In order to pursue brand recognition, you have to deploy these marketing tools- Advertising, Publicity and Promotion. Each tool plays a crucial role in communicating products, catalogues or services of a brand to the users.
A marketing tool is a technique that helps your business to develop or dilate your products and services to the public. Besides, deploying marketing tools impacts a favorable effect on your brand sales turnover and brand awareness. Advertising, Publicity and Promotion are one way or another way to brew a company’s profile in the public.
You are watching a film on television, apparently there will be an intermission in between the movie and you see a clip regarding a product that they’re trying to sell.
Advertising is nothing, but a short duration of video clips which represent the brand. Moreover, it is done as a marketing communicating strategy among public audiences as it drives brand awareness as well as sales to the products for which advertising is for.
Advertising entices watchers to make a purchase on the products that they’re showing in such an ingenious way.
For instance, When you are frigging craving for something to eat while binge watching your favorite web-series on YouTube and out of nowhere, you see an advertisement of KFC, where an actor devours chicken wings, Urg! That appetites your hunger. Additionally, Advertisement can be done in paper form likewise- Magazine, newspaper, leaflets etc.
Ultimately leads you to order something on Swiggy or Zomato. This is how advertising works on marketing, by enticing public eye to make purchases forthwith, Besides Advertising should be appropriate, credible and pertinent to the brand.
Types of Advertising
Newspaper:
You will encounter Big Bazaar advertisements in the end or the middle of Newspaper apropos any offers available.
Big Bazaar Newspaper Ad
Radio
This mode of advertising is prevalent in olden days, because almost two-third of the population have listened to sports commentary on radio since the 60s and in the middle of time-out you will listen to Nestle ad most of the time back in those days.
Television
Naaptol is a great example for television advertisement, where time-slot is given to make as many as customers to call for them and allot an order for the particular product which the hosts are trying to sell for the seven minutes max.
Catalogues or Direct Mail
When direct mail was introduced, this played as an advantage to businesses in promoting their products in an effortless method by sending postcards, platelets or leaflets and papers to its targeted customers. When you open an email, you will see a plethora of emails from Swiggy or Zomato.
Zomato Swiggy Email marketing
Online
One of the easiest methods to drive traffic to your brand is to advertise your products or service online. For instance; If you are searching for mnemonics regarding to clear a predicament math exam and you encounter Byju’s in the bottom of your screen and asking you to enroll.
A few months back, world-famous Portuguese footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo moved two bottles of Coca-Cola off a table during a press conference which led to the company’s share price falling by $4 billion minutes after the gesture. This essentially is an example of bad publicity even though the footballer didn’t essentially demote the product.
Publicity is an activity through which a product or brand creates awareness among the buyers. It is generally the media attention for a product or service. Publicity can be both positive and negative. Companies use Public relations to have controlled publicity. It is a form of non-paid promotion.
Types of Publicity
Publicity can be a boon or bane to the image of the product or brand. The different types of publicity are:
News
News and media coverage is a common form of publicity and affects the product vastly as this information reaches a huge number of people. Since the company doesn’t have control over the news or the media releases the publicity can be both positive or negative.
Digital Activities
As the world has deeply immersed in the internet and people follow the movements of the company diligently as everything is available to them, the presence of the company and its products on social media is a kind of publicity as people tend to share the posts with friends and others.
Social Efforts
Social Efforts by the company gains the attention of the media and likewise the general public. Companies promote a green environment, action against climate change and other social problems which gains the company a positive image.
Events and Conferences
Companies sponsor music concerts, trips and other events, this helps in making aware the presence of the company to the public. Conferences are conducted by the company to attract investors and other potential stakeholders.
Partnerships
Companies partner with other companies to increase their customer base along with the other companies’ customers. This promotion is mutually beneficial and profitable.
Press Release
The press release is handled by the Public relations department of the company and this form of promotion is in the control of the company. Press releases are made to announce the major events of the company.
Product Release and Offers
Companies draw the attention of the public for their new products through product launch events. The product launch is also telecasted online through YouTube and other platforms. The company also gives away offers and discounts to help in creating more demand for a product.
Those pesky Ad Breaks while watching an interesting movie or a match is really an infuriating thing isn’t it? And they are the answer to the question ’What is promotion?’. Promotion is a process in marketing through which the company informs the user about the product, its uses, benefits and urges the buyer in purchasing the product. It is a form of communication from the buyer to the seller. It is a method to create awareness of the product among the users to coax them into choosing this particular product or brand over other competing brands and products.
Types of Promotion
As mentioned earlier, Ad breaks and advertising aren’t the only types of promotions a company uses to create awareness about its brand or product among the customers. The types of promotion used are:
Direct Promotion
Direct promotion is the promotion where the company communicates with the customers directly without any intermediary. This is done through email marketing, websites, promotional letters, etc.
Sales Promotion
Sales Promotional methods are the ones the company follows to increase sales by way of methods like buy 1 get one free, lottery, etc.
Public Relation
Public Relation is one essential component for the survival and sales of a company. The company uses PR to communicate with the customers and other stakeholders of the company to increase its presence.
Advertisements
Advertisements are the most common form of promotional activity done by a company. Advertisements are cheap and it helps the company in mass reach. Advertisements can be made using newspapers, the internet, television, radio, etc.
Direct Selling:
Direct Selling is a promotional activity when the company entrusts agents with the product and the agents travel from door to door and sell the product.
Online Promotion:
Online Promotion is the promotion done by the company with the use of the internet. This includes email marketing, advertisements on the internet, etc.
Major Difference among Advertising, Publicity and Promotion
Parameters of Comparison
Advertising
Publicity
Promotion
Definition
It is a paid-up marketing one-way communication, which shows your brand either visually or in written form.
Publicity is an action which is engrossed by the media in the eyes of the public.
Promotion is a method of informing their targeted audiences about the products and urging them to make a purchase at the spur of the moment.
Types
There are various types of advertisement such as- Television, online, outdoor, radio, newspaper, Cinema and magazines advertisement.
News, Digital Activities, Social Campaign, Press meeting for inauguration of the product, Social efforts and product release or offers etc.
Direct promotion, Direct selling, Online promotion, Public Relation (PR), Advertisement and sales promotion.
Advantages
Entice watcher that leads sales, Consumer awareness, Fights competitions, introduction of new products to markets and Wide coverage of brands.
Low-cost, augment Credibility among buyers, provide informative and draws audiences attention.
Introduce new products to its users, Generate new leads, Immediate returns, Better control, Ameliorate Public image and Enhance large scale production.
Disadvantages
Advertising cost sky-high, impersonal, lacks flexibility and one-way communication. Discourage small businesses who can’t afford to cast an advertisement.
Lack of control if ignomable is framed against the company, Cost high in case of any press meeting is arranged.
Expensive, Tarbish Brand Image and Short-term orientation that engenders ambiguity about the products.
Examples
You encounter Banner or poster in the middle of travelling somewhere likewise; a person opening his mouth wide to have a bite of Mcdonalds burger.
When you step out, you hear vegetable vendors trying to sell their products by shouting loud in order to engross buyers.
If you go to a fast food restaurant and as a regular customer you get a promotion availability ‘Buy One Get One’.
Conclusion
Promotion, Publicity, Advertising are done mainly to create awareness of the product and coax the consumers in choosing the product among the competing brand’s products.
Both Advertising and Publicity are a form of Promotion. In this era, where consumers are flooded with a lot of choices, it is essential for a company to advertise and publicize its product and brand and use these promotion methods to survive and flourish in any industry.
FAQ
What is the most effective promotional tool?
According to numerous studies calendars and notepads are the most effective promotional tools.
What are the tools of publicity?
Media relations, Social media, Newsletters, and Brochures and catalogues are some of the tools you can use for publicity.
What is the most expensive promotion tool?
Personal selling is considered as the most expensive promotion tool. As it involves training costs.
Today, social media is playing a crucial role in the marketing world. Marketing and marketers these days prefer online publicity over offline publicity. One of the ways to get online publicity is press coverage. Sometimes, online reviews from customers even helps in gaining online publicity.
The perks of online publicity are many. They drive traffic to your website. In addition to that, they even help you earn the trust of customers from other reputed publications. It is a press kit which provides your viewers detailed information about you and your services. It even facilitates their process of writing reviews for you. Before knowing more about press kits, let’s discuss what a press kit is.
A press kit, also known as media kit, is a toolkit on your platform or website which contains information related to your products and marketing practices. It includes a brief introduction about your company and platform. This facilitates journalists and other press members to get insights and highlights about your business.
Do you think a press kit is only important for press? No, a press kit is important for every website. It even allows the specific target viewers to get information about your business and goals.
What is a Press Kit?
Need of Press Kit in a Business
There are various reasons stating why you may need a press kit. The most important instances include:
1) During launch of new products 2) During opening of a new business 3) During promotion of an event
During launch of new products
Whenever you are about to launch some new products in the market, a press kit is essential. A press kit provides your audience all the details about your products. The features, advantages and prices of the products can be easily conveyed to the customers by a press kit.
During opening of a new business
Whenever you set up a new business, a press kit is essential. It’s a perfect introduction about yourself and your business. The press and your target community come to know about your services by the help of your press kit.
