Digital Marketing
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Digital Marketing for Startups – 8 things to do before launching a product/service | Startup Xperts

The world is witnessing the emergence of startups that was never seen before, in this scale. The biggest question that most entrepreneurs face is that of how to launch their product or service quickly into the market place. As we all know, startups are meant to be ‘lean’. So finance is going to be one of the biggest challenges for most of them. Does digital marketing cost a lot of money? Or can be done ‘cheap’?

Answer is yes and no! Confusing?

If you get into wrong hands in pursuing your digital marketing initiatives, your money can be getting into a bottomless pit. But then yes, if you work with a digital marketing evangelist, or a digital marketing firm that understands the startup mindset well, then you could be in safe hands. Not just safe, but you are creating yourself some extra room to succeed, right at the start itself!

Can it be done cheap? Certainly no! As the saying goes, if you throw peanuts, you will get monkeys! Well, it can be done in a very cost effective way, and one that can deliver results for you.

Let’s quickly look at what are all the right steps that you need to take, to launch your product or service.

  • Get your presence online:You can do this by registering your domain name (preferably .com) and get your website up. Gone are those days when you wait for over a month to see the first cut version. Today, website can be launched in a few days or in weeks, depending on the functionality that you would like to build in. There are numerous domain and hosting companies to choose from. Check their service credentials as the big names that we have experienced have offered poor customer service. Another important point – just make sure that your site is mobile-friendly!
  • Social Media Marketing: The world is becoming more and more socially connected. Depending on whether you are a B2B, or B2C, or B2B2C, create social media accounts as need be. For B2B, you got to have LinkedIn and Twitter accounts; for B2C, have Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
    Creating accounts does not take time. But engaging through these social media platforms will demand your quality time. Here again, content is the king. You can publish, or share content (preferably original) else you can work with your digital marketing consultant to help you create those contents that are worthy to read/share.
  • Build database:You can start to build database with the help of database subscriptions, through web research, and through your website too. This will be an ongoing activity and can start anytime.
  • Email campaigns:In one of the reports that I had read some time ago, it mentioned that email campaigns have the effect of almost 40x times than Facebook and Twitter combined. If you know to use the right CRM, you will be able to track the mail opens, understand what your prospect needs/wants, their interests, etc. Email campaigns can be a very powerful strategy and so do not underestimate its power. So keep sharing interesting articles (original content) with your network constantly. This can help create your brand, and establish you as a thought leader in this space.
  • SEO:Search Engine Optimization, is usually not done as many does not know or think that it is not for them. In many of my engagements, I have made my clients realize the value and importance of doing SEO for their website. It is more a strategy, and not just an activity that can be given to someone who just knows ‘tagging and coding’. This means you are outsourcing your online brain to that lower level.
  • SEM:Search Engine Marketing is suggested to go hand-in-hand with SEO. If you have not optimized your site, then the money that you spend in SEM can go down the drain. Startups need to conserve cash and do it effectively (e.g. Google Adwords, LinkedIn ads, Twitter ads, Facebook ads, etc.) so that they get the bang for the buck. I have suggested some steps as to what to do when (pre-launch, during launch, and post-launch), while launching your product or service, in one of my earlier posts.
  • Analytics:Google analytics’ basic version is free. So get this integrated along with the Webmaster tool. These analytics can give you significant insight as to what’s working and what’s not working. It is very simple and easy to use, and you may not need an expert to get those insights if you are savvy enough.
  • Monitor, fine-tune, and build your startup to scale.

It is not about doing all things right; It is about doing right things.

Happy launching!

Startup Xperts is a management consulting firm with an objective to transform companies into the next level of growth. Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their growth. Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth. Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, HR, Operations and leadership training.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violation, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest.

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How to Grow your startup business?

Not all startups are successful. The reasons could be a combination of – business planning, revenue model, leadership team, target segments, product, and most often execution. I have seen startups that had almost all the elements needed to transition into a sustainable, high-growth business, but lacked guidance and experienced leadership team. Building a startup is difficult but converting it into a high-growth business is even more challenging, and often requires a different skill set than that was required in the early days of a startup.

So what are those ingredients for that secret sauce of building a startup, successfully?

