Monthly Archives

November 2018

Email Marketing, Marketing

How to Market a Startup or newly Started Business?

Marketing for Startups

Startups face many challenges, but none as precarious or life-threatening as the struggle to remain cash positive. New companies have to pay thousands a month in team salaries, office-leasing fees, raw materials, and other ongoing operational costs — all while struggling to secure enough revenue to stay afloat. They have to invest in marketing their product and services. So it requires a lot of money to market your product and give information to the people about that. Effective marketing doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Sure, higher-budget marketing strategies might bring more visibility and consistency in their eventual returns, but there are plenty of highly effective — and low-cost — marketing strategies you can use to help your startup grow.

low budget marketing services

Here we will discuss few low-budget marketing strategies that will lead your business with high ROI-

Referrals

One of the best ways to market is to avoid marketing altogether; instead, create a system that lets your customers do the marketing for you. Consider the fact that people are four times more likely to buy a product when it’s referred to them by a friend.

Despite tech publication reviews, we still trust personal recommendations more than anything else. What’s more, establishing a referral program doesn’t cost much, and depending on how you structure it, might be entirely free. You could offer your current customers a discount on their subscriptions in exchange for referring a new customer

Content marketing

Content marketing takes many forms, but none require significant investment. The simplest approach is to manage an on-site blog, adding new content a few times a week that informs or entertains your readers in some unique and practical way. Infographics, videos, and podcasts all belong to the content-marketing category as well.

Email marketing

Email marketing remains one of the most cost-efficient marketing strategies around, with some sources claiming a return on investment (ROI) of 400 percent or more. As long as you have a good list and a steady but non-invasive stream of outgoing email blasts, you should be able to see a significant return on any time or money you put into it.

Email Marketing is the best way of marketing as the ROI is very high and fastest method to reach the customer. You can choose an Email Marketing tool like Mailcot to promote your services via email newsletters.

SEO

If you’re spending time writing articles for your content marketing campaign, you might as well invest in improving your search engine optimization (SEO). It might seem technically complex, but the reality is, with a bit of reading and dedication, you can easily understand the basics. You can go for an SEO Service provider like veetly and easily optimize your website so that whenever any user put a query to search engine he/she will get your website on top. SEO will allow you to attract high traffic to your site with low competition.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing isn’t something you can do casually, but it is freely available, and it’s something you can master if you invest the time. Start by establishing profiles for your business on major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Flesh out your profiles, and start syndicating content that your target market would like.

Reach out to individuals, and make sure to stay connected. In time, you could grow an audience of thousands, representing an anchor stream of traffic to your site.

If you find yourself struggling with your business’s budget, don’t resort to cutting marketing out of the equation. Instead, find creative ways to build recognition for your brand and products that don’t require significant up-front investment.

Once you establish a stronger stream of consistent revenue, you’ll have more freedom to invest in bigger, more expensive strategies; or you can pour more resources into the top performers from your earlier experiments.

Marketing, Marketing Automation

5 Effective Ways to Market your Restaurant Online

The advent of digital technology has changed the landscape of the restaurant business (Restaurant Marketing) basically. Now the restaurant owners are not dependent on the traditional word of mouth in the restaurant market. It seems that most restaurants are taking advantage of digital media and mobile technology. Although some of these restaurants are receiving it properly, the majority are struggling to get their restaurant marketing strategy on track.

Restaurant marketing strategies

The success of any restaurant business bears down on its marketing strategies. So here we study the ways to market a new restaurant online.

1. Go Social

take advantage of social media platforms to promote your restaurant online (Restaurant marketing). There are tons of social media platforms out there so here’s my advice; when it comes to food, Instagram is King, Facebook is Queen and the rest are puns. The key to going social and churning in profit is posting top-notch food pictures and video clips. If you don’t know where to start, consider hiring a social media expert to give you valuable insight.

2. Get a website

Being a website for your restaurant business equals one food shop in every part of the world. If you want your restaurant to grow, you will need to find a professional website. A website opens up opportunities for a large market of consumers. It makes it very easy for potential and even existing customers to find you.

