According to research by Statistic Brain, “46% of startups fail due to incompetence and 30% due to lack of experience.”
The worldwide ratio portrays that for every successful startup, there are 4 others that perish in the long run. Entrepreneurs who have the ability to identify risk factors can take the necessary steps to prevent it. While the secret to guaranteed success for your startup business is difficult to find, make sure to avoid these 4 deadly mistakes that can lead to complete failure –
1. Solving a problem that isn’t there in the first place
“Life is too short to build something that nobody wants.”
Research states that almost 42% of startups fail because they are unable to solve a market need. This is one of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make – trying to provide a solution to a problem that isn’t really there. It could be due to the fact that the need is already being met very well in the market or you’re building something that does not interest your audience.
Before starting a business, it is important to have answers to a few questions like “Who will be my target audience?, Do people have a problem where my product/service can provide a solution?, What gap will my business fill in the market? Apart from that, test your product in the market and take feedback from the relevant audience to understand if there is a need for it before launching it officially.
2. Doing too much
As the saying goes – Jack of all trades, master of none – trying to achieve too many things or trying to be too many things to the audience all at once, can be a reason for your startup failure. This approach may seem lucrative as there is the possibility of targeting a bigger audience, but when what you offer becomes too generalized and you fail to provide a definite solution to a definite customer, your startup bears the brunt.
The solution is to focus on a smaller but more targeted audience for faster business growth. Take the example of the dog food startup, Dogsee Chew that has now reached international markets. Instead of producing just dog treats that are already available in abundance, the brand provided a definite solution to pet parents by producing 100% natural, human-grade treats. With this unique idea, Dogsee was able to create a sustainable market presence in 17+ countries in a span of 5 years.
Source: Facebook
3. An unplanned pre-launch media strategy
Before launching a startup, your media strategy needs to be in place. For a startup that will be new in the market, generating buzz, earning mentions in popular blogs and media coverage requires adequate time and effort.
Source: Webtraffic
Digital PR, as well as a partnering program, is extremely important to support and promote your startup brand’s digital and social media presence. It not only enhances communication, drives traffic and helps maintain your online reputation but also caters to meet your business goals by driving sales and generating leads.
4. Mismanagement of cash
“You must gain control over your money, or the lack of it will forever control you.”
While running a startup, growth can happen very fast but cash mismanagement can have an adverse effect, even causing downfall for many startups. Just building a perfect product to impress the world is not enough, you also need to pay attention to the amount of cash burn that’s happening.
Financial decisions like the amount of capital required to get a customer, where the money will come from and whether the model you choose will have scalability should be taken into consideration. When it comes to financial metrics, there are two important aspects of every successful startup – the capability of generating profit and the ability to manage cash flow.
Source: Barcinno
Launching a startup is not an easy task, and building a successful business that has the potential to grow takes a lot of effort, energy and time. As a founder, if you can avoid the most common but fatal mistakes that lead to failure, your odds of being successful will be much higher. To know more about business growth and the mistakes to avoid, ask us a question in the comment section below!
Well-funded startups like AskMe.com, Auto Raja, Cab Auto all had unique ideas but still failed due to the lack of innovation, creativity and experience. Having unique ideas, a good team and funds are not enough for startups to grow, expand as well as become stable and profitable. Startups need to get more customers, sales and profits for them to grow, which is possible only with specific marketing tactics.
According to reports, there are 374 million smartphone users in India and 270 million people have access to the internet across the country. Therefore young businesses and startups are focusing majorly on digital marketing services for growing their customer base and gaining stability in the market. A startup needs to choose and combine the correct digital marketing channels and come up with an unbeatable strategy.
For optimum output, it is important for startups to know which strategies to choose and implement depending on the industry, target audience, product type and various other factors.
Below are some digital marketing strategies that might be profitable for a startup:
1. Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is one of the best, low-cost marketing tactics for an early-stage startup. It is one of the easiest ways to reach a targeted audience within the desired niche and convert them into customers. There are many social media platforms but a startup has to choose the right platform that will be profitable for the business.