Having right business mentors and startup consultants are critical success factors for a startup to be successful. According to the first research report of Startup Genome Project in 2011, it was found that founders who learn are more successful. Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders, raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth.

Bill Joy, Founder of Sun Microsystems once said, “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people don’t work for you”. So it is best to avail professionals / mentors to support your growth mission; and in building a successful and sustainable high-growth business. You can avail mentor support across functions like marketing, sales, accounting, human resources, operational excellence, training, etc.

To ensure sustainable growth you need to have:

  Right business model that acquires customers

  Leadership with ideology, beyond just passion and vision

  Ability to seize opportunities

  Creating a high impact, marketing and sales engine

  Retention strategies

Have the right business model that aligns with customer acquisition. Do not build products / services that just excite only you and not your customers.Focus on long-term AND short-term goals and activities. Most often, companies tend to forgo short term profits thinking of reaping those profits in long term, but practically they are only digging themselves deeper.

Your ideology has to reflect upon your culture and beliefs. Like how Walmart’s ideology is focused on customers, Hewlett Packard – its employees, 3M – its innovation, Ford – its products, your activities and outcomes need to be consistent with your ideology.

Most often when you start to scale, you might stumble upon some great opportunities. Do not leave them since they are not products or services that you are currently pursuing. As long it fits the core of your ideology and purpose, do give it a try. 3M came out with Post-it product just by accident; Johnson & Johnson accidentally introduced baby powder which then climbs up drastically to have over 40% of their revenue share; Marriot Corporation got into the airport services business by accident and that became a roaring success. All these were once a small startup which later became large corporations. These successes are not attributed to great business or strategic planning, but show their abilities to seize opportunities. Explore options, pick what works for you and discard those that don’t work.

Most startups fail to scale due to lack of customers. There may be initial success but if you rest on your laurels you will get run-over. Set an effective, high impact marketing and sales engine. In my numerous meetings with CEOs and entrepreneurs, marketing and sales have been predominantly mixed up. Both are like chalk and cheese, so you need to have dedicated professionals for marketing (especially digital marketing) and sales functions.

Building revenues is paramount, a non-negotiable factor and laser focus on sales is very critical while you are scaling up. Hire ‘smart’ sales persons, and keep them on optimum heat so that they fire in the right areas. Fuel their passion and increase your revenue visibility.

Do not stop with lip service on customer satisfaction; honestly walk that extra mile to ensure that you stay on top of your customer’s mind, always. Incorporate customer feedback into your system and ensure that it is acted upon at the earliest. It is difficult to win customers, and if you lose them it takes more than 7x efforts to win another; not to mention, that their potential could be far lesser than what you had lost.

Your employees should be taught not to just please their bosses, but to ensure that their customers are taken care of. Make them treat customers like their CEO and success will look easy.

Your employees should be taught not to just please their bosses, but to ensure that their customers are taken care of. Make them treat customers like their CEO and success will look easy.

Beyond startup phase, while you are scaling up, it might be easier to afford more salaries to recruit key resources. While you might be able to attract talent, it is important that you have strong retention policies. Have small celebrations, cheer songs and team meetings to share corporate values and beliefs, from time to time.

Be tolerant for honest mistakes. We all know that while a startup is beginning to scale there are bound to be mistakes. Just make sure that the same does not crop up in future. Even large organizations do make mistakes. Allow them to experiment and bring out their best, as long as it does not become a corporate failure.

Finally, it is all about consistency; consistency in winning deals, consistency in getting customer appreciations, consistency in building robust products or solutions, consistency in delivering high quality services and consistency in collecting payments on-time that separates winners from those who also-ran!

Startup Xperts is a business growth and consulting firm with an objective to transform CEO’s vision into achievable, actionable goals that deliver results.  Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their revenue growth, profitably.  Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth.  Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, Sales Process Outsourcing (SPO), HR, Operations and leadership training, sales training, business mentoring and executive coaching.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

Author Shyam Sekar acts as a Chief Mentor and Strategist at Startup Xperts and provides business consulting and execution support to numerous startups and SMEs, helping them build their enterprises successfully.