I know that you are thinking that there is a lot of work to put in the website but I believe there is nothing compared to reward work. In addition, you can choose to hire affordable professional website services to complete the work.

3. Do not Quit Email Marketing

Restaurant Email Marketing is another important strategy to effectively market your restaurant. There are two ways to increase your email list; By filling the forms individually to customers and getting them online to fill the form. I would recommend that you pay attention later because the world has become digital.

Email marketing is an effective way to “feed” your customers and get them back. Using email marketing, you can show new additions to your menus and other exciting offers. However, email marketing can be difficult if it has not been executed correctly. So if you are new to email marketing, do not fail to consult the specialist to find the best email marketing strategy for your restaurant.

4. Get listed on food applications

Due to the popular demand by consumers, many food applications have over the last few years. Now consumers have to go through boring directories or surf the web for long periods to find suitable places to eat. These days they have to install only one food app that points them to the nearest restaurant. Take advantage of this wave of mobile technology by partnering with food apps to make sure that your restaurant is listed. Getting listed on these food apps ensures that you do not lose potential customers.

5. Keep your online reputation in mind

Bad reviews, such as restaurants, do not destroy anything. I mean, who wants to go to a restaurant with “blend food” or “dead insect” review? If you do not have a good online reputation management strategy then all your efforts can be wasted online.

Online reputation for a restaurant needs to be answered from time to time to customer questions and answer both negative and positive reviews so that your restaurant can be featured in good lighting. However, if you have no experience with online reputation management; I recommend that you appoint an expert to deal with polishing your online reputation.

Uncategorized, Lead Nurturing, Marketing, Marketing Automation

Market Research: Why Your Product Launch Might Fail

According to market research launching your own product is a high-risk bet(Product Launch). You’re investing a lot of time and resources, yet, you don’t know if your groundbreaking idea is going to produce the results that are expected. It’s widely known that most product launch in today’s marketplace tends to fail.

Either way, it’s obvious that plenty of entrepreneurs commit a lot of mistakes when launching their first products. The reason? It’s not just one. In today’s post, you’re going to understand the reasons why most product launches fail and you’ll get strong insights that should improve your startup launch success.

According to market research here are 7 Most Powerful Reasons Why Your Product Launch Might Fail

Do you fail to understand the needs and desires of the market

Every successful business has become “successful” because they have fulfilled one important thing: they managed to provide value to many people. But before doing so, make sure that countless hours and important budgets were put into action. The key to offering value is understandable to understand and fulfill the problems, needs, and desires. If you are just launching your product, do not forget the market research process.

There may be anything by gathering market research surveys, talking directly to potential customers, or analyzing other big brands within the market. Without proper market research, you are going on the dark road. The destination is impossible!

Do you target the wrong audience

You can do your market research well, you can have a good product, and you can have the campaign to work and make progress. However, you may still fail to launch your product successfully because you are making a serious mistake: You have chosen the wrong audience to promote your product.

What are you targeting? Do you have a very specific description of your targeted personality? If you don’t, then I would advise you to make one before spending your budget. But the problem is how do you know what is the right target audience and targeted personality? This is an answer that only you can find out. You understand the concept of your product better than anyone else. Now, it remains that you are successful in identifying the right type of customer.

Overpricing and underpricing

Many startups fail because they give their products too much or too little. Value is an essential factor in marketing strategy because it is the only element that generates revenue. Many companies believe that because they are new to the market, they should reduce their product to attract attention. In many cases, if the product is cheap, then the customer will believe that quality is also lacking. Otherwise, how will it be sold for Penny compared to competitive products? The opposite option does not come without damages. If underpricing leaves the money on the table and damages the reputation of the brand, then the susceptible can also provide unsatisfactory results. Overpricing and underpricing are two such entities that are due to entrepreneurs who fail to understand the value provided with their products.

If you want to value your products correctly, then you need to carefully assess the value you are providing. Prices determine how much your product is affecting your customer’s life. Does this miracle work? Or the problem that resolves can be solved cheaply and in other ways? Ask a lot of questions by yourself and test the value of your product more than once.