Facebook- Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms with more than 2 billion users. Startups can use Facebook to promote any type of product or service. It is known as one of the most inexpensive forms of social media to promote a business, but the actual cost depends on factors such as the targeted country, niche, ad type etc.
Twitter- Twitter is the best platform for businesses to build a brand voice and participate in topical content. It works well for both B2B and B2C businesses. Although more expensive than Facebook, it allows businesses to run different ads carrying various objectives. In order to trend on Twitter, startups should concentrate on creating engaging and witty content and actually having an opinion on trending topics of interest.
Instagram- Instagram stories help brands drive engagement and are a good way to launch a campaign. Live videos help gather larger audiences, increase interactions and help the brand appear on top of the news feed. To increase the discoverability of content, a startup should use relevant hashtags & post on the right date and time. Running a contest on Instagram is a great way to increase page engagement, follower count and beat the Instagram algorithm.
LinkedIn- Adding LinkedIn to a marketing strategy can help startups expand their network, find clients/customers, and create a professional image for their business. It can also help in generating B2B leads and be used for making important hiring decisions.
Source: https://www.webdesignplusseo.com
Using direct messages on the above platforms helps to reach out to other successful businesses or communicate with potential customers. Social media helps build a loyal customer base, increases exposure and traffic, boosts sales, improves search ranking and helps to generate leads.
2. Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing is a unique technique that is used to get instant results. Startups can advertise on search engines to increase their customer reach and sales. SEM yields a higher ROI as a business has to pay only when a consumer clicks on the ad. New businesses can easily reach their target audience and get immediate results. One can start running ads with a small budget and can stop it as and when required. Through SEM, business houses have access to complete data and insights to improve their SEM campaigns and other marketing strategies.
In order to run a successful SEM campaign, startups should have a high-quality landing page with clear CTA buttons and should target the right keywords.
3. Search Engine Optimisation
Source: https://www.websolutionsz.com
For startups, SEO provides the power to reach people when they are actively searching for information related to a brand’s products and services. Proper SEO marketing will help a startup’s website be more visible and understandable to search engines.
It focuses on using correct keywords and unique content to help search engines find and rank a website higher than other sites. The impact of SEO is long-lasting and automatically builds trust and authority for the business. It increases the audience reach organically without any paid promotions and builds brand identity.
4. Content Marketing
Content marketing can easily be considered to be the most effective way to reach out to a brand’s target audience. Through content, the audience is able to recognize the unique voice of a brand as well as the character and culture associated with it. Therefore, content marketing can be used to drive traffic to the website.
Publishing relevant, high-quality content at regular intervals will definitely have the brand’s followers come back to visit the website. Giving out useful information free of cost can help a startup build a strong base of loyal followers and customers.
People share, like and comment if the content is good which ultimately leads to discussion, publicity and customer loyalty. Keywords infused content helps in boosting the conversion rate. With more consumers engaging with videos, it is crucial to implement video content in marketing strategies for startups to connect with the audience, generate leads and increase sales.
Source: http://movou.com
5. Email Marketing
Email Marketing is one of the most important and cost-effective techniques to build and expand the growth of startups. These are the automated messages that go out to users once they subscribe to the company’s list. A startup should use email sequences to build a relationship with subscribers. Startups should be authentic and transparent in conveying their messages like offers and benefits to subscribers, via emails.
According to research, email marketing delivers the highest ROI which is approximately around 40x. For a successful email marketing campaign, the email titles should be catchy, attractive, engaging and short. Sending 2-3 emails a week with useful content are enough to keep subscribers engaged.
There are innumerable strategies and ways to promote your products and services. But choosing the correct platform is important based on your target audience, audience behaviour and nature of business. Due to limited resources, it is very important for a startup to be careful before taking each step.
To know more about the digital marketing strategies you can adopt as a startup, leave us a message and we will get back to you.
“29% of startups fail because they eventually run out of cash.”
Most entrepreneurs are well skilled and informed about the best way to build their product, as well as find and retain valuable customers in the initial phase. However, what young entrepreneurs tend to overlook at the starting, is how to take their startup to the next level. This is mostly due to the lack of a well-thought-of business model.
