4 Steps to Creating Loyal Customers

4 Steps to Creating Loyal Customers

Creating loyal customers is a vital part of establishing and marketing your business. Not only does it give you a steady flow of repeat business, it also helps you build a team of brand ambassadors. This is a great organic tool for growth. 81% of people trust recommendations from friends or family over a business,

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Target Audience

The Complete Guide to Understanding Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is vital to marketing your product or service. Why? By knowing exactly who you’re targeting, you can shape and hone your marketing content so that it resonates with that specific group of potential customers, increasing the chance of them engaging with your business and purchasing your products or services.  This is

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Business Branding Tips

Business Branding Tips for New Founders

Your brand isn’t just a logo and colours. It’s not just the fonts you use. It’s your business’s whole personality. It encapsulates the experience and quality that users expect from your product or service. It’s what everyone says and thinks about your business when you’re not around. Think of the most successful companies in the

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What Is Equity Dilution?

What Is Equity Dilution?

Equity dilution occurs when a company (usually a startup) issues new shares to investors, which in turn decreases equity ownership for existing shareholders. With more shares in the hands of more people, each existing holder owns a smaller or diluted percentage of the business. Just as a drink becomes less concentrated when water is added,

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The Funding Gap; Why Startups Struggle When Trying To Scale

The Funding Gap; Why Startups Struggle When Trying To Scale 

Starting a business may be easy, but scaling it is always the most difficult part. Statistically, an overwhelming majority of startups fail to scale-up successfully and there are a number of factors which contribute to this scale-up struggle. A common reason startups fail to scale is down to the funding gap – the amount of

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How To Prepare A Business For Series A

How To Prepare Your For Series A

How To Prepare Your Business For Series A?Series A is undertaken for developing a scalable and sustainable business. Startups undertake series A for the purpose of financing and capital raising. Usually, it is the second stage of financing for startups.To prepare for the series, the following steps must be considered for a good outcome:Step 1: Write up a business plan, considering the financial forecasts grounded in the performance to date. This plan must be double-checked by any other founder of a startup, any investor, or accountant for the reason of checking numbers.Step 2: Search for a suitable investor for your business. An investor identified must be keen to invest in your company or industry type, having the necessary funds to invest at your required level of business.Step 3: Paperwork must be completed, related to the registration of the company, corporate structure, IP-related legal documents, liabilities of the company, shared ownership, and related to regulatory compliance. All these documents must be prepared for the purpose of due diligence for the investor.Step 4: Reach out to the investor for the purpose of initial meetings. This must be accomplished by providing an executive summary of the business to the investor. One thing to keep in mind is that emails based on persistent follow-ups may work out, but if one asks for warm introductions it is much better. It’s even better if one has created an investor network by this point, as generic emails won’t make a better pitch line to investors.Step 5: Narrow down the list of investors one wants for negotiation purposes. At least two should have options that are open, as it will help with comparing terms later on in selecting a more suitable optionStep 6: Engage with a venture capital lawyer. It is an important step, as they have the expertise you need to draw up contracts, make agreements for business valuation, negotiating i investment terms and setting up term sheets between both parties involvedBottom line: In preparing for series A, it should be kept in mind that as it is about the first time of developing a scalable business, one must have solid preparation of showing evidence about their attitude of task-oriented behavior, as well as the facts and figures to help reflect growth potential for investment return. This will all help in influencing the investor in funding your business.

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How To Access The Best Channel For Your Products

