You probably know the saying: It costs money to make money. And with 50 percent of new businesses failing within five years — and 70 percent failing within 10 — marketing is more important than ever. Marketing is what fuels business growth, and it’s one of the most important things to consider in a business plan. Without a solid marketing strategy in place, you’ll find that you’ll be spending a lot of time and money on trying to grow your business with little to show for it.
As a new business owner, it would be great to see high-impact results immediately. Without millions of dollars from venture capitalists, though, gaining results can be a long road. However, while there is no magic formula to marketing, there are some easy, high-impact ...
If you’re going to create a great product that people love — and maybe even pay for — then you have to know your customer. And the best way to get to know your customer? Market research.
Market research is essential for any company, from tiny startups to massive corporations, but you have to do it right for it to work.
What steps are involved? Well, it starts with an organized and thorough market research process.
The very first step to conducting great market research is defining your goals. What do you want to learn from this research? What questions are you answering? In order to get the most useful information, you’re going to want to develop defined research or a hypot...
I going to share the story of the creepiest, least appropriate guerrilla marketing tactic I’ve ever come across. I’m not going to name the startup founder who did it, nor am I going to tell you identifying details about his company. I just want to make sure that no founder trying to get ahead hears a story like this and thinks, “Oh, that’s a great idea!”
No. It is not a great idea. It’s terrible.
Let’s rewind. The other day I came home to a package on my couch. Now, this isn’t a rare occurrence — I order off of Amazon as much as the next Millennial American — but I didn’t recognize the return address. “Weird,” I thought. “What’s this?”
My boyfriend poured me a glass of wine and I absentmindedly ripped the package open while telling him abou...
The question of whether entrepreneurship can be "taught" has been volleyed back and forth between academics and Founders forever.
The academics believe that entrepreneurship is a process that can be learned and executed, while the hardcore Founders feel like you either have "the right stuff" and figure shit out or you don't.
This is one of those cases where both are right, but both are asking the wrong question.
A ton, from how to validate an idea to managing your finances or setting up marketing campaign can absolutely be taught — and if we're being honest, are sorely lacking amongst most startup Founders today.
If you don't think those fundamental skills are helpful to building a startup, t...
Ask any startup marketer out there and they’ll tell you: email marketing is the gold standard of early-stage marketing strategies. If marketing is the car that gets your company where it needs to go, email marketing is the Volvo. It’s affordable, it’s reliable, and it’s known for unbeatable performance.
“Email marketing is the best and most affordable way to market anything to any audience, and in a highly personal way.” says Cyberwalker Digital Founder (and email marketing expert) Andy Walker. “The return on investment is better than any other technique to reach customers. And it works for brand building and generating direct sales.”
But let’s not kid ourselves: email marketing strategy is notoriously difficult to get right. If it were eas...
If starting a company is a race (and it is – it really, really is) then launch day is the starting line.
Everything you do before your product launch is the warm-up. (The very essential, very unskippable warmup). Everything that comes after? It’s the frantic, mad dash to the finish line, whatever and wherever that might be.
Your product launch is the inflection point. It’s the point to which everything before it leads up, and everything that comes after comes out of. And a successful product launch starts with a successful product launch strategy.
We all want our product to start out of the gate strong. But what exactly goes into a successful product launch? Stuart Brent, Co-Founder of MapPlug, has an idea or two on the subject. Not only h...
Social media is a marketing tool pre-Internet marketers could only dream of. A virtually complete directory of every consumer on the planet? Indexed and targetable by age, gender, location, and a hundred other identifiable details? Maybe in science fiction, a marketer of 40 years ago would have said.
Never forget, startup founders and marketers of the 21st century: we are living in the future.
But, as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. Social media is a tool. And, like, any tool, it is only as good as how it’s used – and what it’s used for. Nowhere is that more clear than in the world of social media advertising.
When it comes to social media advertising, execution is everything. And here’s the thing: ninety percent of t...
It’s time we admit the obvious: The classic business differentiators have become obsolete. Customers expect the best quality, the lowest possible price, instant delivery, and an experience that wows them every time.
Despite this change, most companies are terrified to implement the “novel” technique of being honest with customers.
Modern buyers focus intensely on customer experience and touchpoint impressions, not on which products perform well. Why? Blame the Japanese Kaizen movement of the 1970’s and 1980’s if you’d like.
Not only did Kaizen spark the total quality management movement, but it also brought defects down to negligible amounts. Customers got high-quality products, and companies suddenly found themselves competing mainly on p...
When we think of marketing it can sometimes be hard to look past buzzwords like “engagement” or “virality.” However, these factors don’t get at the true objective. The real factors to be considered are those directly impacting the company’s bottom line in a clear and measurable way.
To put this into perspective, in a study conducted by Econsultancy, only about 22 percent of businesses were satisfied with their conversion rates from online marketing campaigns, indicating that standard factors, such as clicks, likes and shares, do not necessarily translate to earnings. Moreover, another study found that if marketers had a greater ability to track return on investment (ROI), over 75 percent would increase their marketing spend.
Therefore, in ...
It’s hard to overestimate the importance of a startup name — which is why naming a business can feel so harrowing. A great name can help push your company to the next level, but a terrible one can sink you before you even started. So how do you find a great business name?
While there probably are as many approaches to coming up with a company name as there are failed startups, one great place to start is with idea generators. These quick, handy online tools spit out word combinations that can be a great jumping off point for you and your team.
Once you’ve found a company name you like, you can use the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) to find out whether or not a business name has been trademarked. You should also use ICANN WHOIS to...