to have the right mix of relevance, authenticity and consistency. This is Marketing 101 and is non-negotiable even while deciding on spending the big bucks for a celebrity. There is no doubt that clever & creative communication done with a celebrity will help the brand build awareness and even affinity in a lot of cases. That’s an immediate, short-term return and if that’s what the marketer is looking for, then you have got a home run. The challenge comes in sustaining it beyond this short-term return – that’s where the category connects with the brand and the celebrity is important,” said Desai.

At what stage should startups look at onboarding celebrities for marketing? While there is no particular answer to that, burning cash or putting all your eggs in one bucket, to go in for celeb marketing, is not a wise thing to do either. Instead, go in for many micro-influencers, says Aman Gupta, co-founder, boAt.

“Celebrity marketing can create huge awareness for sure even if it doesn’t end up in conversion. But, today, you have the option of micro-influencers. So, instead of betting on one big celebrity who is endorsing many other products, go for micro-influencers. People in India today like the trust that comes from them,” Gupta said at the recently-concluded Retailer India’s Irec Summit 2023.

Feature Image Credit: Unsplash

By S Shanthi 

Shanthi specializes in writing sector-specific trends, interviews and startup profiles. She has worked as a feature writer for over a decade in several print and digital media companies.

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

Read More
By
In News

4 red flags startups might encounter during investor due diligence that could sink a partnership

No Comments

By Kyle Krahl

As a startup, finding and procuring funding for your business is a vital step to enable growth. Impressing potential investors is only the first step in securing funding. Passing the due diligence process is just as important as putting together a stunning pitch deck. To ensure this all-important discovery phase goes well, avoid the red flags that may cause venture capital and angel investors to back out of a potential partnership.

Eventually, startups will require more funding than friends and family can provide, funding that angel investors or venture capital firms can supply. The first step to a partnership with one of these investors is the pitch meeting to interest them in your startup. If the meeting goes well and a partnership is agreed to, the startup must still go through the due diligence process.

Unorganized or nonexistent data room

To properly prepare for the due diligence process, a good first step would be to create a data room for your startup and grant investors access. A data room is typically a virtual file room where important documents and data, such as financial documents or customer contracts, can be securely stored.

The data room can be preloaded with standard due diligence requests but can also be added to as additional requests are made. Having a preexisting data room available can speed up the due diligence process and convey a sense of organization and professionalism.

Lack of founder integrity

Trust is irreplaceable for any partnership to work, including a financial one. As such, breaking that trust between the potential investor and the founder, even in a minor way, will eliminate the possibility of an investment. Behaviors to avoid include:

  • Overstating historical results.
  • Misrepresenting the use of investor funds.
  • Misrepresenting the development progress of a product.

An investment in a startup is the start of a long-term relationship between the investor and the founder. That relationship needs to be based on trust and any display of a lack of integrity will rightly cause the investor to walk away.

A weak or misunderstood customer base

As part of their investigation, investors may also review your current client or customer base. After speaking to customers, if investors discover that customers aren’t as enthralled with the product or service as had been represented, this can suggest a lack of customer outreach or a fundamental misunderstanding of customer wants.

Similarly, a small customer base can also be a red flag for investors, particularly in cases where a single customer accounts for the majority of revenue. In both cases, this may indicate that the potential growth of the startup may be limited unless it is better able to accommodate its clients.

Issues or incompetence within the founding team

One question investors consistently ask themselves during the due diligence process: Are they coachable? Refusing to accept advice or listen to an opinion doesn’t bode well for a potential partnership. Investors often have experience some startup founders may lack and, after investing so much capital behind your business and your idea, they’d like you to succeed. Guidance, mentorship and general advice are part and parcel of a relationship with a VC or angel investor and are one of the benefits of such a relationship.