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content.  In case of any objection in content, IP violations, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com.   We will do our best to act on it at the earliest

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Posted on Author admin Categories Blog

How to Grow your startup business?

Not all startups are successful. The reasons could be a combination of – business planning, revenue model, leadership team, target segments, product, and most often execution. I have seen startups that had almost all the elements needed to transition into a sustainable, high-growth business, but lacked guidance and experienced leadership team. Building a startup is difficult but converting it into a high-growth business is even more challenging, and often requires a different skill set than that was required in the early days of a startup.

So what are those ingredients for that secret sauce of building a startup, successfully?

Having right business mentors and startup consultants are critical success factors for a startup to be successful. According to the first research report of Startup Genome Project in 2011, it was found that founders who learn are more successful. Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders, raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth.

Bill Joy, Founder of Sun Microsystems once said, “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people don’t work for you”. So it is best to avail professionals / mentors to support your growth mission; and in building a successful and sustainable high-growth business. You can avail mentor support across functions like marketing, sales, accounting, human resources, operational excellence, training, etc.

To ensure sustainable growth you need to have:

 Right business model that acquires customers

 Leadership with ideology, beyond just passion and vision

 Ability to seize opportunities

 Creating a high impact, marketing and sales engine

 Retention strategies

Have the right business model that aligns with customer acquisition. Do not build products / services that just excite only you and not your customers.Focus on long-term AND short-term goals and activities. Most often, companies tend to forgo short term profits thinking of reaping those profits in long term, but practically they are only digging themselves deeper.

Your ideology has to reflect upon your culture and beliefs. Like how Walmart’s ideology is focused on customers, Hewlett Packard – its employees, 3M – its innovation, Ford – its products, your activities and outcomes need to be consistent with your ideology.

Most often when you start to scale, you might stumble upon some great opportunities. Do not leave them since they are not products or services that you are currently pursuing. As long it fits the core of your ideology and purpose, do give it a try. 3M came out with Post-it product just by accident; Johnson & Johnson accidentally introduced baby powder which then climbs up drastically to have over 40% of their revenue share; Marriot Corporation got into the airport services business by accident and that became a roaring success. All these were once a small startup which later became large corporations. These successes are not attributed to great business or strategic planning, but show their abilities to seize opportunities. Explore options, pick what works for you and discard those that don’t work.

Most startups fail to scale due to lack of customers. There may be initial success but if you rest on your laurels you will get run-over. Set an effective, high impact marketing and sales engine. In my numerous meetings with CEOs and entrepreneurs, marketing and sales have been predominantly mixed up. Both are like chalk and cheese, so you need to have dedicated professionals for marketing (especially digital marketing) and sales functions.

Building revenues is paramount, a non-negotiable factor and laser focus on sales is very critical while you are scaling up. Hire ‘smart’ sales persons, and keep them on optimum heat so that they fire in the right areas. Fuel their passion and increase your revenue visibility.

Do not stop with lip service on customer satisfaction; honestly walk that extra mile to ensure that you stay on top of your customer’s mind, always. Incorporate customer feedback into your system and ensure that it is acted upon at the earliest. It is difficult to win customers, and if you lose them it takes more than 7x efforts to win another; not to mention, that their potential could be far lesser than what you had lost.

Your employees should be taught not to just please their bosses, but to ensure that their customers are taken care of. Make them treat customers like their CEO and success will look easy.

Your employees should be taught not to just please their bosses, but to ensure that their customers are taken care of. Make them treat customers like their CEO and success will look easy.

Beyond startup phase, while you are scaling up, it might be easier to afford more salaries to recruit key resources. While you might be able to attract talent, it is important that you have strong retention policies. Have small celebrations, cheer songs and team meetings to share corporate values and beliefs, from time to time.

Be tolerant for honest mistakes. We all know that while a startup is beginning to scale there are bound to be mistakes. Just make sure that the same does not crop up in future. Even large organizations do make mistakes. Allow them to experiment and bring out their best, as long as it does not become a corporate failure.

Finally, it is all about consistency; consistency in winning deals, consistency in getting customer appreciations, consistency in building robust products or solutions, consistency in delivering high quality services and consistency in collecting payments on-time that separates winners from those who also-ran!