How To Access The Best Channel For Your Products

It is the most complex process an early-stage company must go through. A channel is not just about the name of providing a platform to sell. The confusion is common. A channel where you position the product might take you to the platform where you sell, but not all the time. In other words, it represents the medium where you can get the greatest audience reach, potentially the cheapest way to have huge visibility. An example could be TikTok, an amazing channel for specific types of products for video materials and most important catchy viral trends. The platform where you sell could be Shopify.Assessing which channel works best for your company and particular product is a complete process or a series of steps that follow to achieve business goals.Choosing the best channel refers to the selection of a platform that fulfills all the requirements to meet the expectations of the business owner. It starts with assessing the customer personal, social, and demographic characteristics which feed into your decision, but it then expands to data you have available from tests across multiple channels and data you enhance to get better insights.In is quite normal to change strategies depending on specific product ranges, countries and even type of content to enable you to optimise the cost of acquisition.You might want to consider the following while you search for the best channel for your product:Cost-effectivenessCost-effectiveness is a way to determine that whether this channel will prove economically viable for your business or not? Does it require more resources or money to maintain or run the activity on a particular channel, or creating the content?Some businesses in the venture capital space at times run campaigns at a loss, they pay more for a lead than they get in Lifetime Value. It is acceptable if you are just launching and creating a buzz about your company.The same strategy could be completely unsustainable in the long run.Ease of accessThe best channel provides you the ease of accessing the products for customers. It enables you to be first to the audience, building loyalty, a community feeling. They buy your content and values as much as your product.If you are selling to the gaming community, you may consider YouTube Gaming or Twitch. If you are targeting young professional mothers as an audience, you may consider Facebook or LinkedIn.Every customer profile will demand a different approach. Ask yourself where your ideal client is spending their time, and how much of it. Run tests, validate your assumptions. Learn and test some more.Marketing and CreativesThe most expensive element if find the right channel is creating engaging content to promote your brand. It is much easier to get virality with video than any other form of content, yet the production usually sets a high bar which start-ups cannot meet.It is easier for established brands to get mass publicity just by virtual of having budgets dedicated to curating and producing the best channel appropriate content.In early-stage, founders are faced with challenges, and you always must compromise on key elements, select the marketing and creative collateral that are within the means given. Building on what works at one level is the best way to progress towards more expensive strategies, potentially involving TV ads, videos, and celebrity endorsements.Small businesses face substantial hurdles while opting for a good channel for products. While choosing the best channel proper guidance is very necessary. You must keep in view all the above factors to select a beneficial channel. Improving on this process will enable you to find faster, cheaper ways to reach your audience, improve your brand recognition and increase conversion.

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How To Manage Your Advertising Budget

How To Manage Your Advertising Budget

When it comes to advertising, many companies seem to throw money away as the engagement levels they’re receiving from their paid campaigns are so low. Fortunately, for you, as an marketer or entrepreneur who may be on a tight budget, this blog shares some insightful strategies that can be effective when it comes to increasing the performance of future campaigns:Advertising strategy:Without recognising the right strategies to suit their operations, many organizations try every tactic they know about and assume that return on ad spend will come. Instead, developing a solid and effective strategy of advertising based on the most suitable platform for their company will allow the organization to invest effectively. For a company it may be more suitable to invest in blogging and digital content; for another company, it might be more suitable to invest in targeted and paid social media ads. This should be decided by a whole team, and collectively a call should be made about the best allocation of budget and investment of time, finances, and energy.Campaign goals:To manage your advertising budget, the focus should be made on one or two campaigns at a time. Your goals for these campaigns should be defined and based solely around what they company seeks to get out of each campaign. Set the right target audience for your campaign and decide the ways in which your campaign will reach them. Also, define your success parameters. By the end of your campaign, assess if each goal has been achieved.A great way manage your ad spend but also make sure you’re not wasting money or timeUsing budget template:Another suitable way of managing your budget is to go for a budget template. Depending on the size of your budget and needs, one can find so many various options of templates to try out and see what works best. Once you have found the right budget template, continue to regularly visit and keep it updated.Tracking the expenses:To better understand the spending patterns of your organisation and return on investment, all marketing expenses, including those allocated to your advertising campaigns should be reviewed. However, keep in mind that if several people have access to company cards for the purpose of advertisement expenses things might get complicated for you. To avoid such tricky situations, you should choose an appropriate financial tool to track your advertisement budget or expenses accurately, which is easily accessible to your whole marketing team. A number of applications and programs can be used, that are easy to use for employees for making invoices of expenses that can be viewed and approved by the senior management further.Selection of media:If you focus on a media-based strategy for your business, then it should be carefully determined which media type is most suitable for your audience. Not every type of media is suitable to cater to your decision. For instance, television is used for targeting a large audience but for the engaging audience, one can also found social media more appropriate.All these factors are important for managing the advertising budget in a good way.