In addition to coachability, investors will assess whether the founding team is competent. There will typically be three to four areas that need to be covered: operational, technical, financial and marketing. These areas do not need to be covered by separate individuals. Often, a founder can cover two or three and the others can be covered by other founders, employees, previous investors or maybe even a mentor. Investors will often probe for competence with some standard questions, based on company type.

If the company is:

  • A manufacturer, what is the contribution margin?
  • A software company, who does the coding?
  • A subscription company, what is the monthly recurring revenue?
  • A consumer products company, what demographics are you targeting?

Failure to answer any of these questions, correctly or at all, reveals a gap in the founding team that may increase the risk of investment beyond what the investor will accept.

Other considerations

Startups raise multiple rounds of funding from multiple funding sources, so a complex cap table isn’t an aberration. However, a cap table can move from complex to messy and drive off potential investors. Investors need to understand how they will get a return on their investment. If the cap table is so complex that they can’t determine how, when or why their investment will be returned, then the cap table itself has become a risk to the investment.

Investors will also examine any intellectual property (IP) a startup relies upon. This includes verifying whether the IP is owned by the company. If it isn’t, and it’s owned by a founder, an affiliated university or another third party, they need to understand what rights and exclusive rights the startup has to that IP.

The relationship between investor and startup founder is based on trust, so it stands to reason that the most impactful red flag for potential investors is either a lack of trust or a breach of trust. No sound financial partnership can be established on inaccuracies, whether they were purposeful or not. Impressing potential investors with a pitch is just the first step, now you’ll need to show them you are a trustworthy organization.

Need guidance on next steps with your startup? Anders CPAs + Advisors works with startups and entrepreneurs on their financial needs so they can focus on what they do best. Contact an Anders advisor to discuss your goals and how we can help you achieve them.

Every day at Anders, we serve as a catalyst for those striving to achieve their highest potential and carry this mentality on to our clients and community. Through a collaborative approach and a combination of tax, audit and advisory services, we help our clients achieve their goals.

By Kyle Krahl

Kyle Krahl is a manager in forensic, valuation and litigation at Anders with more than 10 years of experience valuing businesses and performing merger and acquisition due diligence. With experience seeing all angles of the financial due diligence process, Krahl is an asset for companies throughout M&A transactions.

Sourced from ST. LOUISINNO

Read More
By
In News

How Startups Can Leverage SEO to Drive Customer Growth

No Comments

By

If you’re dumping all of your startup’s funding into paid ads, you’re missing a massive amount of SEO-driven customer growth opportunities.

In 2021, $621 billion in venture capital was deployed to startups raising funding. More than 50% of that funding went straight into ads.

The problem? People hate ads. Ad blocking technology usage has increased dramatically year over year. Even worse, 68% of online experiences start with a search on Google, Bing or another search engine. Only 6% of those searches result in an ad click.

If you’re dumping all of your startup’s funding into paid ads, you’re missing a massive amount of SEO-driven customer growth opportunities. Here are three ways to drive customer growth for your startup using SEO.

1. Publish keyword-driven content often

The key to driving organic traffic from search engines is to provide content that is genuinely helpful to readers. That all starts with identifying what readers are searching for, understanding their problems and providing information they can use to solve them.

Most startups publish random content on their website that isn’t optimized for what their target market is actually looking for. Blogging isn’t the same as it was 10 years ago. It’s not meant to be an online diary. It’s meant to target specific searches that your ideal customers are typing every single day.

Keywords are the lifeblood of SEO, as they help you understand existing and future opportunities for traffic around topics and phrases that relate to your product or service. For instance, someone searching for a do-it-yourself guide to building a bookshelf is probably going to convert on recommendations in the article for products. If it’s too complex, they may even book a contractor instead.

Creating keyword-driven content that targets your ideal customer profile is how you win in SEO. Use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to research topics that your typical customers might search. Then, create blogs and pieces of content that address those problems. Publish at least five to 10 pieces per month and you’ll start seeing traffic flood to your website.