Do you delay the development and launch of the product

Failure to launch your product in the right time frame can have a negative impact and the potential for business success may be less. As long as you put the plan into implementation, the needs and problems of your customers can be ended before what you’ve got while searching for your market.

Suppose you are a large Email service provider company who creates a wonderful social media presence before the actual product launch. You attract the attention of your followers by providing great content. In addition, you automatically show the results of your future product, a strategy that improves your brand’s reputation and trust.

However, you have already announced the launch date of your “final product” and the time has come. Since your followers already expect to be ready to catch the product, then you will harm your startup launch if you can not deliver. This is where many companies fail. They sell the product very well in the market, only that they can not distribute it on time. Apart from reputation, which is going to be damaged, you can “remember the train” as a change in the needs of the market or a competitive product has already taken the lead.

Wrong position in the market

Successful new products are affected by many factors. One of them is a brand positioning strategy. Every time you put a new market, you should get your unique price proposition and as often as you should focus on displaying it. Your unique value proposition makes you different from the competition. If your product is original and unique, then your brand position in the market should be quite influenced by what you can offer and others can not.

product launch

In that case, you have to try to find the right position. There is a whole situation process that you should follow. If you have already launched your product and it has proved to be a total disaster then it may be that you have not kept your brand and product offer properly.

Measurable marketing

Marketing is the sacred fruit of business. You can have a wonderful product that offers amazing benefits to the user. However, if someone does not know about it, then you are likely to get unimportant results. Before launching your product, you already have a marketing strategy. You have to understand that your target audience spends time, how they spend it, whom they spend with it, and so on. Apart from this, you have to come up with various marketing strategies that will serve more things:

  • brand awareness
  • Leeds will bring (customer, followers, etc.)
  • Will bring sales

These are the three criteria that you should look at while developing your marketing strategies and campaigns. The key to a successful marketing experience is that you never stop testing. Even if you lose a significant amount, even then you may be very close to finding a high ROI campaign that can move towards a better future.

The product does not deliver what it promises

Finally, the most important thing is that if the product does not deliver what it promises, it will be highly criticized. With negative reviews, your company’s rating will fall. When you consider the previous customer’s negative review, you will lose the trust of your potential customers.

It is also logical. Let’s say you buy a clock that promises water-proof features. Two weeks after wearing it, it stops working as it used to contact water. Will you buy it again from that store? Would you ever recommend that product to any of your friends? There is no answer.

marketing strategies and campaigns

And, if your customers are not saying good things about you, there is no way to create a chance in front of your competition. Soon, your sales will fall and you will start losing money.

Avoid all these to be real with the promise of your product. Do not lie to get profits. Make sure to distribute all your products to distribute them!

Summary!

As you probably know, making your product valid and popular is a difficult process that can take many turns. However, keep reminding yourself that it’s really worth it. Apart from financial independence, you will also improve the lives of many people (through the value of your product) and therefore will bring a greater contribution to the market.

Lead Nurturing, Marketing

What is lead generation: A Brief History of Lead Generation

Lead generation is simple in theory, but it’s definitely not easy to execute effectively. In fact, only 1 in 10 marketers said that their lead generation efforts are highly efficient and effective. Why do you think that is?

Well, 61% of marketers blame the lack of funding, staff, and other resources. But, is that really true? Is the lack of a decent budget and a dedicated sales team the only things stopping you from getting results with your lead generation efforts?

Not necessarily.

The sad reality is, the world is changing, marketing is changing and 90% of marketers are not. It’s tough to point at one magic reason why most lead generation projects fail, but it’s usually because of one (or more) of these mistakes:

  • They’re using the wrong strategy.
  • Their content is lacking.
  • Their landing page sucks.
  • Their follow-through isn’t good enough.

I know this is general, but don’t worry–I’ll dive into all of these mistakes and offer expert tips for how to solve every one of them.

A Brief History of Lead Generation Efforts

Lead generation is not new. It has literally existed forever.

In fact, it could be traced back to cavemen going cave-to-cave for recommendations on the best round-wheel to buy or the best cave drawing material to get (this is a very accurate recount of human history). It continued evolving generation after generation until cavemen became salesmen and cave-to-cave became door-to-door.