During promotion of an event
Are you organizing an event or campaign? A press kit is the easiest way to inform your audience about it. It even captures their attention thereby stirring their excitement about your event.
Components of an Ideal Press Kit
Press Kit components
A press kit introduces you to your audience. Hence, it is essential to provide some information which will be beneficial for your audience. Generally, the following information should be included:
Making a press kit is not difficult. With proper information, it’s very easy. Now let’s know about how you can create a press kit all by yourself. These 8 simple steps will help you in getting your own press kit:
Step 1. Decide the purpose behind your press kit. Step 2. Give a brief overview about your company including its history. Step 3. Provide highlights about your company. Step 4. Provide relevant facts related to your company. Step 5. Give a brief description about your team members. Step 6. Link the past press releases. Step 7. Provide your contact information.
Now let’s know about these steps in detail.
Step 1. Decide the purpose behind your press kit
A press kit is made for various reasons. Depending on the reason and purpose, the content of the press kit varies. The format and content of various types of press kit differs. It is the purpose which decides the relevant information to be provided in the press kit. Hence, it’s very essential to know and analyze the purpose behind your requirement of the press kit.
Step 2. Give a brief overview about your company including its history
Your audience needs to have proper information about your company. A brief introduction along with the history of your company is necessary. The mission of your company also needs to be mentioned.
Suppose, you wish to start a new business. The purpose of your press kit is to announce this new business. While introducing your company, you also need to provide relevant information about the date of foundation. Other information like location of your offices and your target market along with your services should also be mentioned. The opening hours of your business should be mentioned too. This information helps your audience to know you in detail.
Step 3. Provide highlights about your company
In this section, you need to add some high resolution pictures and videos related to your company and products. This is necessary because it helps in creating engagement with the audience. Photos exhibiting your professionalism will feature your business elements. This will help you gain the attention and retention of your audience. Hence, the quality of the pictures and videos should be well maintained.
Step 4. Provide relevant facts related to your company
This portion of your press kit is again very necessary. A minimum of ten main points about your company and products are to be included. Listing these facts will enhance their availability and visibility. You can provide these following details in the fact sheet:
Number of satisfied clients along with mentioning some of them.
Step 5. Give a brief description about your team members
A brief description about the professional heads like CEO, founder and presidents of your company should also be provided. Some information about their career and their contribution to the setting up of the company may also be included. This enables the customers to know about the leading team members of your business.
Step 6. Link the past press releases
Providing links to the past press releases of your company can help them in knowing your company better. All these press releases should be linked in a chronological manner. These even help you in gaining a positive impression of your audience.
Step 7. Provide your contact information
Your contact information is the most essential information to be provided. This allows customers and audience to connect to you to know you in detail. Hence, relevant and accurate contact information should be provided.
Conclusion
A press kit is an important marketing tool. The key audience targeted with a press kit are the journalists. Providing them appropriate relevant information will help you gain media coverage at reasonable prices.
Digital press kits have become popular these days. They can be easily made and updated at any time. They are generally in the form of pdf. Whatever the medium of the press kit may be, having it is very essential. There are various free templates available online which will help you in getting your press kit. You can get your free customized press kit easily and use it to grow your business.
FAQs
What is a press kit?
A press kit, also known as media kit, is a toolkit on your platform or website which contains information related to your products and marketing practices.
Who should use a press kit?
Anyone who wants to set up a business needs a press kit. A press kit is essential not only for marketers but also for bloggers and other creators and business professionals.
Should I publish the press kit on my website?
Yes, the press kit should be present on the website.
Having organized an ecommerce website is a job half done. The rest of the job is proper marketing of the website to gain more customers as more and more individuals become aware of the website, the sales increase and thereby establish the virtual presence of the ecommerce initiative.
As the word of mouth spreads, more customers will turn their heads towards the website. Hence why proper marketing is very essential and crucial in an ecommerce website. Below we’ve mentioned some creative ways of marketing any ecommerce website. So, let us see the complete story on the topic- 13 Ways to Market Your E-Commerce Website.
A podcast is a series of audio files which subscribers can download and access. Podcasts are being branded as a source of ‘audio marketing’.
In recent years, the number of subscribers has gone up significantly. So get in touch with podcasts that are even remotely related to the services or product that the website deals in.
Explain the brand value and proposition to them, and convince them to advertise your website, either pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll of the audio/video. This will surely attract the podcast subscribers to check your website.
2. PPC marketing
Pay-per-click marketing allows the ad owner to evaluate how effective the campaigns cost-wise by comparing ad cost with the revenue generated through this model.
By marketing the website on platforms such as Facebook, the website creator can get to know the current standing of his offering and continuously improve the campaign to ensure that the money being paid to the social media platforms isn’t going waste.
3. Blogging
A cost-efficient and creative way of garnering an audience, if blogging is done with the right content is a great way of marketing anything. The outcome is more pronounced if the website offers something in a specific niche, that’s enthralling and unique at the same time.
The blog should explain the product, its USP, and everything else that the customer should be aware of. For blogging, you can hire good online bloggers who will write effective content mentioning about your website, the products and services etc. Also, you can ask them to promote these on their social media, to attract customers.
4. Social Media Marketing
Establishing a presence on such sites doesn’t mean having 500+ followers on LinkedIn, innumerable likes on the Facebook page, etc. The aim is to leverage virtual presence to target the intended audience. You have to use all the social media platforms effectively to promote a new ecommerce website.
Influencers are people who have large online audiences, and have the power to “influence” that audience’s purchasing behavior.
Working with the right influencer can get your product in front of a huge number of potential customers, increasing your brand awareness. To make the best use of influencer marketing, make sure your targeted influencer’s following aligns with your target audience, and that their values align with your brand. Conducting social media contests and forming new trends with influencers can get your brand a lot of attention.
There’s no denying that getting noticed by many is imperative, but everything should be done systematically. First, getting the actual customer to take notice of the product/service, and then expanding the website’s awareness among other types of people.
Networking can turn the tide in one’s favor even in the grimmest of situations. Collaborating with major industry players to seek their assistance in the ecommerce website’s marketing is like the job half done. It sets a base wherein continuous refurbishment on the website owner’s part takes things further. A few ways to approach the big-shots are:
Personal messaging to initiate a conversation with the company/individual; this provides a pitch deck for presenting the website’s potential and how external support can churn profit for both parties.
Re-tweeting or replying to those who mention the product in a tweet, post or any other method.
Being active on the industry veterans’ page or profile; one can respond with witty and creative responses to content posted by such popular entities.
Also, you can participate in a competition where there is actual investors partner with you and invest in your company.
6. SEO Is The Key To Online Success
Search Engine Optimization makes the difference in turning a not so known website into one that shows up on the first page of a search result.
There are ample sources to get the required tweaking and modifications done. A lot of business specializes in content marketing and SEO strategies that too at affordable costs, so get in touch with an SEO specialist and start working on your ecommerce website and make it on the top of the search engine to gain mass of customers.
Social media strategy is a 21st-century marketing way. Create your company page in every social media platforms and focus on the posts. Make sure you engage the followers with catchy posts and attractive headlines.
Also, make sure you post regularly on your page so that your followers get updated with the new collections, offers etc. of your store. I came to know about lots of ecommerce sites because of social media. Hence, focus on your social media presence.
8. Email marketing
The old way of publicity, email promotion involves sending emails related to the product to the intended people. The problem is that most of the times, such emails end up in spam.
So, that’s one thing to consider when weighing the efforts put into creating an appeasing promotion mail against the probability of the customer noticing it.
Build up a mailing list after carefully considering the customers so that unintended recipients don’t end up receiving the promotional mail.
Even before the advent of ecommerce, promotions were integral in attracting customers over the internet. The same is applicable even today. Good, well-tailored discounts and freebies can aid in boosting virtual presence and sales because people love free things.
10. Feedback System
All ecommerce sites offer a review/discussion forum for each product or offer. In addition to the product, the medium allows people to put forth their opinion about the site itself—it’s a layout, efficiency, etc.
So, creating a feedback or review portal and genuinely reply to the posts makes the website more relatable to the audience; the reason being that their opinions are being heard.
11. Mobile-Friendly Websites
Smartphones are gradually replacing computers and laptops; PC specs are now being incorporated in mobile phones. And most of the internet users utilize their smartphones for the purpose. So, creating a website that renders on a mobile screen smoothly is a necessity.
12. Easy Return Policies And Shipping Charges
When it comes to online shopping, we are ways worried about the size, quality, colour etc. of the products that we order from the ecommerce websites, so one more interesting trick to attract customers is easy and hassle-free return policy. Also, no one wants to pay heavy shipping charges, so make sure you charge minimum shipping charges on the products.
Hence, follow these easy yet interesting tips to promote your ecommerce website because, for an online ecommerce website, marketing is the key to success.
13. Personalised Landing Pages
Landing on a web page that is tailor-made to suit your preferences is a feature that isn’t available to all. Many sites have now realized the importance of personalized landing web pages.
For example, a website specializing in women apparel would seem out of place if there are pop ads for men’s undergarments! If the page displays women-centric advertisements, the website ought to have better traffic.
Frequently Asked Questions
How decide best marketing strategy for my ecommerce business?