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How To Find A Great Head Of Marketing

How to Find a Great Head of Marketing

Every business needs to put resources into marketing since this assists you with keeping up with durable associations with your clients. Great marketing helps brands gain support, hold clients, increment deals and develop the business.Scaling a business organization on the web or offline isn’t simple on the grounds that there are countless organizations rivaling one another. Henceforth, you require a brand marketing methodology to enhance your presence all around the world. This is the reason the job of a marketing head is so critical for the development of your image.The Marketing Head is answerable for executing the overall marketing strategies and techniques of an organization, like getting ready the marketing ideas, choosing and arranging objectives of upcoming campaigns, investigating the efforts of rivals, and setting the plan of marketing spending.To find the best head of marketing for your business one should look out for the following skills in a person:Excellent communication skillsUX design skillsContent management skillsEffective negotiation skillsSEM skillsTeam-building skillsAnalytics skillsSEO skillsSocial media skillsStrong networking skillsCreativity and writing skillsHiring a marketing director is challenging. The new director shouldn’t only have a bullet-pointed list of appropriate skills but also love leadership roles and always be able to mentor colleagues. There are several mediums where you’ll post your available job and begin accepting applications. Here are the simplest channels to hire a director of marketing for your company:It is a challenging role to find a great head of marketing. Not only the right skills but also a leadership and mentoring attitude is required in becoming a head of marketing. Some of the best channels which can be used for finding a great head of marketing with appropriate skills and attitude are:LinkedInLinkUpMonsterScoutedLaddersSimply HiredZip RecruitersGlassdoorIndeedRobert HalfBesides these platforms, tapping into the network of your family, friends, colleagues, former coworkers is also a quite good way to reach out to the best-fit person for the role of marketing head.Next, you should also go for posting your message on social media handles as they are taking over the world on all grounds. This post may be shared further by your followers and a suitable person may reach out to you for taking the position of marketing head.Another step that can be effective in finding a great marketing head is going for employee referral programs. This process is also time-saving as compared to the job posting and carrier sites.After getting the right pool of candidates on your board, similar steps of recruitment should be performed as we mostly observe. Interviewing the candidate with a keen investigation about their expertise and knowledge is important to reach out to the best person among a number of candidates.

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How To Increasae The Probability Of Repeat Purchasing

How To Increase The Probability Of Repeat Purchasing

When an existing customer makes a purchase again, this is called repeat purchase, and retaining these existing customers is less expensive than acquiring new customers. Several reports have also shown that existing customers make a promising profit to a seller in comparison to new customers. To inspire a customer for making its second or third purchase, several strategies can be opted by businesses:Engaging customers post-purchase by targeted messaging is equally important for repeat buying behavior. Usually, brands cease their targeted messaging activities after the initial purchase is made which makes a negative impression in the mind of consumers. These targeted messages can be sent using emails, in-app notifications, and pop-ups, and so on.Different patterns in buying behavior and intent of customers can be observed at different stages of the purchase. For instance, in the case of replenishable items, it is important for businesses to use their marketing automation strategies in real-time. By sending relevant reminders on time can re-engage customers in making their purchases.An effective strategy can be the use of promo codes, discounts, and coupons. Rewarding customers on their purchases encourages them to make their purchases again from the same seller. For this strategy, one should also have a solid strategy for promotional events behind such incentive programs because too much use of such programs can spoil the purpose by creating a negative brand perception that will ultimately result in a loss of revenue.Advertising your stuff for customers who visit your site without making a purchase can bring them back for purchasing action. This is done through the use of a code snippet to see a customer’s interests. Now the customer’s preferences and interests can be noted by the content they watch on social media. Catching the customers through their content searching can make a seller or brand identify their target customers more easily to provide them with the right advertising content to motivate them for purchases.Also, loyalty programs make customers loyal to their specific brand or seller. The gamified points system, discounts, and offering early access to your new products and services can also make customers coming back to the same store. This is especially an effective strategy in the case of replenishable goods.

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