Throughout these years, we’ve seen how the methods companies generated leads have transformed drastically, usually fuelled by new technologies.

 

We’ve seen the billboard era take over the marketing world in the 1800s. TV & radio commercials dominating in the early 1900s. Door-to-door “lead generation” risen in popularity in the 1950s.

And of course…call centers in the 1960s.

Anyways, technology kept evolving and as a result, so did the techniques used to generate leads. Recently, with the rise of the internet, smartphones, Google and social media, lead generation is not only more competitive than ever…but also much more sophisticated.

What is a lead?

According to Faizan Khan, a lead is “a person who has indicated interest in your company’s product or service in some way, shape or form.”

Ideally, you’d want that interest to be expressed by them sharing their contact information, such as their email, company name or phone number. For example, a website visitor who filled out a form on your pricing page is a lead. Similarly, a person who downloaded your ebook in exchange for their email is also a lead.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the process of turning a prospect into a lead.

In a nutshell, a marketer’s main objective is to attract a stranger (prospect), make them interested in your product/service (lead) and then nurture them until they decide to buy from you (customer). Ideally, you’d also want them to love their experience with your product and in turn, become advocates of your business (promoters).

The lead generation efforts process starts on the far left, in the “attract phase” and ends in the “convert phase” when the individual officially turned from a stranger, or prospect, to a lead. But that’s only half the battle.

The other half is what marketers refer to as the “lead nurturing” process. It’s the process where you turn your leads into customers, sales or orders. The key to success here is to educate your potential customers and show them the true value of your product/service effectively.

Marketing

Marketing Strategy of Alibaba: Alibaba Marketing Strategy

By serving 2 billion consumers and servicing tens of millions of merchants worldwide Alibaba has emerged as a Global E-commerce player with its footprints in E-Commerce, Logistics, Payments, Marketing Services, Cloud computing, and meta-market businesses.

The Marketing strategy of Alibaba Includes:

Segmentation

Alibaba uses a mix of demographic, Psychographic and behavioral segmentation strategies to fulfill its mission and transforming its business to emerge as a technologically advanced company which will help customers, merchants and businesses to leverage the vast potential of the Internet.

Targeting

Most of the companies present in the e-commerce or technologically driven business use differentiated targeting strategy and Alibaba is not an exception to this.

Positioning

Positioning is where a product/ service stand in the mind of the consumer. Usage-based and pricing positioning strategies are used by Alibaba to augment revenue from a different line of businesses.

Advantages in the Marketing strategy of Alibaba –

The diversified line of businesses

Alibaba has the presence in the mega-markets such as being in e-commerce business they are in cloud computing, entertainment, payment gateway, mobile data etc. These are supporting the company in being way ahead of its competitors within house wholesome infrastructure.

Experience of world’s most competitive market

Operating in the country with 1.4 bn of a population is in itself poses a challenge. A challenge to satisfy a billion needs, demands, understanding their changing preferences and taste; all these have helped the company to emerge as the fastest growing company in the commerce market.

Brand equity in the Marketing strategy of Alibaba

Its strategic alliances in different companies and positive word of mouth have helped the company in increasing Top of mind awareness. Alibaba is way ahead of Amazon and Walmart in the list of valuable Retail brands.

Competitive analysis in the Marketing strategy of Alibaba

Alibaba’s diversified business portfolio is helping the company to be competitive while the e-commerce market is overcrowded with local, national and international players like Amazon, eBay etc.

Customer analysis in the Marketing strategy of Alibaba

Customers of Alibaba are new-age, tech-savvy, Gen Y and Z customers to whom their time, the convenience of buying and selling, maintaining their lifestyle is more important than it ever had.

Marketing

5 Most Common Challenges Faced while Starting a Business : Startups

There are 150 million startups in the world today with 50 million new startups launching every year. On average, there 137,000 startups emerging every day. These are huge numbers by any standards. But the question remains, how many startups tend to survive the violent waves of change that have completely transformed the very nature of today’s startups?

Yes, there is a huge paradigm shift. And that shift has challenged the overall functionality of startups. Challenges are everywhere. And businesses – in general, and startups in particular – are no exception to the myriad of challenges that we face today.