If you want to reach new customers who are currently unaware of your brand, then SEO and content strategy is the best option as it will drive traffic to your website and your site will be easily available to people interested in your product. There are many ways to use marketing to promote your business; however, which strategies you should employ will depend on your business and your goals. Here are some questions to ask: does your offline brand provide you with a strong email list? If so, maybe start by getting the word out that way. Does the audience for your products flock to certain social media platforms? If so, those channels would be a good place to focus on.
How to drive more traffic to my ecommerce website?
The key to driving organic traffic to your website is SEO. You really need to understand the intention of the search for SEO. You need to make your site easy to find for people who aren’t familiar with your brand, but who are in need of your products. Make sure all the content on your website follows SEO best practices and consider producing additional content as part of a content marketing strategy to reach new customers.
How to find a right influencer for marketing?
Study what your target market is interested in, research the content creator who is already talking about products you are selling. You can also find a content creator who is an expert in your niche. Research content creators who have a following specifically related to your target industry and audience
How to Market Your E-Commerce Website?
Marketing Tactics to Promote Your E-Commerce Website
So you have launched your startup, it’s a dream come true and you are definitely excited about it. You may have found some customers as well, but the most difficult part is to have enough customers so that you can sustain your business in market and drive profit as well in future. Invest wisely in your sales team, as they will play a major role in this trajectory. There is no direct formula like invest X amount of money and you will get Y number of customers, if there was, it would be much easier and less challenging. Alas, this is not the case. There is a lot of competition in the market today and there are thousands of ways to market your business but you will need a unique one if you want to be ahead of everyone.
According to a report, More than 1,200 startups came up in 2018. In this competitive world, where all companies are competing for being at the top in their industry against their rivals are enlarging their users or customers by doing best marketing strategies, So it will be very difficult for any startup to stand out among this competition. We know, that going for the startup is not a cup of tea and it is important to utilize monetary resource effectively at the right place. People believe that spending more monetary resources on marketing can help them gain an ample amount of users or customers. But, that’s not true! It all relies on the creativity that you lay in your marketing approaches. Every company follows a similar type of marketing strategy but if you want to stand out you need some unique approaches that can able to boost up your growth in terms of users or clients. Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz and a renowned leader of the digital world, says marketing after creating your product wastes energy, time and money. Marketing firs ensures a loyal and active audience so that when you do debut your product you will be able to get feedback right away.
In 2018, it is safe to assume that your target group is bombed with messages, notifications, spams and click ads all the time. The trick to arrest their attention for more than 10 seconds and make a room in their memory to be recalled at the right time is a combined effort of your authentic intentions and creative methods.
Wasting time along with your another promoting guide? Why? You already recognize the fundamentals. And you’ve in all probability detected the recommendation 1,000,000 times; produce a mission statement, notice your audience, produce awe-inspiring content and promote. whereas there’s undoubtedly additional to that than that, you get the gist. What your startup extremely desires area unit some innovative promoting ideas which will set you except for competitors and build customers come back to you. which will sound easier aforesaid than done, however you’ll be off and running when you re-examine these five uncommon promoting ideas for startups. Here are some uncommon ways startups can conquer the mountain and be on their way to growing like never before.
Reach out to a specific community
Community – Startup Marketing
If you want to build a user base fast, you need to have a clear understanding of what your ideal customer looks like. You need to have a fundamental understanding of your product and the community you’re targeting. Youth is the biggest user of just everything. Companies dig into the most creative ways possible to sell their products and make it a trend. You can then create a piece of content creatively and specifically for this community and can find huge and quick success. The basic idea lies in how well your product connects with the community at the target. Relevancy is the key here.
Use your product for the social cause
If you’re looking for something highly creative that will skyrocket your brand to success, consider using the product itself for a social cause. People these days love to see how a person is towards everyone else, there was a time when business was purely an act of selfishness. Its 21st century and people need to have trust in your brand and that can be built easily by doing something good. People take pride if they’re told about the product or service they use to contribute to human or wildlife funds. It does make them feel good about the product they use and the brand they’re associated within an indirect way.
Create a video that simplifies your product or service
Create Videos – Startup Marketing
Creating a video that explains your product in the most simplified way is one of the fastest ways of growing your fan base. Making a creative humorous, video that gets into the head of the viewer. The video shouldn’t be a regular advertising one then it’ll be pointless to call it a self-explanatory video. However, this can be a modified form of advertising and publishing your product.
Trust always works!
This is definitely the oldest and purest form of promoting and advertising used by businesses since the world began. While it may bring slower results than radio or television, it still works very well and solidifies customer for life. Because people are becoming increasingly suspicious of paid advertising, this old method becomes the most reliable way to market down product. I still think this remains one of the most trusted methods in the world today. When a customer is happy and satisfied with a product or service, there’s a natural human tendency that they are likely to share this experience with people in their circle of trust and influence – family, friends, colleagues, neighbours and sometimes, strangers.
How to attract customers?? The satisfied customer is one of the most effective marketing and advertising tools a small business can ever have. Satisfied customers become foot soldiers, evangelists and advocates for your business. It is amazing how many of your satisfied customers will go to great lengths to promote, convince, protect and defend your business outside. This is so effective and powerful that many successful businesses rely solely on this method to advertise and market their products and services. One of the biggest business empires like the TATA group. is the best example here. So, how exactly can your small business grow an army of passionate customers, who will advertise your product free of cost? The first and most important step is to sell a product or service that really works and provides great value to anybody who uses them. If a product or service delivers on its promise and does more than what it says, it’s a winner! Most people buy products or services to solve a problem or satisfy a need. Nothing will make a customer happier and more satisfied than getting a product that makes a very challenging problem go away. They’ll scream your name from the Everest top. Most times, it doesn’t really matter how large or deep-pocketed your competition is you can grow a successful business with great customer service. People like to buy products and services from businesses that treat them with respect. People love to be given attention and treated well and will always return to enjoy that beautiful experience again. Don’t forget, customers spend their hard-earned money on your products. Don’t you think they deserve a big “Thank you’ with a wide smile on your face? People hardly forget a great customer experience and will happily tell other people about it.
Give your customers a reason to advertise and market your business but sometimes this doesn’t come automatically, you have to encourage, motivate or incentivize your customers to do it for you, so that brings me to my last but not the least effective way to market your startup.
The more people they refer to you, the more free products, services and discounts they will enjoy. Referral codes and links are used a lot these days to attract customers. We all come across these kinds of codes and links and we do refer it to our WhatsApp contacts and others. It’s a very rapid way of growing business these days but this one is completely based on the quality of your product and service. One more method which is very popular is
Creating contests and lucky draws
The reward should be large enough to trigger their interest and make them take action. It’s a win-win method that always works. Everybody loves to win. It’s not just always about the prize you win, it’s the thrill of getting lucky or beating other people. Call it ‘ego’ or whatever you like, but it always works. Let’s also say you start an interesting contest, to spread it you can use various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. Even though many of them will not win the grand prize, they will still be interested in finding out more about your products and services. But make sure you can comfortably afford the prize you plan to give out. Draw out a reasonable budget and stick to it. It makes no sense if the money you make from selling your products during the contest cannot cover the cost of running it.
Be as much as creative as you can with your Business Card
A business card represents your firm and is one of the most effective ways to reflect your business. Most of the startups mainly focus on the flyers and other advertising material; instead, investment time, cost, and builds a unique card. Mostly, we can see very popular templates business cards, which are less attractive and will not give an impression on first site, instead choose the best as you do not know when someone will share your card to a prospective client.
Give group specific discounts
Generally, what we see is a business offering huge discount, but did we thought that these discounts benefits all or only some group. Therefore, throw a sale focused more on different groups instead of a regular one. This will help your client feel privileged and boost your sales. Advertise the incentives and let them know you have plans for all of them not just for a few. Focus on quality instead of just the quantity.
Bring people to your platform
Advertise, but do it in a way that one is forced to try your business once. For example, advertise in newspapers, but add a line, try your luck with spin wheel, you may get discount up to 100%. One will never deny to try it out and this is the way that customer grows. If you are a startup that provides services, give your client to try their luck, you may offer to provide a next service at a discounted price according to the offer they get. Something is always better than nothing, this quote may be old but is one of the effective ways today also.
Host a contest and give away free stickers and t-shirts
Everybody loves that. Host a contest and distribute t-shirts and stickers, this will also cover up the word of mouth marketing, never underestimate the power of this marketing. This is a free referral program that will build trust among the users and bring more customers together to your platform. Once they are on your platform, bribe them with cash, and give them free cash in their accounts for new customers. They can’t deny a platform built on trust and offering them discounts.
Send handwritten notes to your customers
Talking with your customers directly is very effective and can bring you more customers on board. Everybody likes to talk about him or herself and when you send a hand-written note to them with their order, they will feel privileged and will be willing to use your service for next time also. They will also praise your business for being special to them.
Show up unexpectedly!
Find out where your audience is and show up when they are not expecting. The show up could be of the product itself, a merchandise branding the startup, or a business card. ‘Accidentally’ leaving behind a pen with your FinTech company details at the banks, putting up Bumper stickers around the city, commissioning a graffiti to grab the eyeballs are just some creative ways to reach out. Find the ways suitable to your startup by asking people in your industry what grabbed their attention recently and work around the themes. Look deeply to understand where you customer is investing the time. Don’t feel shy about this and get your name out there in as many ways as possible. Literally, be everywhere!