Startup Xperts is a business growth and consulting firm with an objective to transform CEO’s vision into achievable, actionable goals that deliver results. Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their revenue growth, profitably. Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth. Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, Sales Process Outsourcing (SPO), HR, Operations and leadership training, sales training, business mentoring and executive coaching.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

Author Shyam Sekar acts as a Chief Mentor and Strategist at Startup Xperts and provides business consulting and execution support to numerous startups and SMEs, helping them build their enterprises successfully.

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violations, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest

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Are you missing out in Digital Marketing?

The way that we have done business in the past and the way it is now have undergone a transformation, a digital revolution indeed. A few years ago, Facebook was hardly known; LinkedIn’s presence was not felt. But today digital is all over the place. With marketing undergoing major transformation, and will continue to evolve as we move forward, as a CEO or a CMO, have you utilized the ‘Power of Digital Marketing’ in your business?

This article could help uncover areas that your businesses should explore to make your company stand out, improve upon your brand image, reach out to more customers and building a solid foundation to your business.

Business buyer is today a lot sophisticated, and they have a need to buy. They now have plethora of information, lot of data to analyze, and more so, their purchasing decisions are influenced by the complexity involved in the buying process.

The first step is to define your Digital Marketing Strategy.

  • What are we trying to sell?
  • Who is the target audience?
  • What is the message that we would like to share with the audience?
  • What are your marketing objectives and how do you plan to track the ROI through these efforts?

It is essential that the management and marketing team addresses the above questions so as to have clarity and objectivity. The message needs to be consistent across various channels. Hence integrated messaging is the key and it should flow across both ways, both from your company and from your audience.

There were days when the buyer relied heavily on information from a manufacturer or a service provider, in order to buy. Today the customer has more than enough information at their finger tips. So treat the ‘Data like a King’, and ‘Content like a Queen’. The crux is that the context should be relevant to the customer. Proper use of information and analytics will help weave a perfect story which your audience wants to see or know about.

Another disruption in marketing has come up in the recent past, which is the ‘Mobility’. Organizations need to have a mobile strategy in place. Web and mobile strategies must meet, and it is becoming mandatory to have a mobile site that renders the website well across desktops/laptops, smartphones, tablets and e-readers.

Digital marketing is measurable, customizable, and can be executed effectively at a lower cost. It has various components and each of it needs to have a specific objective and results tracked. It starts with the website that should have a good design (good UI), clear messaging, ease of navigation and speed. SEO, SEM and Social media are some of the components one needs to pay close attention to.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization helps to optimize your website. It also increases visibility of your content through proper usage of keywords. It helps in ranking up your site based on your keywords, its density, etc. This is organic and cost effective, but takes time for results to be seen.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing is ad based where you bid for keywords. You can play with your budgets but sometimes minimum bid amount can itself be higher.

Social media involves social groups, networks, blogs, videos, reviews, etc. Most popular amongst them are LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.

Companies can derive significant benefits if they are able to leverage the power of Online Marketing. It can be further classified as ‘traditional’ and ‘gorilla’marketing.

Email marketing and banner advertisements can be classified traditional where as gorilla marketing helps to generate inquiries and close sales through cost per acquisition deals, affiliate programs, CPC (cost per click), etc.

The points discussed above are just the tip of the iceberg, and the marketing team needs to include a well thought out Inbound and Outbound digital strategy.

Inbound marketing can be done through blogs, videos, social media, SEO, discussion forums, whitepaper, etc.

Outbound marketing includes email campaign, webinars, virtual conference, display ads like Google adwords, etc.

A right mix of inbound and outbound marketing is the key, when you are looking at targeting prospective buyers for your product or a service or a solution.

Customer today has multiple touch points before they make their buying decision. Hence it is essential that we provide one integrated message, across all channels of communication.

With so much of avenues to reach out to your customers, and with lots of action happening in the marketplace, be conscious to cut the noise, make yours stand out, and fish where the fishes are.

Startup Xperts is a management consulting firm with an objective to transform companies into the next level of growth. Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their growth. Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth. Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, HR, Operations and leadership training.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violation, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest.