2. Optimize your public knowledge base

Creating more new content as a startup without outsourcing can be difficult. After all, you’re already wearing too many hats at a startup and your job description grows by the day. If you run a software or tech-based startup, an easy win for SEO is optimizing your public knowledge base.

Your knowledge base contains vital information about your industry, how to use your product, and how to solve key problems in your space. For instance, maybe your software helps companies with logistics management and warehousing. Within your knowledge base, you already explain key information that can pick up organic traffic and searches. And best of all, it’s directly related to your product or service, meaning the potential to convert traffic is huge.

In your keyword research tool, plug in topics that your knowledge base already covers. See if you are missing any keywords and topics that you can expand on to go further in-depth on the content you’ve already published. On your knowledge base, make sure it’s set to index in search engines rather than being content locked away in a user portal or back-end system.

Your knowledge base shouldn’t be exclusive to customer service or users looking for support. Make it public, indexed in search engines and reap the rewards of organic traffic that are hyper-relevant to your business.

3. Generate niche digital PR coverage

Doing digital PR for your startup is critical for SEO. Digital PR includes things like getting mentioned in relevant publications online, podcasts where you share industry advice as an expert and so much more. Digital PR serves multiple purposes, and can directly enhance your SEO and ability to rank for organic search terms.

When doing digital PR initiatives like podcasts or interviews in written publications, or being an expert source for journalists, you earn a brand mention and backlink that directly improves your website’s authority. In simple terms, you can rank better organically and drive more traffic.

In addition, these efforts will build brand awareness and drive referral traffic to your site. The trap that most startups fall down is not niching down enough. PR isn’t just getting mentioned in TechCrunch and getting 30 under 30 listings.

You can also go straight to niche sources where your ideal customers hang out, consume content and connect. Start searching for “best blogs in [industry]” and “top [niche] companies.” Identify a list of 50 to 100 of these websites, media companies and startups that you can cross-promote.

Write a guest post for their blog. Feature them on your podcast and get featured on theirs. Tap into their niche relevant audience rather than going for the biggest publications you can find. You’ll get more pitches accepted and the traffic you receive will be highly relevant to your product or service.

By

Sourced from Entrepreneur

Read More
By
In News

The Emerging Challenges For E-commerce Startups In 2020

No Comments

By Ankush Mahajan.

As people are getting to know about this industry, many are striving to carve a niche for themselves

The e-commerce industry is a fast-growing sector with demand going through the roof and more people adopting this stress-free method of shopping. In 2015, the e-commerce retail sales amounted to over $340 billion and by 2019 the total sales are projected to be double that amount. This means more people are getting to know about this industry and so much more are also striving to carve a niche for themselves by opening up online retail stores. The e-commerce industry as a newcomer is bound to face certain challenges ranging from economical to technological down to the social sphere.

Here are the four major challenges faced by start-ups in the ecommerce industry.

Direct Competition with the Big Brands

The big brands are the first and one of the biggest challenges a newcomer will face in this business. Companies such as Walmart, Amazon and eBay, who are giants in the online retail sector will easily knock a start-up off the market. Statistics show that Amazon is doing better as each year passes, surpassing every other online retail store both in sales and popularity.

The solution to this particular problem will be to avoid direct competition with giants in the business, you are advised to choose a less competitive niche and grow your business one step at a time.

Managing Shipping, Delivery and Returns

Newcomers or start-ups in the e-commerce industry face a lot of challenges when it comes to a seamless flow of transactions after orders have been placed and paid for, shipping charges, on-time delivery or return policies may pose a serious threat to your business. Most shoppers also complain about the quality of products they are supplied after payment has been made, to stay in business, companies will have to go out of their way to provide their customers with the best services there is.

There are different order fulfillment models attached to the shipping of products, thorough research has to be carried out, to ascertain which suits your business the most and maximizes productivity.