Collaborations, Collaborations, Collaborations!
Collaboration – Startup Marketing
From Nike x Kanye West Yeezy to Uber x Spotify, collaborations are the new age formula to expand and impact. Identify the ways you can partner to create exciting campaigns or offers, run small samples to see which is getting active results, align it with the company’s vision and shoot! Nothing gets people more excited to see two forces coming together to their rescue.
Don’t underestimate the power of Social Media
Social Media – Startup Marketing
Although you must have a digital presence through your own website, Facebook page, Instagram page, Twitter handle, but so do all your competitors. Once again, identify where your customers spend time online and make a way to show up there. Partnering with a well-known expert with an influential following on Facebook, collaborating with an e-commerce to automatically add your product’s mini pack on every purchase are just some ways you can gain traffic on your page. Digital world is a mad jungle with unimaginable potential, so put your creative hat on and tap the popularity of already established ‘influencers’ and brands to draw your own success and build trust with the new audience!
Show that you care
An individual is more likely to trust a new service provider or product if it is suggested by a friend, relative or co-worker. Find a way to these conversations that your buyers can have with potential new buyers and mention you in appreciation. Referral programs are a huge hit for the obvious benefits but think beyond the gain. A brief follow up call to your customer to inquire their satisfaction with the service, a thank you text with a reassurance that you are available to them in the future, a birthday/anniversary email with a small incentive on the next immediate purchase can take your brand goodwill a long way.
Associate yourself with a good social or environmental cause
The new age customers are very sensitive to their impact and showing that you care about your impact can leave a great impression on them and build a caring, trusting relationship between the two. Be aware of any big events that happen such as a natural disaster and ensure the customer that each business you get will also convert into an act of help. This can make others see you in a great light, and bring more people to associate with your business! Once your business grows, you will experience greater freedom to spend big on marketing campaigns but don’t lose sight of the unconventional ways of impacting people to stand apart in the crowd.
Trade shows For the marketing of your startup
You need to attend the trade shows and conference which will help you to get connected with the people and interact with them and talk about your product. you can able to build large community with them. There are many companies which follow this strategy such as Google itself is an example of this strategy. Every year Google organize programs for the developers and not only that they also invite the young developers around the globe.
Relate your product with some social work
This is the best way to promote your startup at first when you include your product in the some of the engaging social work. One of the examples of this is Paytm when demonetization was implemented in India the one application that was used the most for the digital transfer of the currency was the Paytm and it gives the huge boost to the Paytm company in terms of the users. Apart from this during the critical time, they also give cashback offers.
Yes, instead of paying to the other sources for getting new users for your product you can directly pay to the new user directly when they sign up in your site you can give them the reward of $10 or 100 rs. The best example of this is Paytm and Paypal during the demonetization also Paytm was giving money for signing up and also if you invite your friend and relatives through your referral code they will also get the reward and you will also get a reward. Even Paypal also use this approach to get an ample amount of users in their earlier days and this strategy really worked for them.
Hosting contest
Hosting a contest on your site or website can get you users as while participating you can ask them to sign up for your website first and then participate in this contest. This brings a lot of audiences example for Hypster application which uses this strategy in which people can participate in the contest by signing up and making videos and according to this you can easily able collect flames and this flames you can easily convert in the money and thus this application have increased the number of user in short time period. All in all, there are many techniques which you can use for the marketing online and offline both approaches are available but to stand out from your rivals you should use the approaches which is used rarely. Marketing strategy should be creative and out of the box, thinking should be used so that your startup can boost as well as stand out and can able to set an example for the other marketing strategy makers and rivals and also to your users or clients.
Build a weird Bedfellow
You’ve in all probability detected that after upon a time M&M’s were offered a major role in E.T. The provide was turned down, that the film went with Reese’s items instead. whereas that hiccup didn’t take away M&M’s from grocery shelves, it did facilitate build Reese’s items a particularly standard candy. The idea here is that it’s not about to hurt your startup by teaming up with associate surprising partner or place to market it. It may be one thing as straightforward as showing off your product in a very video – suppose Snoop Dogg carrying Tommy Hilfiger within the 90s’ – to delivering brewage to fans at the OppiKoppi competition in Republic of South Africa via drones. In either case, you’ll be sound into a special audience.
Be all over
This doesn’t mean simply blogging or being active on social media – that you must be doing anyways. It virtually suggests that to be all over. you would like to be that complete that folks notice once they’re walking down the streets. Even if they don’t recognize what your startup will, they’ll acknowledge your name. Some examples would be commission a mural on building and covering the streets with chalk, paint or displays. you’ll conjointly make-up bumper stickers and t-shirts and provides them to workers or as freebies at events. they’ll not be the foremost uncommon, however an ingenious shirt not solely lets individuals have the prospect to diverge, it’ll build others wish to leap on board – suppose Zaarly shirts floating round the Bay space. In short, don’t be invisible. Get your name out there the maximum amount as potential.
Be a Hero and Save The Day
At some purpose you’ve scan that a business ought to be donating cash or sponsoring a charity. It simply makes your startup look sensible. And whereas that’s all well and sensible, you’ll continuously take that to subsequent level by being a hero to your community. For example, there was a brewage gate campaign during which individuals may get their train ride with empty brewage cans following Carnival. However, the cans had to be from Ambev‘s Antarctica brewage World Health Organization saw the simplest way to spark a utilization program. One more cool example from Brazil was the Rescue Drive campaign. killer Chevrolet drove around searching for normal driver and so offered them a free take a look at drive so they may build it to figure, home or where they needed to travel. Over in Asian nation, billboards were used as shelters for the homeless within the “Other Side” project.
Show Some SkinWell, not virtually
Unless that’s the type of attention you’re searching for. we have a tendency to meant metaphorically. this suggests giving your startup a temperament. think about dollar Shave Club. The startup launched a beta version in Apr 2011, however it wasn’t till March 2012 once everybody noticed the razor-blade subscription service. A risible ad that includes co-founder and CEO archangel Durbin took off leading to 12,000 orders within the 1st two days and also the company’s web site blinking inside the primary hour. The ad was funny, however conjointly introduced individuals to the corporate and also the man World Health Organization contains a love for shaving at an inexpensive value.
While paying attention to and interesting your customers area unit important techniques in every and each of your promoting campaigns, you actually wish to boost the bar and build them desire a region of the team. That’s what the Karl Lagerfeld Store in capital of The Netherlands achieved in 2013. The store equipped dressing rooms with iPads and a wall-mounted touchscreen and camera. the concept was to own customers to share their new appearance with social media and email contacts. there have been conjointly Instagram-style filters that would be accustomed produce a lookbook. It absolutely was fun and interesting and an excellent thanks to promoting the complete. And it achieved that by creating the shoppers desire they were a region of one thing larger.
Conclusion
In this digital era, there is a huge competition in every industry. Thus you can’t rely on just traditional marketing and advertising, rather you should think out of the box. It’s not about spending too much money for marketing, it’s about to identify your target audience and run optimum marketing campaigns. Hope above startup marketing ideas will help you to craft your marketing strategies. Share your thoughts on the comment section.
FAQs
What are some of the best marketing practices for startups?
This is the 21st century. You cannot expect a good profit unless customers think about you. Although there is nothing like negative marketing, you still have to make people think about you. It can be anything. They just have to think about your brand. And all this comes under the term “brand positioning”.
Brand positioning refers to the reason for people buying your product. Or how your brand is different from your competitors. 89% of B2B marketers say brand awareness and positioning is the most important goal, followed by sales and lead generation. To describe brand positioning, let’s look at some examples. Patanjali is known for organic products, even though they are literally in every product line. Mercedez is known for its class and luxury whereas BMW has its power and performance. If you think brand positioning is important for your brand, then these are some ideas to position your brand in the market.
Helps in making creating decisions more effective.
Targets a specific market.
Creates a well market differentiation.
Things To Remember For Brand Positioning
Uniqueness
To position your brand in the market, make sure you have something unique to deliver. If you are doing the same thing as everyone is doing, then you will be just “another” brand in the market. You don’t want to be that “another” brand in the market, you have to be that “wow” brand in the market. Even though you are not selling something new, add something which will make it unique. If there is nothing unique in your product, then you can make people think it is unique, like just give it a unique look. Remember that people should need your “unique” feature. Because no one needed a juicer which runs while connected to wi-fi. Millions were spent on marketing and launching this juicer. But the investors faced a very big loss. So, don’t solve the problems which are not there.
Brand strategy
Brand Strategy
The brand strategy or the tagline you use for your product should be relevant to your product. If the customer has your tagline in his/her head but doesn’t remember your brand, then how can they even buy your product.
Make It Clear
Your slogan or tagline should always be clear and easy to understand. If the customers had to think too much to understand your brand, then there is a strong possibility that they are going for another brand, even for that brand which has no slogan at all. Just make it easy to understand, thinking that all your customers are stupid.
Differentiable
Point out the difference between your brand and the competitor’s one. Your customer should be able to make his/her decision quickly. They should not need to do a deep research to decide the brand they want. Focus on your selected category, and of course, your strength.
It Should Be Recognizable
You have to make your brand recognizable. Create an amazing logo. Add awesome features to your product which scream for attention. People should quickly remind of your slogan and your advertisement as soon as they see your logo anywhere. Make people think of your brand again and again.