Tracking important business metrics by making the best use of data is imperative for measuring results and opening new doors of possibilities for your startup. Take a look at the 4 key financial metrics that should be tracked periodically for every startup owner –
1. Fixed and Variable Costs
The total cost incurred for running your startup is one of the most important metrics that needs to be measured. The regular spendings of running a business can be divided into two types – fixed and varied.
Fixed costs are the ones that remain steady for the products you make or the services you offer. Expenses like office rent, Internet bills, insurance, salary credits are examples of fixed costs. Variable costs, on the other hand, changes depending on your production value like material or labour costs.
Source: Patriot Software
Understanding these two costs is crucial as it will help you have an idea about the time required for your startup to break even and the length of your startup runway – the duration for which your business can survive if both your expense and revenue remain constant.
2. Break-Even Analysis
The Break-Even point of a company is a time when the revenues match the expenses. Beyond the breakeven point, all financial gains are termed as profits. Break-even analysis can help determine when your startup will be able to cover all costs and start making profits. Apart from that, it can also help you plan out other things such as –
The profitability of your existing product line or service
Number of units that needs to be sold before you start making a profit
If reducing the volume of your sales or the price of your product/service will have an impact on your profit
If there is a need for an increase in price or volume of sales to make up in case there is an increase in the fixed costs
Source: Expert Program Management
After this analysis has been made, it will be easier to gain insight into the amount of money you further need to raise and the time required for making investments.
3. Customer Acquisition Cost & Lifetime Value of Customer
In order to achieve growth and scalability, it is important for every startup to have a scalable business model, as your sales and marketing efficiency depends on it. For this purpose, it is important to measure two metrics – Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Lifetime Value of Customer (LVC).
CAC refers to the total cost incurred of converting a potential lead into a customer. It is calculated by dividing the total costs incurred for attracting customers divided by the number of customers that were acquired in the time period. For example, if Rs. 5000 was spent on your promotions for a month and 20 customers were acquired during this month, the CAC rate is Rs. 250.
LVC refers to the projected revenue a customer is likely to generate in his/her lifetime. This metric is useful in understanding a rational cost per acquisition. It is calculated by multiplying the cost of your service annually with the number of years a customer is expected to use your services. For instance, if the annual service cost is Rs. 1000 and on an average, a customer stays for 5 years, the LVC would be Rs. 5000. In the initial months, calculating the LVC can be difficult due to the lack of cohesive data.
Source: Wordstream
Having a fair understanding of these two metrics is integral for every startup to prevent premature scaling.
4. Forecasting Cash flow
Cash flow is a comparative measurement of the amount of money that is coming into your business against the amount that is being spent. This metric actually determines the ‘financial health’ of your brand. When funds exceed the expenditure, it is termed as positive cash flow and when the expenditure exceeds the funds, it is termed as negative cash flow.
Forecasting the cash flow of your startup will help you have a clear idea of when your money is coming in and when is it going out, and what you’re left with at the end of every month after all expenses have been made. Forecasting cash flow will ensure that you do not spend more than required in order to stay in the business.
Source: ProBooks NY
Economic growth is very important for a startup to be successful, as businesses that cannot scale will not be able to stay in the business. In order to have a sound business model, having a close track of your finances is one of the first steps, all the more in the first phase of launching your startup. To know more, leave us a message and we’ll get back to you.
Writing quality content is one of the single biggest factors affecting a website’s visibility in search results. And a necessity for properly optimising content is a high quality Content Management System (CMS).
WordPress is one of the best CMS available. It is the most used platform by many bloggers, webmasters and online marketers. Thousands of users prefer WordPress platforms for writing content as it allows the writer to use several features like adding title tags and description, simple tools for your website, SEO optimization, automated editing, linking features and ways to avoid spammers.
What is a WordPress Plugin?
A WordPress Plugin is one of the stand-out features that make WordPress one of the best CMS platforms in the world. WordPress Plugins are useful software tools that add value to your website without the necessity of writing any codes. Having the best WordPress Plugins can do the job for you by getting your website to rank well in search engine results.