Expensive Marketing and Advertisement 

With the growing competition, digital marketing and advertising is getting expensive every day. Most start-ups made the mistake of spending their entire budget on website development and ignored the marketing aspect. Before you start, all your company expenses should be documented and properly verified to ensure its necessity; you also do not want to spend too much on your Web development. You can start with free e-commerce platforms such as Quick eSelling to save your budget. Along with regular digital marketing activities, you should also try out other means to keep your customers coming back, such as rewarding customers with points which can be redeemed and used on your company; discounts too will go a long way in ensuring you keep customers coming back.

Staying Up To Date 

The trendsetters are the big brands, they are the ones who bring up innovations, create new ideas, then smaller companies have to catch up, which most times is capital intensive or just way above their reach. A new company looking to withstand the test of time in the e-commerce industry will have to do all it takes to catch up and stay up to date with the latest technological advancements such as mobile applications, multi-channel selling and automation, among others.

One of the ways to tackle this challenge will be to team up with the right technologically advanced partners who share the same vision as your new start-up company and will work equally hard to keep you up to date.

Conclusion

With all that’s been said, we all agree that challenges are bound to confront newcomers and already established companies in the e-commerce industry, but how you manage to overcome these challenges, say a lot about your competency and readiness to take on and run a business that its profit runs in millions.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock 

By Ankush Mahajan

Digital marketer & e-commerce consultant at FATbit Technologies

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

Read More
By
In News

What’s the right way to sponsor a YouTube influencer?

No Comments

By Julian Shapiro

We’ve aggregated the world’s best growth marketers into one community. Twice a month, we ask them to share their most effective growth tactics, and we compile them into this Growth Report.

This is how you’re going stay up-to-date on growth marketing tactics — with advice you can’t get elsewhere.

Our community consists of 600 startup founders paired with VP’s of growth from later-stage companies. We have 300 YC founders plus senior marketers from companies including Medium, Docker, Invision, Intuit, Pinterest, Discord, Webflow, Lambda School, Perfect Keto, Typeform, Modern Fertility, Segment, Udemy, Puma, Cameo, and Ritual.

You can participate in our community by joining Demand Curve’s marketing webinars, Slack group, or marketing training program. See past growth reports here, here and here.

Without further ado, onto the advice.

How do you sponsor YouTube influencers cost-effectively?

Based on insights from Bjarke Felbo of Rune (LinkedIn). Lightly edited with permission.

  • Influencers often expect compensation proportional to subscribers, but conversions happen proportional to views. So go after the influencers with high views and low subscribers. That’s the trick.
  • We’ve had the best success with 30-60 second promo spots at the beginning of the influencer’s video.
  • We’ve seen success depend on the video it’s attached to and what time of day/week it’s posted, so we’re strict about setting rules around that. Or, we give them a bonus based on the video’s view count to incentivize them to put our spot on a high-quality video.
  • Be careful with repeat promotions with the same influencer. These haven’t yielded noteworthy returns for us — even after months. It’s likely that the audience becomes saturated.

For SEO, how much does link building really matter in 2019?

From Nat Eliason of Growth Machine. Lightly edited by Demand Curve with permission.

  • Links are still important, but their importance is decreasing steadily. Google is getting better at evaluating content quality, and it’s focusing more on that.
  • Consider this: Google doesn’t want to be gameable, and domain authority and link building are very gameable. But content quality is not. You can’t fake good content.
  • Many major blogs outside of high authority spaces have grown rapidly using less link-building. Much of their energy is instead spent on choosing the right keywords (low competition, but still acceptable volume) and writing useful content that satisfies the searcher’s intent.
  • However, link-building can still speed up the process quite a bit if you’re on a tight timeline, or if you’ve given content 3-4 months to rank and aren’t seeing the results you want.

Growth masterclasses kick off now

Today, the advanced growth masterclasses kick off. They’re all free.

These are rapid-fire, short, and advanced webinars. They’re not boring introductory lectures. This is some of the best content we produce. Don’t miss these, especially when they’re free.