Create A Buzz
Create an advertisement which can be controversial. Not in a negative way, but something like funny or which can touch people’s emotions. Just make sure people talk about it. Giant companies do not advertise to show their product, but all they want is to create a buzz among people. It is strongly possible that Patanjali’s messenger app, “Kimbho” was launched just to create a buzz. When people talk about a brand, they get attracted to that brand. For instance, imagine you go to the market to buy a chocolate, in the days when “kimbho” messenger launched.
You might ask for Patanjali’s chocolate. Why? Because you want to talk about that buzz. You will subconsciously try to show off your general knowledge and your humor. Be Updated Keep analyzing the new trends on social media. Create something which is very popular among millennials. It is more or less similar to creating buzz. As of these days, you can focus on creating memes. Try to make it funny, because if you can make them smile, you can make them buy.
Being funny does not mean you make fun of your customers. If anything makes your brand creepy, customers may talk about you a lot, but will never come to you. The following image says it all.
Re-frame The Market
Use the brand to re-frame the market to what it actually looks like , by being creative and solving a problem which the product is not fulfilling. This will give the product more visibility than the other products, making it more on the shelves or more on the talks.
5 Ways to Get Your Customers to Actively Promote Your Brand
Entrepreneurs are fanatical with their creation. They time and again set out new goals for themselves and then make sure that those are achieved. In the start-up arena, there are some doctrine principles which are responsible for the overall success. Entrepreneurs today understand the value of their brand. Entrepreneurs are perusing something called as branding strategy, which till now was completely neglected. Companies today are spending with deep pockets on marketing, advertising, public relations and more. The best way to promote your brand is to let your customers do it for you – and the only way to do that is by addressing the pain points of the customer by giving them a practical solution to their pain points. Once this is done by anyone, the customer will go on his rooftop and do nothing but will shout your name.
Differentiate your brand
Anyone and everyone want his or her brand to be different and stand out. Brands say that they want to be different and distinctive in the eyes of their customers, but in reality, the brands just want to align themselves with their competition. To differentiate from others, the enterprise can depict themselves as an enterprise away from its competition or rival. Over a period of time, if the same continues combined with disciplined efforts, the brand can be marked different. Standing out from the competition is not making them enemies. But, with persistence, the consumer can make out the difference noticeable.
Focus on loyalty
A customer or a consumer telling about you to someone is in the Last leg of his experience. It starts with brand familiarity coupled with loyalty. The sky-scraping cost of bringing in fresh business compared to retaining existing clients is unquestionable. Increasing the customer retention can extensively heighten the profit bar. Customer loyalty schemes are an effective way to improve your customer retention levels. If you want to build a loyal clientele – the trick is simple, keep the customer satisfied. Apart from that, the customer needs to be rewarded. A loyalty scheme can be used to incentivise and delight the customers.
Create a community
Build Community – Brand Positioning
Having a customer community built offers the customers a hub to interact and support one another. Customer communities are platforms for customers to unreservedly exchange opinion, reactions and pose questions about products and services. A highly busy customer community helps to improve customer retention and encourage acts of advocating. These customers community acts as a news source about products and company and a place to gather tips from the users. Customer communities also breed ideas to improve products or services. Giving the customers a say on a product or service gives them a deeper connection with the company. These days the community can be online. This increases preservation rate and overall profitability.
Incorporate Feedbacks
Getting and generating feedback from clients is the most important thing for a business builder. It helps the company at all levels of brand building and management. It helps in knowing the existing position of the business in the market and also helps in the future prospects of the business. Feedback helps clients and entrepreneurs to communicate with each other. Most of the feedback is to draw the data about the sales, performance, drawbacks about products and services. Owing to thriving technology and internet, the importance of feedback has been highly soared. Internet has become the principal instrument for promoting business and branding. It plays a pivotal role in reaching to the mass and endorsing products beyond the international boundaries.
Make it easy to be an evangelist
Consumers have a hell lot of things to do. The last thing they would do is to be an evangelist. Even if they become, they won’t go out of their way to evangelize or promote your brand. So it has to be an easy task for them to do it. The easiest way to promote evangelist is to give as many as opportunities. The same can be done with contests, discussion opportunities on the social media channels of the brand. The participant has to be rewarded in some or the other way.
These tips are not the only way to make the customers work for you. But these tips will equip your startup by starting the community of brand evangelists. Also, it is important to understand that every customer you make cannot be your brand evangelist. However, with efforts in the right direction, a community of brand evangelists is certainly to make a huge difference and would be certainly effective on the profitability.
The soul of every business is their customers. Your customers can make you or break you. Even though the inflow and outflow of the customers are the basis of business but having loyal customers is also essential. Loyal customers are the reason a business or a brand becomes what it is. So, here are a few small but highly impactful ways in which you can make customers loyal to your brand.
Making personal relations
Treating your customers like your family is the way to get them to like you and your services. Getting to know your customer will give you an idea about their likes and dislikes which will eventually help you in serving them better. It has been found in a recent study that the customer remembers the first and the last part of your conversation. So it is very important for you to strike a conversation on a happy cheerful note and also end it in a happy goodbye. Send them greetings on their special days. Or if you find out anything they like, mail it to them. This will only take a little effort on your side but will have a big impact on your customer.
Know your customer
If you have a blog or a site or any other social media account of your business, make a note of what kind of customers does your business or brand attract. Get to know about their likes and dislikes and then post content on your sites according to that. If you are a beauty brand, posting easy tutorials and looks with your products can be good. Similarly, if you are a clothing brand, styling tips etc. can be done. Also keep posting about the various offers so that your customers are not left uninformed. Also, communicate with the customer in a way they prefer. If your customer wants to communicate through email do it. If they prefer social media attend to their queries there. Keep all your options open.
Invest in your customer
Invest in your Customer
If you have a regular customer that visits you or uses your services, try knowing theirs likes and dislikes. Research about them and then do things that they least expect like send them small gifts as a thank you for their loyalty. Or give them a free upgrade if you have a customer upgrade program. You could even give them small goodies or small things like hand written notes with every purchase. This will not only make your customer fond of you but this will also help you gain more customers. If you do not want to invest in giving them anything, you can always provide your customers with special services like the first preview to your latest collection, or bend some of your policies for them if they have a genuine issue.
Take customer advice and feedback seriously
Feedback – Brand Positioning
It is very important to take customer feedback on your services. But it is even more important to implement those feedback in improving your services. Also, having a FAQs section on your websites or blogs where customers can resolve their queries and give you feedback is very helpful. If you have employees who take care of the customers, ask them to be on proper behavior and solve customer issues without creating any problems.
Maintain quality
The most important part of keeping your customers loyal is maintaining the quality of your product. Many companies sell good quality products at the start of their business and then degradation the quality to earn profits. This only helps in making short term profits. Because your customer keeps leaving you and in the end, you have no customer to earn profits. So it is very important to maintain the quality of your product throughout so that people want to buy it again and again.
Conclusion
These were some roads to brand positioning. You can use some of them, or all of them, it depends on your business. Digital marketing is the ultimate tool for brand positioning. Although, these were some ideas from our side, you can also comment on your one below. And also, keep exploring new ways to position your brand. Brand positioning helps you to reach the potential customer. And also remember, being at number 2 is not very bad. But, keep trying to come in 1st position. If there is too much competition in the category of your product, then create your own subcategory and position your brand.
With these little changes in your public dealing methods, you will have a strong loyal customer base in no time. If you know any hack to make customers loyal to your brand please comment down below!
FAQs
What is customer loyalty?
Customer loyalty is the act of choosing one company’s products and services consistently over their competitors. When a customer is loyal to one company, they aren’t easily swayed by price or availability.
Why is customer loyalty important?
Loyalty can stem from many things, but in general, a loyal customer will associate favourable experiences with a brand, therefore, increasing their likelihood to make repeat purchases with that business. Loyal customers spend 67% more on products and services than new customers.
How to gain customer loyalty?
Ways to Increase Customer Loyalty
Make customer service a priority
Reward your customers
Ask for advice and listen to it
Offer conveniences
Don’t just ask for money
How to maintain customer loyalty?
Provide outstanding customer service
Reward customers with special offers and discounts
Since the IPL season 14 has been started all the key players in the tournament has started to gain certain popularity. Here are the earnings of some of the key cricketers that they receive through their Instagram posts.
Virat Kohli is the captain of the Indian Cricket team. Virat Kohli has a massive number of followers on Instagram which is around 108 million. He is expected to be earning around INR 2 crores per sponsored post on Instagram and INR 3 crore per video promoting a brand. Virat Kohli is also the captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
Virat Kohli Instagram Charge
Virat Kohli is the 66th richest sportsman in the world according to the Forbes 2020 rich list. It is estimated that the Indian cricket Captain has earned almost INR 172 crore in the past one year. Out of which around INR 17 crore is expected to be earned through Salary and winnings, the rest INR 155 crore is expected to be made through endorsements.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the former captain of the Indian Cricket team. Mahendra Singh Dhoni has 32 million followers on Instagram. He is expected to be earning around INR 88 Lakhs per sponsored post on Instagram and around 1.3 crores for each video posted to promote the brands. He is currently the captain of Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
MS Dhoni Instagram Charge
Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma is the captain of Mumbai Indians and is one of the key players of Indian cricket team. He is expected to be earning around INR 42 Lakhs per sponsored post on Instagram. Rohit Sharma has around 18.2 million followers on Instagram.