A WordPress Plugin is an enabler for your website as it can be used to filter out unwanted comments, create a sitemap, provide website security, optimize for SEO and so on.
There are plenty of useful WordPress Plugins that can be used for digital marketing activities. Some of them are free while others are paid. It is important to choose only those plugins that have the best ratings, are reliable and have the option of being uninstalled at anytime.
In this blog, we have listed out the top 10 plugins from WordPress in a random order.
So what are those plugins that should be used for your website in 2019?
The most popular and commonly used WordPress Plugins are these:
#1. Yoast SEO
When it comes to SEO for a wordpress website, Yoast is the first name that comes to every SEO professional’s mind. Yoast is more than just a plugin, it is a key element in getting your website optimized well in search results.
The Yoast SEO plugin plays a major role in improving the On-Page SEO structure of the website. This plugin can be used to create an XML Sitemap, connect your site with Google search console, add meta tags, descriptions, share content on your social media page etc.
This plugin is also helpful in adding the Redirection Code for all pages and you can provide the nofollow and dofollow attribute as well with this Plugin.
#2. Akismet
One of the most important objectives of sharing a blog is to make it interactive by enabling readers to comment on it. However, all comments may not be relevant or appropriate. Some comments will be genuine while others might be spam or irrelevant.
So what you should do?
Install Akismet, one of the most used wordpress plugins when it comes to filtering out unwanted comments from a website. This plugin can detect irrelevant comments and flush it out instantly.
#3. Elementor
Elementor helps newbies build a webpage and edit it till you have the ideal design for your website.
Elementor is an easy to use page builder that lets anyone build a website without any delay. This plugin is paid and it costs $50 for a single website. But it is worth the money as it is easy to use.
#4. Sucuri
Prevention from a cyber attack should be an important priority for all webmasters. WordPress has the answer to prevent from your website getting affected with its Sucuri plugin.
With Sucuri’s firewall protection feature, this plugin can prevent any form of malware threats, XSS attacks, brute force attacks and all the other forms of cyber attacks.
#5. Contact Form 7
This plugin helps in managing multiple contact forms, adding verification methods and filtering out unwanted messages. Contact Form 7 is a coding-free plugin that helps you to see the influx of messages at a quick rate.
Revive old posts plugin enables you to share old blog posts and optimize them on a social media platform.
This effective plugin allows you to generate more traffic to your website by promoting old posts on all social media networks.
This plugin has many unique features like the following:
It is integrated with Google Analytics
Compatible with URL shorteners
You can provide links back to your site
Automation of posts to share and also scheduling of posts
Exclude posts that you don’t want to share
#7. Woocommerce Product Table
If you are an e-commerce website and looking for more conversions, then Woocommerce product table is the plugin that you should install.
This plugin helps you to customize your product table layout at ease. You can include all key metrics like the number of prospective customers, the products they prefer, and the number of your product offerings. This plugin is compatible with different types of wordpress themes.
#8. JetPack
JetPack is a plugin that is helpful for webmasters in securing your website. It also provides an enhanced distribution system that has the automated feature of sharing published content across search engines to boost website traffic.
This plugin keeps you periodically updated with any spam related issues with its automated notification system.
#9. W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is the plugin from wordpress that is required for website SEO.
Why is it helpful for SEO?
It helps SEO by temporarily caching all browser data of all the pages visited by a user so that the next time the same page loads faster. As per SEO best practices, the faster the page loads, the better is the SEO ranking.
#10. WP Touch Plugin
Approximately 80% of users visit a website from their mobile devices. This means that every website should be mobile-friendly.
WP touch plugin ensures that you achieve that by providing in-built themes that suit your mobile version of the website.
Recommended by Google, you won’t require the extra effort or excess time spent on creating a mobile-friendly website as this plugin does it for you with the ideal design theme for your wordpress website.