Enroll here: demandcurve.com/webinars

What’s the best way to take over a Twitter account from an inactive user?

Based on insights from Andrew Ettinger of Atoms. Lightly edited with permission.

Someone has your brand name as their Twitter handle and their account is inactive. How do you get access to it?

  1. Create an ads account with an existing handle you want to swap for the one you’re trying to claim.
  2. Go to twitter.com/en/help
  3. Click on Account issues -> Claim an inactive username.
  4. Submit a case.

You’ll then want your Twitter ads account manager to escalate your case (give them the case #).

This is not guaranteed. Your best chance of claiming that handle will be to have an existing Twitter employee escalate your case.

Demand Curve’s Asher King Abramson will lead a growth marketing session where he’ll tear down your landing pages and Facebook/Instagram ads in front of a live audience. He’ll deconstruct how effective they are at (1) conveying what you do (2) and doing so enticingly — so that people click.

Feature Image Credits: Anueing / Getty Images

By Julian Shapiro

Julian Shapiro is the founder of BellCurve.com, the growth marketing team that trains startups in advanced growth, helps you hire senior growth marketers, and finds you vetted growth agencies. He also writes at Julian.com.

Sourced from TechCrunch

Read More
By
In News

4 Marketing Strategies Every Startup Can Afford

No Comments

By Juupiner

You don’t need to outspend your competition. You just need to out-think and out-work them.

Do your products sell themselves?

Having a great product is essential, but that alone isn’t enough to make your startup successful. Aside from your fantastic product, you’ll also need a stellar marketing strategy to grow your startup. But for many entrepreneurs, it’s simply not realistic to spend a lot of money to acquire new business.

Instead, consider a few of these cost-effective marketing strategies that can help generate early successes.

Affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is the most cost-effective marketing strategy that works. I believe all businesses — regardless of size — should adopt referral, or affiliate, marketing. I’ve used it with a good deal of success and put it to work in all my online businesses.

Here’s how it works: Encourage people to recommend your products to others, and pay a commission only when someone purchases your products through those referrals.

Start by setting up an affiliate program though networks such as ShareASale or ImpactRadius. You then can promote your affiliate program by featuring it prominently on your website and inviting customers to join the program. Additionally, you can choose the right reward structure — one that’s compelling enough for your network’s members to engage.

Email outreach also can serve as an efficient tool when communicating with influencers:

  • Create a list of influencers and experts in your industry,
  • Send an outreach email requesting they try your product for free, and
  • Explain the monetary rewards they could earn by referring a user.
Click HERE to read the remainder of the article
Feature Image Credit: Getty

Sourced from Juupiner

Read More
By
In News

5 Ways Startups Can Drive Massive Organic Growth

No Comments

By Sujan Patel

t can feel like a David and Goliath scenario.

As a startup, you may be tempted to look at the established giants in your niche and believe you have no chance of beating them. They have the reputation, reach, and budget to acquire and retain customers.

But if the biblical allegory teaches us nothing else, it does demonstrate that an informed and savvy underdog can defeat a perceived champion.

Easy? No. Quick? Nope. But 100% doable.

How? By achieving organic growth.

Download your free marketing goal-setting template here. 

No matter who or where you are, or how much money you have to work with, a sustained and focused plan to organically grow your audience, reputation, and customer base can deliver big, big results.

What is organic growth?

Organic growth refers to growth as a result of efforts achieved through internal efforts within a company, such as by means of creating higher-converting marketing content, increasing sales, and retaining more customers. Essentially, organic growth is growth that’s achieved by the company, versus growth that’s achieved through mergers and acquisitions or rounds of funding.

Organic growth generally achieves a higher rate of return for companies, but takes longer to achieve because it involves upfront marketing, sales, and customer service investments.