Hardik Pandya is one of the key players of Mumbai Indians as well as Indian cricket team. He is expected to be earning around INR 36 Lakhs per sponsored post on Instagram. Hardik Pandya has around 17.5 million followers on Instagram.
Hardik Pandya Instagram Charge
Suresh Raina
Suresh Raina was one of the most important players of the Indian cricket team and is also part of the Chennai Super Kings team. He is expected to be earning around INR 34 Lakhs per sponsored post on Instagram and around INR 51 Lakhs for each video posted to promote the brands. Suresh Raina has around 15.3 million followers on Instagram.
Suresh Raina Instagram Charge
A.B. De. Villiers
A.B. De. Villiers is one of the highest paid International cricketers currently playing in the IPL. He is one of the most important player of South African cricket team as well as Royal Challengers Bangalore. A.B. De. Villiers is expected to be earning around INR 32 Lakhs per sponsored post on Instagram. A.B. De Villiers has around 13.6 million followers on Instagram.
David Warner is also one of the highest paid International cricketers who is currently playing in the IPL. He is also one of the most important players of the Australian cricket team as well as the former captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). David Warner is expected to be earning around INR 12 Lakhs per sponsored post on Instagram. David Warner has around 6 million followers on Instagram.
David Warner Instagram Charge
FAQ
How much does Virat charge for Instagram?
Virat Kohli currently has over 100m followers on Instagram and he is paid around Rs 1.35 to 2 crore fees for sharing sponsored posts.
Who is the richest influencer?
Sommer Ray is an influencer who has over 24 million Instagram followers, and has a net worth of $3 million. The 23 year old’s niche is fitness, and some of her most popular posts are her workout videos.
Who is the highest paid celebrity on Instagram?
Kim Kardashian is the highest paid celebrity on Instagram with 175.5 million followers.
Conclusion
These are the list of the cricketers and the amount they receive through their Instagram posts and videos.
WhatsApp is not just for staring at memes, chats and watching stories of your contacts. You can use WhatsApp for a better reasons. Back in the old days, entrepreneurs used their personal WhatsApp for engaging with their customers.
Seeing this, WhatsApp launched its dedicated version of WhatsApp business and now they are coming with WhatsApp Ads for its business application. Therefore, here in this post, we are going to evaluate everything about WhatsApp Business account and WhatsApp Ads.
WhatsApp to Rollout WhatsApp Ads for its Business Application
WhatsApp Story Ads
WhatsApp users could soon notice a big change creeping into the most popular Android and iOS chat app with ’WhatsApp Ads for Business’. It is considered to be the world’s most popular chat app, with over 1.5 billion users each month. A controversial change is coming to the Facebook-owned Android and iOS chat app. Unlike the other widely popular social networking apps like Facebook and Instagram, WhatsApp has so far remained an ad-free programme. However, a drastic change is about to happen to the people-friendly application. It will feature a landing page where WhatsApp Ads can take the potential buyers to the requisite business with an Ad Manager to manage ads for target customers.
In September 2017, WhatsApp announced a forthcoming business platform that will enable companies to provide customer service to users at scale.
The proposal was to enable larger companies, not only small businesses, to integrate a new API [application programming interface]. And Facebook’s Vice President of messaging products, David Marcus, has said WhatsApp will be more open to advertisers.
Due to the difference of opinion on ad-based revenue and data targeting Jan Koum, the Founder of WhatsApp left Facebook. Jan has explicitly explained the reasons behind keeping the app free of ads.
Rumours have started to spread about the role adverts will play in the future of WhatsApp since the executive’s departure. Consequently, speculation started to grow all around after his withdrawal leaving a controversy behind him.
The Story Behind The Speculation
The freeware and cross-platform messaging app was a paid-for service from when it was launched in 2009. The founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton started WhatsApp to create an advertisement-free application.
The founders spent their time building a service people wanted to use because it worked and saved them money and made their lives better in a small way.
WhatsApp was created to chat and interact with people. It was all about exciting people every day the very morning till they make their bed. By making them stay in touch with their loved ones. Their entire day revolves around their own set of people and their emotions. No one likes to wakes up excited to see more advertising, no one goes to sleep thinking about the ads they’ll see tomorrow. It is a more emotionally connected encrypted app.
No one jumps up from a nap and runs to see an advertisement. Evidently, WhatsApp was found with an intention to be opened every morning only to connect with people.
After 5 years the messaging was purchased by the social networking giant, Facebook back in 2014 for $1.5 billion. Later on, Voice calls and video calling was introduced. Status updates in WhatsApp became very popular amongst WhatsApp addicts.
Jan realized WhatsApp was starting to find more ways than he could have imagined with Facebook’s acquisition. He believed team to be stronger than ever and it’ll continue to do amazing things. Consequently, he left the social media giant, Facebook. WhatsApp is more likely to show adverts in the wake of Koum’s departure.
WhatsApp’s high number of fervent daily users in India which is about 9 million.
Many small business owners use the WhatsApp platform to handle orders, address customer service inquiries, and manage customer relationships. However, the process can be tiresome through a personal account.
WhatsApp Business allows us to personalize the business brand on the platform and stop using a personal phone number to communicate with your customers. Firstly, WhatsApp Business crept in Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the UK, and the U.S. and is now accessible in many more countries.
The app is Facebook’s maiden attempt to help small- and medium-sized businesses improve their customer service on WhatsApp. Business people can create a business profile with relevant information for the customers such as contact information, a description, a business category, and more. They can also do automatic messaging and create custom labels to monitor conversations. Check out the features below.
Features of WhatsApp Business
QuickReplies: As an entrepreneur, you are always busy. You can set some basic replies which will help you to reply quickly.
AutoReplies: Not just a quick reply, you can even automate some messages to save time. Some basic greeting messages, sorry messages and others can be automated.
Analytics: Analytics is a big part of business these days. You can check the performance of your WhatsApp Business in the app itself. It will let you know about the sent, delivered, seen and received messages.
ProfileInfo: You can customize your profile which your customers will see. You can set the opening and closing time, your social media or website link, description of your business and the address and location of your office or shop.
LandlineNumber: This is the best feature by far. You don’t have to get a new business number if you have a business’s landline number. Whatsapp lets you easily register your landline number. Furthermore, you can also use the mobile number, of course.
Uses of WhatsApp Business
CustomerService: Certainly, the most obvious and important use of WhatsApp Business is its ability to serve customers. You can solve your customer’s problems. Also, as you can send images, videos, docs, etc. it becomes easy to help them.
Review: You can take the reviews of your product from the customers. It becomes easy as many people use WhatsApp daily, so they will remember about you if you are on their chat list.
Promotion: Every business runs more on marketing than the capital. You can promote your upcoming products, offers, events, etc. on WhatsApp.
OrderUpdates: You can send the order tracking link through WhatsApp to the customers. Moreover, you can simply update them with the text message too.
How to Register Landline Number on WhatsApp Business?
If you use a landline number for your business, you can still use the WhatsApp Business app in your phone using the landline number. You just need to follow this easy instruction:
Download WhatsApp Business from in your Smartphone.
Insert your landline number (or business mobile number).
As you cannot receive verification message on the landline, you can choose to get a confirmation through the call on the landline. Receive the call and listen carefully to the code number they will give you.
Set up your profile according to your need.
A Foothold to Monetize The Application
These days companies know literally everything about you, your friends, your interests, and they use it all to sell ads. Facebook and WhatsApp previously disagreed on how to monetize the messaging app. It’s likely that WhatsApp will start using ads now that its founder has left Facebook. Likely, the influx of ads for WhatsApp ads could greatly benefit Facebook’s impressive growth.
While the future of WhatsApp’s business model is still unclear, the app’s high number of daily active users and strong engagement could increase Facebook’s overall impression growth significantly with WhatsApp ads.
Conclusion
WhatsApp has become an important part of our daily life. Why not make it a part of your business too? You can reach a big amount of people at once if you connect with them on the phone. Let them know about the new dish you got in your restaurant or the new collection of clothes in your store or maybe the antique’s collection you just got. The more you update your audience, the more they will come to you.
A great person once said, “If you are on their phone, you are probably in their mind”. This might be a very hypothetical thing to commit and may not be relatable to But it’s still true that if you are in their chat list, they will see you again and again. So, download the WhatsApp Business app now and create a profile. Do you use WhatsApp Business? What changes did you observe in your business? Share this post with all your friends.
WhatsApp Business is free to download app available on Android and iPhone and was built with the small business owner in mind. WhatsApp Business makes interacting with customers easy by providing tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages. Messaging tools to quickly respond to customers.
Is WhatsApp business free?
WhatsApp Business is free to download and was built with the small business owner in mind. WhatsApp can also help medium and large businesses provide customer support and deliver important notifications to customers.
How WhatsApp works?
WhatsApp uses your phone’s cellular or Wi-Fi connection to facilitate messaging and voice calling to nearly anyone on the planet, alone or in a group and is especially nice for families and small collaborative workgroups. The app lets you make calls, and send and receive messages, documents, photos, and videos.