The above mentioned list of WordPress plugins are the best-rated and most useful for your website. These plugins help you optimize the website by letting you add icons or chat boxes or filter out unwanted comments or even to design a website template. These features truly make WordPress a very popular and the most used content management system (CMS) for both bloggers and corporate websites.
In the digital marketing arena, businesses are contending with visual trends and messaging as well as technological advancements and the changes it brings in online marketing.
In 2018, there was a rise in ephemeral video formats due to SnapChat and Instagram stories, growth in data governance, the adoption of single customer view and more. In 2019, the digital marketing landscape encompassing SEO, social media, PPC, content marketing and more is witnessing a dramatic shift.
There are many new digital marketing trends and strategies that are evolving in the current high-tech, internet-connected era and business houses now need to utilize them to achieve more success in their efforts.
Listed below are a few digital marketing trends that may help brands improve their marketing strategies and meet their desired outcome:
Voice Search
According to PWC reports, 65% of men and women aged between 25-49 years use voice-enabled devices at least once a day. These actions might include asking questions to Siri, Cortana, Alexa or Google Home. The growing interest in voice integration is changing the way people interact over the Internet and online businesses.
According to Forbes, by 2020, 50% of all online searches will be driven by human voices. Therefore, brands are trying to deliver their promises using voice-enabled devices since they are affordable and offer greater capabilities and also because more visitors are using voice search to interact with different brands.
Hence, brands need to focus on using voice engine optimization and use a simpler language to create content. Brands also have to understand what the target audience might use in their voice queries and then focus on keywords accordingly as searches will be more specific in the future.
Source: https://cdn-backlinko.pressidium.com
Live Video Streaming
Video marketing continues to grow and the introduction of live video streaming has opened up an interesting opportunity for brands, influencers and individuals. According to 70% of marketing professionals, a video is more effective in converting a consumer than other forms of content that includes images and text.
Marketers who use videos in their strategies, reportedly gain 40% more revenue than brands that do not implement video content.
Studies reveal that people spend 3 times more time watching live videos than a pre-recorded video. Live streaming content is effective because it’s free, takes a short time to produce while offering real-time user engagement and viewers use the content based on the video producer’s time and not according to their own time.
Streaming of live content allows marketers to engage with their leads in the fastest possible way, help improve their relationship with followers, reach a broader audience and boost their social channel’s traffic. Live videos also help gather more impressions than posts which are published in the news feed.
Source: https://ictframe.com
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
AI allows machines and computers to stimulate and augment human intelligence. According to a study on AI systems, global spending on artificial intelligence will approximately reach $35.8 billion in 2019, an increase of 44% over the previous year. By 2022, total expense on AI systems is expected to grow more than double which is around $79.2 billion.
With global leaders like Amazon, Microsoft and Google extending their resources in AI and machine learning, this trend is quite prevalent. AI allows marketing professionals to predict the future behaviour and demographics of their customers based on collected data. With this information, marketers can determine how to engage with their active buyers in a better way using various channels such as direct mail, sales outreach or digital advertising.
Chatbots
Research suggests that 45% of users prefer using Chatbots as a vital means of communication in the customer service sector. According to predictions, by 2020, 85% of customer service interactions are going to be powered by chatbots. Chatbots offer real-time experience, assistance as well as committed support and dynamic interactions. By 2019, messaging traffic is expected to increase two times.
Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality Marketing
AR and VR are one of the major highlighted trends in 2019. According to Statista, the market size of AR and VR worldwide is expected to reach $209.2 billion in 4 years. Marketers are using augmented reality ads to bring static and imaginary environments into a more realistic experience.
Apart from ads, brands are also using AR and VR to create brand awareness. For example, Michael Kors created AR ads asking its users to try on sunglasses before purchasing.
With these trends, 2019 is a year about better customer experience with personalization, automation and AI-powered technology. These trends can help attract more customers as well as improve their experience and meet expectations in a better way.
To stay at par with Google’s algorithm changes, brands have to plan digital strategies accordingly and create their own customised, conversational content, especially audio and video and share with a more niche-targeted audience.
To know more on the recent digital marketing trends of 2019, leave us a message and we will get back to you.