Here I am going to elaborate about some of the biggest challenges being faced by small business startups.

Fierce competition

The corporate world is quite fierce. There is always competition between veterans. Competition is one of the biggest challenges for startup businesses. And if you have an online business startup, competition becomes difficult.

The competitive environment places startup at your fingertips because there is no margin of error available. B2B and B2 CE organizations are always feeling the heat of fierce competition. In order to survive in this competitive business environment, to incorporate both traditional and online businesses, the startup needs to be aggressively played, and sometimes in challenging and expanded businesses to grow above their weight.

Unrealistic Expectations

Success does not come alone. It brings expectations with it. Most of the time, these expectations seem realistic, but in the true meaning of the word, it is only unrealistic. This same concept is true for the young startup business.

After initial success, startups have to face challenges when they set ‘Unrealistic expectations’. Remember, success is short-lived and expectations never end. This is where the startup needs to translate the real expectations? Stability is the name of the game. And persistence requires Consistent efforts.

Hiring Suitable Candidates for Startups

One of the most important factors that define organizational culture within a startup company is the synergy of the team. A team comprises of individuals with similar capabilities and identical focus. In order to develop a highly successful team culture, startups need to hire suitable candidates.

There is a huge pool of aspiring individuals available. Selecting a suitable candidate that fits the job well enough is a peculiarly tricky task. It is one of the biggest challenges facing the startup businesses in this digital age.

Financial Management

Money earns money. Remember the fact that when income increases, expenditure also increases. there is no doubt about it. One of the biggest challenges facing startup today is related to financial management.

It is a fact that small startups are heavily dependent on financial backup from the so-called investors. Occasionally, when the cash goes down, it is difficult to do the most important startup correctly, and they fall under pressure.

Cyber Security

This is the digital age. And surviving the challenges in this age requires small startups – especially the ones operating online – to be super agile to counter the so-called online security threats. Hackers are everywhere, and they are going to take advantage of any loophole within the systems installed within a startup firm.

The rate of cyber crimes has increased dramatically during the past couple of years. The percentage is going to increase in the coming years as well. Startups that are active online do face online security threats. Be its unauthorized access to startup’s sensitive information, employee records, bank accounts’ information, or any other related information that is deemed important for the survival of a tech startup, they are at risk.

In order to face and tackle the so-called challenges of a violent business world, startups need to be resilient and focus on keeping their integrity intact against all odds.

Email Marketing, Marketing Automation

7 Tips to Perfect Your Email Marketing this Holiday Season

As the Festivals are coming, now is the time for you to ramp up your email marketing. Here’s what you should do to make your holiday email marketing a success.

Make a Game Plan

Your first step is to make sure that you have a game plan. Every email marketer knows that armed with the right strategy, there’s no way you’ll lose sight of the bigger picture. Decide how and when you want to market this holiday season, and prepare a solid, well-thought-out plan.

You do not have to get an email for every holiday and opportunity (Holiday Email Marketing), but it’s good to know what’s going on, and for whom you want to make a market. Once you know it, the types of offers and imagery you are going to use will be easy to sync.

Make a Date of Email Marketing

Holidays like Christmas, New Year’s Eve will always fall on the same date each year, but remember the days of the week shift. So when you’re planning out your holiday Email Marketing strategy, be sure to keep that in mind.

Make it Mobile Friendly

As the working year winds to a close and schools start to let out, more and more of your customers and clients will be going on leave. Chances are, they won’t be checking your emails on their work computer anymore. Best you make sure your emails are mobile friendly, so your subscribers can read them from anywhere. It’s vitally important that not only are your emails legible and functional on mobile, but they also need to look fantastic as well.

Send Automated Emails

Holidays are busy times for all retailers and marketers. Instead of extracting valuable time from your sales and other responsibilities, you can use automated email to do all the work for yourself. Already set up, these automated emails will send the correct email to the right customer at the right time.

You can create a series of emails reaching certain holidays, with special mail sent on specific dates. You can split your automation and trigger different emails to different customers, depending on how they interact with your mail. Once this is all right, you can sit back and relax.