How to create WhatsApp business account?
To get started, simply download the WhatsApp Business app from the Google Play Store.
Sign up using your mobile phone number.
Create your profile by entering your business details under Settings > Business Settings > Profile.
What is the difference between WhatsApp and WhatsApp business account?
WhatsApp has officially launched a new app, called WhatsApp Business. It’s completely separate to the standard version of WhatsApp, but it works in much the same manner – only its purpose is connecting businesses and customers, rather than friends and family. The app is aimed at small business owners.
How to Use WhatsApp to Generate More Leads and Queries?
Using WhatsApp for Lead Generation: Without any doubt, WhatsApp is rated as a diverse platform that allows businesses to establish one to one connection with customers. This instant messaging platform can lead to conversational marketing, and it helps to boost lead generation opportunities.
How do I advertise on WhatsApp?
Under Ad Type, select Click to Message. In the Messaging Apps section, select WhatsApp. Choose your Audience, Placements, Budget, and Schedule and click Next. Select your ad format and complete your ad setup.
Is WhatsApp business free to use?
WhatsApp Business is free to download and was built with the small business owner in mind. WhatsApp can also help medium and large businesses provide customer support and deliver important notifications to customers.
What is business model of WhatsApp?
The way WhatsApp used to make money was through a subscription model. It cost $1 to download and then $1 a year going forward. Potential revenue for WhatsApp is estimated to be $5 billion and the average revenue per user to be $4 in 2020.
Can I use a landline for WhatsApp business?
You can also sign up using your WhatsApp business with landline, which means you can keep your existing personal WhatsApp account, and run a WhatsApp Business account on the same device.
Every small startup requires has needed an opportunity that benefits them in the long term. Every startup needs to utilize any resources that they have in order to get more exposure and attract more customers to their businesses online. Similarly, Yelp is known to be a brand of its own and was created to enable people to access more businesses online. Yelp has been recognized as a verified and accountable entity in which people can place their trust and access good local businesses.
Company Name
Yelp
Headquaters
San Francisco, California, USA
Founded On
2004
CEO
Jeremy Stoppelman
Employees
6030 (as of 2018)
Annual Revenue
$942 Million (as of 2018)
Products & Services
Yelp Deals, Home Services, Beauty & Spa services, Food, Health and Medical
Yelp users can not only search and review businesses but can also create a profile or become friends other users, chat on different online forums and can go for meet ups offline. According to a report by the wall street journal, Yelp has set a price for their IPO which will sell at 7.15 million shares at a price of $12 to $14. That would value the company at $838.6 million at the high end of that range. The company has known grown because of getting users to write reviews of businesses, engaging them through social networking features and through search engine traffic.
The logo of Yelp
Yelp is now known to have 66 million different monthly visitors and more than 5.7 million mobile devices and has collected a total of 25 million reviews since it came out in 2004. As of Dec 31, 2018, Yelp has a total of 177.4 million reviews of local businesses.It also generates almost all of its revenue from advertisements like for example in the year of 2011, 91.4% of its revenue came from advertising.
Not only that, it generates its revenue from two different kinds off advertising. First is the local advertising from businesses that want to be featured on yelp which is 76.8% of total revenue and the second one being Brand advertising that displays ads on yelp.com in order to get more traffic from search engine.
Yelp has an average of 28 million mobile application visitors, 74 million unique mobile web visitors and 83 million unique desktop visitors. The yelp business model is something you should definitely be aware of because it is online business directory which lists and makes local businesses visible to users it also differentiates itself with the crowd sourced reviews of those businesses on its platform. Furthermore the company has expanded its business model by adding reservation services and food delivery and take out services. The business model includes factors like:
Customers prefer to use yelp to find local businesses
Customers of Yelp
Yelp has 3 customer segments or target audience which include Local business, user and content creators/contributors:
Local businesses are segmented on the basis of Location, Type of service, Restaurant Cuisine, Price point, hours of operations, food delivery and takeout.
Users are divided into demographics, location, interests and spending profile.
Content contributors include the community of active reviewers that are constantly engaged in fun social exchanges.
The different ways Yelp helps a customers along with the local businesses
Value preposition of Yelp
Local businesses – when it comes to local business yelp is a trusted platform because it gives them the opportunity to engage with a large audience and increases their visibility while also sourcing their target audience. It gives the businesses an opportunity to increase their revenue, provide them business data and take care of reservation and wait list management.
Users – the platform helps uses by giving them an opportunity to browse local businesses, discover new places, save time and money, see pictures and videos, compare prices, read reviews and make better choices.
For the content creators – Yelp invests a lot in engaging and fun content which makes it easier for the users and businesses to interact with each other but when it comes to content creators it company offers them recognition in yelp elite and they can also get invited to special events and more.
Customer service done by Yelp
The high quality customer service is also one of the reasons why Yep business model is so successful as it offers services like:
Self-service platform, which makes it possible for its users to serve themselves anytime easily and effectively.
Yelp is also transparent when it comes to reviews, rating, tips, photos and ensuring that it is always easily accessible to its customers online.
Build a brand reputation for your local businesses and also makes considerable efforts in managing their brand image.
Yelp allows its users to place food orders directly without leaving the platform.
Yelp allows businesses to interact with their customers in a friendly and approachable manner with features like Request A Quote, a direct response to reviews, Yelp reservation, etc.
Yelp is successful when it comes to establishing a flourishing community of users, content contributors and other local business that interact with each other.
The company makes most of its money through service programs which can be both self-service and full service. The other money making strategy is invested in its advertising and profile enhancement services that benefit the businesses greatly. The categories are as follows:
Advertisement
Yelp provides businesses with both paid and free advertising products. It also utilizes its website and mobile app to deliver targeted search advertising to a broader audience. In 2018, 97% of its revenue was generated because it was dependent on advertisement. All the advertising products sold by their partners and business listings are recognized as yelp advertising revenue. It offers services that come under the umbrella of advertising, which are:
The breakdown of Yelp Reviews
Enhanced – The purpose of this product is in order to prevent other business ads from appearing on the business listing pages of enhanced profile business customers.
Branded Profile – This feature is a business’s purchase a branded profile program to ensure that they are provided with premium features to increase their business listings. This allows the businesses to choose their preferred method advertising done by videos or images which are best suited to portray their portray their slideshow feature or simply updating their listing information.
Yelp verified license – In this feature the yelp business listing page offers a paid upgrade license which appears like a badge. It is specifically only for the licensed advertisers and their local or home services category.
Ad Re-sales – Yelp can also resell some of its advertising products to generate more revenue and is done through their partnership with certain agencies like DexYP. It has also launched its yelp ads certified partners programs in 2018 to allow its collaborative agencies so they can manage to sell ad campaigns at the behalf of their business clients.
Transaction revenue
Yelp has come with other tools and features such as ensuring transactions between their consumers and businesses which are facilitated appropriately. This features accounts to 1% of yelps total revenue. These include services like:
Revenue
Dec 2018 (in million)
% of revenue
Advertising
$907.49
97%
Transactions
$13.69
1%
Other Servives
$21.59
2%
Total Revenue
$942.77
100%
Yelp Platform – Through partner integration, the company enables its consumers to proceed with their transactions on the yelp website or app. Consumer can order any products they want in the ranging from show tickets to flowers.
Grubhub Partnership – The Company generates substantial revenue from their yelp Eat24 business. They did this by placing their orders through yelp Eat24 in which restaurants own arrangements with respective business and are paid a commission percentage fee. Yelp sold this platform in 2018 and now offer the user to select from a wide range of restaurants.
Yelp Deals – This product has now created a large revenue for yelp especially when it allows the business owners to promote its services and products on the platform but at discounted rates.
Gift Certificates – The business owners can now sell gift certificates at a full price to the consumers that have yelp gift certificate products. The cost of this service however ranges from $10 up to $500.
Yelp Full service program provide all Yelp free tools and self-service program tools plus targeted Yelp ads, upgraded business page features and dedicated support. The business who buy full service program get:
All the free tools – all the tools of the free suite to showcase the business and connect with the yelp community.
Video Production and hosting – Yelp sends a videographer to produce a professional video for the yelp business page on which businesses buy full service program.
All the self service program tools – it includes online shopping, reservations, profile enhancements and the deals and gift certificate
Dedicated Support – businesses which buy full service program are entitled to dedicate support by yelp staff.
Running out of ideas for the website? It’s a common problem every content writer faces once a while but that doesn’t mean that the website will not come with new articles because no matter what happens there should be a continuous spread of articles to keep the consumers on board. So, what’s the solution?
The solution is to repurpose the available content. Repurposing content is finding new ways to recycle your existing content. Repurposing content has a number of benefits such as it can save you time in the content creation process. So, the question is how to repurpose the content? Here are the best tips for Repurposing Content.
Content repurposing is a technique to reuse or recycle your old content to create a new post or content. Of course, you cannot go, copy your old content, paste it in CMS and post it. You have to do it in a way that people don’t notice it and enjoy at the same time. Although people want to know something new always, so you have to do it in a way that the old content looks new. Content repurposing is not only for blogging, but it is also for other businesses and even YouTubing.