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How to manage your sales process? Part 1

The business of selling, in much of the corporate world, is perceived as a function to which business targets (sales quotas in strict sales-speak!) are handed down, with the expectation that they will be achieved somehow. Sales was perceived as a profession that is invariably personality driven: it is very common for field sales representatives to be viewed as a flamboyant individual who uses the ‘power look’ to intimidate prospects, or uses ‘closing techniques’ to make the prospect sign on the dotted line. In short, sales was perceived as more of an art, rather than as a science.

Although service delivery capabilities and functional expertise is very critical to any business, without the right sales efforts, nothing gets achieved. It is a no-brainer that without sales there are no revenues and hence no growth. Sales, which is such is a critical function, is often not managed in the right perspective. Just pushing the target down the throat does not work anymore. As said before, it is more of an art and there are very few professionals in the industry today who not only understands the sales secrets, but who also able to manage their sales team far more effectively and build high impact enterprises.

Every organization cannot excel in their sales process. More often than not, start-ups, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will observe that bringing in the right sales talent is one of the most common challenges they face. This challenge becomes more evident when the founders of such organizations come from a strong technology/operations/service delivery background.

With no in-house sales ‘expertise’, the question that comes to anyone’s mind will be – can the sales process be outsourced?

The answer to the question above is a ‘Yes’, as well as a ‘No’!

To understand more about when Sales Process Outsourcing (SPO) can work, and when it cannot, we need to break down the general sales process into various phases, and relate each phase to the organisation’s specific product, service or solution. The objective of this exercise will be to understand how amenable a particular phase will be to outsourcing. Depending on the nature of product or service, the complete sales process, or a few phases at the minimum, will lend itself to outsourcing.

Captured in the table below are the various phases of the sales process, and their amenability to outsourcing:

Sales Process Phase Suitability for Outsourcing Factors to consider before outsourcing
Lead generation through tele-calling A very common activity that is outsourced.
Can be streamlined significantly through the concept of ‘ideal customer profile’
Lead Qualification Can be completely outsourced for products and also solutions having a relatively straightforward functionality
Product Demonstration / Service pitch Where the solution being sold is complex, or lends itself to extensive customization to the prospect’s business needs, this is best done by the organization itself.
If it is a product or services pitch this process can be outsourced.
Proposal preparation As it applies to the Product Demonstration phase;
If it is a product / simpler service, can be managed through ready-made template that can customized for different prospects.
Negotiation/sales closure As it applies to the Proposal phase

From the table above, it is evident that by and large, the first two phases of the sales process (Lead Generation and Lead Qualification) are amenable to Sales Process Outsourcing. The next three phases, namely, Product Demonstration, Proposal preparation, Negotiation/sales closure lend themselves to outsourcing only when the type of solution offers a relatively well defined functionality, with almost no scope for customization. Typically, such solutions can also be sold online as it can be targeted towards self use type.

While contemplating the outsourcing of the lead generation and/or lead qualification process, it is worthwhile to use the concept of the ‘ideal customer profile’. The ideal customer, as the name implies, is a customer that an organisation would like to have in its client list. Even where the product or solution is complex, when the ideal customer profile is well defined, organizations can derive significant improvements in the productivity of their field sales force, since the outsourcing partner is broadly able to qualify leads that are fed into the sales pipeline. Field sales resources ultimately get to work on good quality leads when the ideal customer profile is well defined.

Sales process outsourcing will be a win-win scenario for both the outsourcing organisation and its outsourced partner, provided the ideal customer profile is well defined. Regardless of the product/solution/service focus of an outsourcing organisation, outsourcing their lead generation efforts, and after careful consideration of the complexities involved, other phases of their sales lifecycle will help them significantly improve the rate at which they win deals.

In Part 2 of this post, we will dwell upon a few scenarios where outsourcing various phases of the sales cycle will benefit an organisation.

Startup Xperts is a business growth consulting firm with an objective to transform CEO’s vision into achievable, actionable goals that deliver results. Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their revenue growth, profitably. Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth. Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, Sales Process Outsourcing (SPO), HR, Operations and leadership training and coaching.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violations, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest.

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