The black and white statistics for startups and new businesses can be a bit frightening at first glance:

You need to change the narrative. Put another way, one-third of new businesses make it to ten years, 20% of startups survive past 12 months, and 25% of venture-backed startups flourish and see a return-on-investment.

Doesn’t that sound better?

Failure is a part of doing business, and the reasons for it vary: insufficient or lack of market research, poor planning, not enough capital, bad or misguided marketing, outcompeted, no demand, expanding too fast, and on and on.

You’ve got to plan and work for success. You’ve got to hustle.

In the business world of the 21st century, the tactic that levels the playing field is online organic growth. Generate leads, spread awareness, grow your reputation, acquire and retain customers, and produce advocates.

Ready? Let’s do this.

5 Examples of Organic Growth in Business that Startups Can Achieve

1. Invest in a long-term content creation strategy.

There are no shortcuts, and you need to remember that going in. Successful businesses of any size play the long game, understanding that growth and profit may take some time.

In 2018 and beyond, inbound and content marketing are fantastic strategies that get results.

Source: HubSpot

Consider:

Source: Content Marketing Institute

That said, you’re not going to dethrone the king with 1-2 blog posts. Invest time, effort, and whatever money you can. Create a concrete plan. Write it down and share with every stakeholder.

None of this is fast or easy, but you get what you put in. Successful startups aren’t afraid of hard work.

2. Experiment with emerging trends and strategies to beat established competitors.

Don’t be intimidated by the big guys. They may have an existing audience and catalog, but their success can sometimes work against them. Maybe they’ve grown complacent. Maybe they don’t put a premium on growth anymore. Maybe retention is not their strong suit.

Be better.

As a startup, you can’t outspend them, but you can out-hustle them. You can innovate, experiment, and think outside the box in a way that may either be impossible or ridiculously slow to implement for them.

Create better content. Visit the blogs of the biggest businesses in your niche, and you’ll likely see the same subjects, topics, categories, and even headlines. This “me-too” stuff is safe, but boring, and you’ll never stand out if you follow their lead.

Be different.

Identify what works – an online search query or tool like BuzzSumo can instantly show you – then improve upon and expand it. Take it in a different direction. Make a video rather than an article. Share it with the people that made the inspiration piece so popular.

Cultivate your reputation as the expert for Topic X, and leads, customers, and fans will eventually come to you as your reputation grows.

Be fun, engaging, and different. Try new and emerging trends.

Be better.

3. Strategize for growth, then execute.

Success and growth take planning. Make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to do – and how to accomplish it – with your content marketing. Have a better, more focused content strategy than the next guy or gal.

Only 39% of marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. That’s an opportunity for you.

Source: Content Marketing Institute

To optimize for growth, build your strategy around pillar and cluster content for better SEO, user navigation, backlinks, and more.

Pillar Content

A pillar page or piece is typically a comprehensive guide, post, or ebook on a broad topic. It’s something that could be broken down into many smaller pieces, like Facebook Ads or how to build brand loyalty.

At Mailshake, we spent time, money, and effort creating our Cold Email Masterclass and Email Outreach Playbook. These are pillar pieces: they generate a lot of traffic, increase time on site/page, and produce a lot of quality backlinks and engagement.

Cluster Content

Cold email is a big subject, though. Within those two pieces, there are many internal links to relevant sub-topics on our site, such as subject lines, follow-ups, and personalization.

That’s cluster content.

Source: HubSpot

Both the search engines and visitors love pillar and cluster content because it’s easier for both to understand a subject and find what they’re looking for. That’s a major win for you.

Better, more convenient, more detailed content means more shares, more links, and ultimately, more growth.

Include a variety of topics and formats to keep your audience from getting bored, like blog posts, videos, podcasts, animated presentations, ebooks, images, charts, webinars, infographics, and more.

Build your content strategy around pillars and clusters from day one, and you’re primed to drive massive organic growth.

4. Build relationships.

There are literally billions of people online. Audiences of thousands or millions already exist for others, and they’re in constant need of quality content to share with their group.