Best and Creative Ways to Repurpose Your Old Content
Ways to Repurpose Your Content
Find The Topic
You can open your old post and look for something which can be explained in more detail. As you will already have some knowledge about that topic, you can easily write content on it.
Let’s take an example to make it more clear
You uploaded an article named as “Best Ways To Promote A Business” and among the points, one point is “Social Media Marketing “, so for the next post, you can write “Social Media Marketing” as a topic for a separate article.
Recreation
If it has been a while since you created some blog posts, you can recreate your old content with new updates. You can tell about the new technology and how we can use that to make our life more productive.
For example, tech bloggers keep posting new posts on “best phone” or “WhatsApp tricks”, etc. This way the readers will be getting trendy items in mind and the content will be used once again but in a different approach.
Create Case Studies
It is one of the best ways to repurpose your content because people love case studies. You can use your old content and its data to create case studies. However, you will have to spend time and put your effort to research the case studies. Power of repurposing content helps you gain extra authority.
You can also write about other start-ups and their success stories. This will help you to build a relationship with other big brands and also gain traffic to your blog from different sources.
Email Marketing is now in the boom, so you have the opportunity to use this platform and grow faster. There are so many tools available such as MailChimp by which you can send your every new post to your email subscribers. You can also automate the process using the tools and send your old best posts to your subscribers.
There are many creative ways of doing this like you can send weekly posts to your subscribers telling them that this post has the highest views and comments. This will help to build trust and also reuse your old content.
Infographics
An infographic is a collection of images, charts, text and animated graphics that gives an easy-to-understand overview of a topic.
With the information available in your old articles, you can create some infographics. People like infographics because it saves a lot of time and it is also interesting to read them.
Using Your Old Content from Other Platforms
If you are a creator of a while now, you can dig into your old post on other platforms. You can search for your Quora, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to find something which can be used in your next article or video. Repurposing blogs for different mediums means appealing to more audiences and extending your reach.
For example, you can find an old question that you have answered on Quora and update that content with some new topics or you can create a new post for that specific question.
Turn Posts Into Videos
Turn Posts Into Videos
It is the age of videos. You can use the data of your old posts to create videos and upload them on YouTube. And of course, vice versa, you can convert your old video into a blog post.
Research has shown that nowadays people prefer video content more than text content. So you have to change with the time if you want to go long on this race. There are so many free platforms available where you can post your video content.
Create an Ebook
With some of the best posts of your blog, you can create an eBook. After creating an ebook, you can provide its link in some relevant posts or on the home page of your website.
For e.g:- You wrote an article named “How To Use SEO To Increase Traffic”, so based on the article and other related articles you can create an ebook which shows all about SEO and it’s usage, advantages etc.
The content which is already featured on the website can be converted into a podcast because people while working loves to listen and podcasts are a great way to make the content more interesting.
Also, feature some popular names who expertise in the following fields as guest speakers to engage the audience and keep them interested. The links of the podcasts can be provided to the posts and this can be an alternate way to the readers to read about the content.
Slideshow
The content which is written in a lengthy paragraph can be broken down and use as a slideshow with important information and pictures. This will give a completely different look to the content.
There are many platforms available like Slideshare where you can upload your slideshows and also the link of the original post.
Webinars
Turn valuable content into series webinars
People love online webinars as they can watch it, by staying at home. So, the content which provides information about a certain topic, it can be converted into a series of webinars. For making it more interesting, some eminent guest speakers can also be invited and they host some bonus episodes. This can generate huge traffic to the website and also to your YouTube channel.
Republish the Content in Other Media
Social networking has no limit, to express and share the articles, hence the other various ways to increase the traffic for the articles and use the existing articles, is to republish in various media. It will be beneficial to increase the traffic by reaching more audience as well as the content will be reused also.
You can post your content on the platforms like Reddit, Academia etc. It will help you to gain quality backlinks as these sites have a huge authority.
Creators’ jobs can never be replaced by any robot. It needs mindful people to create any type of content. But, creators are not robots either. You cannot think of new things every second. You need some inspiration. While you are gaining your powers back, you can repurpose your content.
However, it is not good for the SEO to repurpose the old content but if you do it right, it can rank again. You have to provide some value in the article you are posting. Google ranks those sites which they think is useful for the user. You have to respect it and give it something new and useful. We hope you have got a basic idea of how to repurpose content. If not, feel free to comment and ask questions.
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In the initial days of startup, you won’t have any customers if they aren’t aware of your startup. Even more challenging is figuring out how to attract your first customers when you have a limited budget and resources. Thus, one of the toughest things for any startup is to gain initial traction. This is where most new entrepreneurs fail. The major culprit is inefficient marketing. Yes! No matter how innovative your product is, if people don’t know about it, it’s bound to fail.
This applies to both nascent startups and well-established brands. The world awaits a new iPhone model every year, but what if Apple secretly starts flash sale in the market without advertising, without the highly revered Apple event (yeah, it’s the release conference we’re talking about). To save our readers from committing such blunders, we have listed some of the best techniques to gain initial traction for your startup.
Methods to Get Traction for Your Startup
Source: GrowthRocks
1) Come up with an Innovative Product
It starts with the idea. There’s no shortage of problems or issues—it’s the absence of the right solution which in turn depends on the initial idea. Product innovation encompasses various factors: the market demand, competition, cost, and many more. The crux of building an ingenious product idea is identifying what the market is looking for and if it’s willing to pay for it.
Once done with this, proceed on to analyzing the competitors, what they are doing, and what are they missing out on with their offering. Observe their product from a consumer’s perspective and try to identify the possible enhancements or modifications. Then, improve the product as desired. An existing concept gets the flavor of creativity this way!
2) Social Media Marketing
The probability of an individual having a Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat account is much higher than him or her having a bank account! The demand for social media expertise and awareness has been recognized and many online education platforms and institutions do carry a holistic course on social media marketing in their catalog.
This is the holy grail for gaining traction for your startup. There are two ways to market on social media.
First, let’s talk about the organic way of social media marketing—create an attractive business profile for people to understand your brand—your mission and vision. Post valuable, trending content regularly and interact with people as much as possible. Don’t let your audience feel that you’re paying attention to them. Use Facebook groups to build a community where like-minded individuals can converse with each other. Go through StartupTalky’s Facebook community to get an idea of how effective this is!
The paid way of social media marketing is a bit advanced but once you gain a hang of the tools and techniques, it’s a cakewalk. The cost associated with paid ads such as Facebook Ads is going down day by day. These facilities are becoming cheaper. So, don’t forego this economical opportunities while they are available.
What makes your business different from your competitors in the market? Your popularity and influence on the web. Every company has a website and an app nowadays and this has created a rat race where everyone’s eager to scoop a significant piece of the web traffic. Posting contents on trending topics that enriched with videos and graphics is imperative. And this boils down to the use of search engine optimization, or SEO.
Ensure your website is fully optimized and the you don’t serve pirated content. If your site is indexed and you are posting quality content regularly then it will be easy for you to rank on search engine results pages. This is an organic way of marketing so be ready for some grinding in terms of time and efforts!
4) Affiliate Marketing
If you believe your product or service can make a difference and can benefit the consumers, then the affiliate marketing path would do wonders. Affiliate marketing, benefits your influencers and users. When an influencer sells your product through a unique link, he or she gets a commission from the selling price.
There are tools that help in setting up and automating the affiliate marketing process. Popular tools include Flippa, CJ Affiliate, and and SEMRush.
The whole point is here you don’t market your product; the influencers do it for you. Your job is to deliver a quality product and the service you provide is more beneficial when compared to exisitng solutions.
Crowdfunding has brought in a new way to conceive products and services. Platforms like IndieGoGo and Kickstarter offer the ground for people seek others’ help in raising money for their ventures.
This is the perfect opportunity to attain early traction, as the individuals that choose to invest in your product entrench the base of your target audience.
There are a few things you should keep in mind about crowdfunding your business:
Most crowdfunding campaigns fail.
A high percentage of donations come during the initial days of the campaign.
You should set a realistic goal for your campaign.
Choosing the right crowdfunding platform is vital.
Customer appreciation is a smaller, scalable action (like holding contests or sending handwritten notes to customers) for maintain a good rapport with your audience as well as press-coverage and publicity.
To build your brand authority and gain traction for the long term, you need to build a solid relationship with your customers.There are many methods to do this but unconventional PR is the most sustainable and effective way. Surprise your audience with goodies and perks that seem out of the world!
7) Offline Events
Conduct seminars and press conferences to make your product a burning issue among people for the right reasons. Meet people and advertise yourself. Trade shows will help build relations with industry insiders.
You can also connect with influencers capable of representing your brand. Influencers have the target audience you are seeking. There are many benefits of marketing through influencers, but the highlight is the time saved in building your community from scratch.
Invite them and other competitors in your events. The socializing and partnership building will help you and your brand in the long run.
8) Email Marketing
We’ve discussed so many ways of marketing a startup but if you just have started ,then email marketing is a safe, less risky path. Every startup should build an email list as soon as possible because that’s how one gets subscribers.
Despite the presence of social media platforms, email marketing continues to be effective, but why? 58% people check their email before anything else in their phone. Don’t send spam emails to your users because that’s the last thing anyone wants.
Value people through your emails . Soon, you will have a loyal audience that will be yours for a lifetime.
Pratyusha Srivastava