Grab Attention with Images

Using big, bold hero images is one of the easiest ways to showcase your products and keep you top of mind, all at one go. Make your hero images around the holidays that you are marketing to get the most impact.

Get personal with your offers

If you are not using dynamic content, then you run the risk of boring your customers with your generic, one-size-fits-all campaigns. Start making your holiday marketing more relevant by customizing your subject line, copy, or even entire content sections based on your individual segments.

In this way, you will deliver targeted, special offers and content directly to those people who find it most relevant, and you will see a direct promotion.

Make it urgent

One way to guarantee your subscribers jump at whatever offer you throw at them is to make it urgent. Nobody wants to be the only person to miss out on something. The best place to do this is in your subject line.

Things like “One day only sale”, “specials for Christmas only”, “don’t miss out” and “last call” will all drive home the urgency and importance of your marketing.

Email Marketing

Improve Your Sale with Mailcot Email Marketing

Change your gear of selling product and services through Email Marketing. Email marketing also affords you with a lot of data that can be used to judge performance and make advances in open rates, click-through rates, spam complaints, unsubscribe rates, etc.

For example, let’s assume you just moved into a new residence and recognized that your bed doesn’t suit so you’ll need to acquire a new one. You go to a few various websites to do some analysis but are not quite ready to make a shopping. Then, the next day one of those sites sends you an email with a code for 25% off your first acquisition. All of an immediate, purchasing that Bed becomes a bit more affordable and the welcome email could then make you return the site and take action. But, without the welcome email and exclusive offer, you may not have gone back to make a shopping. The welcome email helped to generate a sale by keeping your furniture needs top of mind.

How to Boost Your Sale with Email Marketing

Know Your Audiences

The email messages that you send out to your subscribers need to be relevant to their interests. This can only happen when you know and understand your target audience well enough.

Every subscriber on your email list is different, which is why it would be a mistake to send them the same email message. Emails relevant to the recipient tend to drive 18 times more revenue when compared to general emails. So taking a targeted approach definitely makes a difference.

Personalizing the beginning with a simple, ‘Hi’ can help to engage the reader enough to get them to at least begin to read your offer.

Scrub Your Email List Regularly

When someone is adding his or her email address to your list it’s possible they make a mistake, provide a fake email altogether or they eventually change to a new email address. This can have a negative effect on your email delivery performance, as the emails can bounce, go directly into spam folders and even get you labelled as a spammer. Run your list through a scrubbing and verification service on a regular basis to make sure you are always working with an accurate list.

Short and Effective

Keeping your emails simple helps you get a better response from your campaign. The idea is to make your subscribers aware of the offer you have for them. It is not too hard to sell them but to give them a soft nudge. If they find your offer interesting enough, you will find them visiting your website to learn more about it. By keeping your emails short and to the point, you make it easy for people to take action.

Unique Subject Line

Avoid tricks. They may work once, but they erode trust and debase most brands. In fact, A/B testing your subject line is easy (just divide your list in two and track open rate, click through rate, and purchase/conversion rate on the landing page by subject line A vs B. All other parts of the emails are the same, just a different subject line.) This lets you use email to build your best version of sales scripting to use on your website, offline marketing collateral, and even in your live salesperson scripting.

One Clear Call-to-Action Per Email

“If you don’t have one clearly defined call-to-action, you are going to experience minimal results. Your subscribers don’t have time to read through long emails, trying to determine what you want them to do or what exactly your offer is. If your recipient doesn’t know what you want them to do within seconds of opening your email, whether that’s visiting a page, calling a phone number or completing a form, they will most likely delete your email,”.

Tips to Improve Your Email Marketing

  • Test and find your most effective email format(s). (E.g. Text vs HTML. Short vs long form. Etc.
  • Make your email mobile/small screen friendly.
  • Test your messages before you send them on multiple browsers and readers.
  • Have a second set of eyes review your email.
  • Make sure all key images are “clickable” and all videos have a “play” button.
  • If an email (or email campaign) was successful, re-use it.
  • Make your emails valuable.

 

 

 

 

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