You can use that to your advantage.

Build mutually beneficial relationships with editors and other content creators in your industry and niche. Using the Voila Norbert email finding tool is a must for building these relationships effectively. Leverage those relationships to get your content seen by a wide and far-reaching audience.

Going back to my point about playing the long game, this strategy is not a quick fix. But it’s perhaps the most powerful way to increase awareness of you and your brand.

Make a list of the movers and shakers – both individuals and websites – in your niche. Those are the big fish. Set that aside for now.

Make another list with the lesser-known creators. Conduct a search query for the keyword or topic of your latest piece, and jot down the names and sites on the SERPs that you don’t recognize.

Do the same with a service like Social Animal or NinjaOutreach.

Those are the other small fish hungry to grow their audience – just like you – and they’ll be eager to use your content to do so.

Follow and engage with them on social media. Leave a comment on their latest blog post. Give them a compliment on a recent achievement. Share their best stuff with your audience. Find a broken link on their site and let them know.

Cold email is the best way to automate this outreach, and most providers allow you to personalize at scale. Don’t forget to follow up if you don’t get a response. And then follow up again. And again.

Establish a connection. Give without asking for anything in return.

Once the relationship is underway, include and link to them in your content, and notify them. They’ll be happy to share. Ask them for a quote, a quick Q&A, or a longer interview. Pitch a guest post idea.

Help them, and they’ll help you. Eventually, you’ll be sharing each other’s content without being asked.

Once you’ve established a network of small and medium-sized fish, you can start reaching out to the big ones from earlier.

5. Use technology to work smarter, not harder.

Find the tips, tools, and services to simplify your growth.

Make A/B testing and conversion rate optimization part of everything you do: email, content, landing pages, and more. What’s not working can be fixed. What’s already working can be better.

Avoid competing for the highest-volume keywords, and instead focus on the lower-volume – but higher-converting – ones. These long-tail keywords are easier to target and better reveal searcher intent.

Master the three dimensions of organic growth: investing, creating, and performing.

Because at the end of the day, David beat Goliath by knowing more and thinking it through.

That’s the takeaway.

To learn more, read our list of more growth hacking strategies to try.

By Sujan Patel

Sourced from HubSpot

Read More
By
In News

5 Most Common Problems of Startups and Their Solutions

No Comments

By Michael Zhou.

Let’s face it, this is the age when startups are exploding everywhere like never before. The sheer enthusiasm being brought up by motivated entrepreneurs is certainly a force to reckon with. These individuals are leaving no opportunity go by to prove their worth in this thriving culture of innovation and technology. One thing which is conspicuously inspiring in this saga of entrepreneurship is that these people have challenged the pedigree of overarching domination of big established businesses. While many of these startups are able to make a significant presence in the world arena, others unfortunately disappear into oblivion.

“Survival of the fittest” is the adage not just relevant for humans alone; it is, in fact, quite true for startups as well. We have seen time and again that the road ahead for startups is not a smooth one. It is always important for them to execute their business idea in a way that brings value and merit to their existence. A report published in 2016 by Dow Jones VentureSource clearly suggests that billion-dollar valuation startups could thin in coming years.

This brings us to an important question: Why do startups fail in the first place? Part of the reason behind this is the high risk propositions being associated with startups where strategy adoption and execution failures act as triggers. Anyways, we will discuss in this article with a focused approach as to what are the most common problems of startups and their solutions.

Lack Of Finances

Cash flow is essential for startups to survive. One of the key challenges that small businesses face today relates to finances. As income increases, the expenditures also increase and to top it all, startups rely heavily on investors who provide them strong financial support. When such situations arrive, startups are the first ones who lose on properly managing their finances, and eventually succumb to the pressure. While entrepreneurs have to make sure that they have enough funds to go around, in the meantime, they also have to pay their employees, contractors, mortgage, and grocery bills.

Solution

As a rule of thumb, startups should always find ways of minimizing their costs. Invoice factoring is another way of speeding up the account receivable processes in startups. In this digital age when invoice payments are made through mobile phones, there is no harm to request immediate payments from clients. It is also very important to secure credit before any business needs it as they can easily find out how much cash they will likely need to survive. Finally, using accounting software to keep tab on money coming in and out of the business is also a good idea.

Poor Business Planning

Proper planning is the key for startups to get their businesses off the ground. In this technological landscape, writing a formal business plan based on a vague requirement of some institution is suicidal. Due to poor planning, many businesses fail in the very first year because they do not effectively factor in challenges and pitfalls. Even if the startups have innovative ideas and ambitions, but their business plans lack perspective, they are doomed to fail or they have to continuously devise and change them.

Solution

Before launching the business, it is important for startups to carry out a thorough research by investigating from suppliers to taxes to competitor prices. This approach is the bedrock for a successful business, which needs to be viewed in holistic way so that vision for the product is aligned with the identified target audience. Writing effective SBA business plan helps startups to define what their business is, the market it serves, how it will conduct operations, and the money it will make and spend.

Lack Of Proper Marketing Strategy

It is always a challenge for startups to figure out best ways to market their products or services. The fact that small businesses need to maximize their return on investment with efficient and result oriented targeted marketing also makes them vulnerable in terms of trust they have develop vis-à-vis customers. Without putting a comprehensive marketing strategy in place, companies’ profits take a steep plunge.

Solution

Today’s digital technology has opened a broad spectrum of avenues for marketing in the form of electronic, print, online, mobile, and video advertising. Startups more than ever need to be adept at creating innovative marketing plans, placing advertisements, and letting people know the worth of their products or services. To put it simply, a good marketing strategy has vision, mission, and business goals. It should be able to explain the position and role of a business’s products or services in the market. Proper marketing strategy fundamentally entails efficiency with which customers are approached and encouraged their future loyalty towards the product or service. Technology giant Apple Inc. is successful because of its unique marketing strategy that makes its products user friendly and highly intuitive. Steve Jobs had the vision that people will not use Apple’s products, they will experience them.

Lack Of A Dedicated Team

Due to the lack of a proper team, any business will suffer immensely. Lack of commitment aggravates frustration in the organization which quickly escalates into an open conflict. If the team members start making under commitments due to the fear of being responsible or blamed for failure, businesses will never achieve their goals.

Solution

A dedicated team with a diverse skill set is very important for the startups to grow and succeed. There should be a proper synergy, coordination, and communication among the members of a team. Any team is formed by the individuals who have different range of capabilities with identical focus. This arrangement allows the members to help each other, learn from each other, and put a concerted effort in order to achieve success. Diversity and dedication of a team drives innovation.

Fierce Competition

Competition is the most inevitable challenge that startups face. In fact, startups have to bear the brunt of facing two-way challenge: one coming from monopolistic businesses that have dominated the market and making difficult for newcomers to emerge. Second, there are countless startups that are launched regularly in the market having innovative ideas, so it is highly likely to get swallowed by the shadow of other startups.

Solution

The good thing of competition is that it forces the businesses to come out with the best. There is, in fact, a whole gamut of opportunities exist for entrepreneurs because switching costs for most customers are low and many are willing to try new, relatively untested products or services. To overcome competition, startups should research and analyze their niche industry; should be unique and different in approach; and should be able to create, implement, and track their business and marketing plan.

The challenges and problems are inevitable as far as the success journey of a startup is concerned. They need to be resilient and focused towards keeping their values intact no matter what the circumstances are. It is, therefore, to anticipate difficulties and pitfalls beforehand.

By Michael Zhou

Michael Zhou Senior is the VP of Business Intelligence Development. He is also currently contributor of The General Post.

Sourced from Small Biz Daily

Read More
By
Load More