photo credit: Johny hanging head down from the tree

You know you need to write a ‘killer’ press release when launching your startup. As a startup entrepreneur you already know that a press release is a major PR strategy (and probably the first one) and should be written immaculately.

Here are a few tips on how to write an effective press release for a business launch:

1.Visit press release sites such as prlog.org, openpr.com, prnewswire.com and pr.com etc and see the way other press releases are written. It will help in grammar, punctuation and formatting.

2.Write a headline which conveys your message directly (avoiding ambiguity). Don’t over-think

3.The important information should fit into the first paragraph and your website name should also be mentioned here

4.Make the press release interesting, use quotes and avoid jargons

5.Make someone else check your press release before publishing

Remember to follow the general SEO tips such as anchor text, keywords & NOFOLLOW tag etc. And of course leverage social media platforms to make your release viral.

For more information on this, please read this post on StartupNation

As you’re writing, think about the key elements that your audience will find interesting. Focus on the benefits,

photo credit: thms.nl

The best way for a person to remember something is to have a ‘visual aid’. I believe most of us are visual learners. I would definitely remember a face but not a name.

How can businesses use this concept to market their products/services in the online world?
Through Video Marketing – quality video content which is correctly tagged, distributed at the right places online and shared via social networking sites has tremendous power to reach wide audiences globally. Complex ideas, thoughts and emotions can be communicated easily through viral videos. Two distinct advantages from a marketing point of view are; visual aid advantage which engages more users and the power of a video to engage in search engines. So videos don’t only influence customer buying decisions but also boost your visibility on search engines.

The phenomenal rise of “how to” concept has given video marketing an extra push. People who want information actively search for this type of content. People who have the information and who want to share it for free can form a video and distribute it online.

There are various online video sharing platforms with YouTube undoubtedly being the most popular one. YouTube is the third most-visited site on the internet which receives over 70 million unique visitors a month (and the number keeps rising). And it also appears in Google search results – what else does an online marketing strategy want?

Other sites such as Vimeo, Justin.TV, Blip.tv, Photobucket.com, Viddler.com & Ecorp.tv are also good for distributing and sharing videos.

The whole idea of making a video and distributing it online can be quite intimidating but an advice here is - just do it. Video marketing can be very effective and it will definitely be the new marketing for 2010 with many companies adopting it already.

A video marketing strategy can be ideal for your startup as well – it’s cheap, helps in search engine rankings and has a viral tendency if correctly made and distributed.

For more information regarding this we suggest you visit StartupNation Blog

It’s my opinion that not having a video presence in 2-5 years will be like not having a web site in 2010!

photo credit: Torley

Sooner or later, any business or startup needs to refine/reshape its client base for one of the following reasons:

• To part with low-profit customers – proactive
• To part with customers whose demands don’t fit the company policies and damage profitability and morale – reactive

In some scenarios parting becomes necessary and the difficult part is that it requires a lot of effort and finesse. Here are a few tips on how to manage it:

Identify the ‘vital’ customers - Follow the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule). In business, 20 percent of the customers account for 80 percent of the sales, while another 20 percent account for 80 percent problems. Identify the profitable 20 percent for your business. For every minute you put on solving a problem of the costly ones, spend four minutes taking care of the profitable ones.

Get Proactive - Define the customers that cause your startup time and profitability. Solution is to keep them satisfied and less costly is by revising cost and services.

Get Reactive (if you need to) - If you think a customer is causing serious damage to your startup and the costs exceed profitability, then it is time to part ways. Tip here listen carefully, don’t get defensive and try reaching on an agreement (If possible)

As a startup, you should try and identify both kind of customers and try your best to keep them satisfied. If for some reason (genuine ones) a customer is causing more damage than benefit, it is definitely time to part ways.

For more information on this we suggest you visit:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/sales/customerservice/article204926.html

Follow up. It's important to keep in touch to see that the referral worked out. Your aim here is twofold: to help the customer and to avoid any sense of abandonment that could lead to negative reviews of your business.

photo credit: striatic

I will first start by explaining what a ‘Crocodile Salesman’ exactly means – a person who doesn’t listen, only talks (sells). Big mouth and no ears, they’re people who are always (mostly) talking. Perhaps they have the best product/service to offer, but only pitching without listening won’t do them any good.

Mark Suster explains the ‘Crocodile Salesman’ in three scenarios in his recent post. Here is a brief outline of what he had to say:

1.   When You are Selling

As a startup entrepreneur ‘selling’ starts coming to you naturally. Entrepreneurs are so engrossed in promoting their product/service that listening to others becomes practically impossible. Startup founders are in sales mode from the launch day.

A humble advice to all startup entrepreneurs here is to ‘listen’ and understand. Everyone understands you have something great to offer, but blatantly pitching without listening can be very harmful. Recognize a problem and offer a solution, don’t keep offering solutions to problems you don’t even know about. Crocodile sales are seldom productive. They just make you sound desperate.

2.   When Hiring Sales People

It’s the time when your startup decides to hire a sales person. Beware of the crocodile salesmen in such a scenario. How to identify them? A most common trait among these people is that they keep talking about themselves and their achievements for what may seem like ages. More than wanting to know about their role, they will be busy bragging about how good they are. The interview remains one sided – such people can’t encourage discussions. They may be really good but not apt for a sales position in a startup.

3.    When Pitching a VC

Raising money for your startup is definitely selling your idea. But also make sure you research your idea, build rapport and credibility and understand what the VC has to say. Avoid being a crocodile salesman.

I know because many entrepreneurs I spend time with I can tell are in their own brains when we’re meeting rather than trying to understand what my position is.

photo credit: M i x y

Let’s start by explaining what Inbound Marketing is all about – the style of marketing that focuses on getting found by customers (when they need) and not ‘pushing’ your product or service (referred to as Outbound Marketing) is known as Inbound Marketing.

As a customer when you need to buy a product/service, you don’t solely trust the ad or newspaper release. Suggestions and feedback from friends, family and other customers influences your decision in a big way. And getting this ‘feedback’ has become so much easier with the advent and rise of the Internet and Web 2.0.

All you today need to do this type your query in a search engine and here you go! You have hundreds of reviews, suggestions, feedback (negative too) in one search. Traditional Marketing methods are effective but with the rise of Web 2.0, inbound marketing is definitely the future.

Now as a startup you need to go out there and market your product or service. Inbound marketing is the one stop solution to all your marketing strategy confusions. Your website, SEO techniques, blogs and social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc all come under the Inbound Marketing umbrella.

 As a startup you gain the following benefits from Inbound Marketing:

1. Better Relationship Management – which can lead to higher prospects to client conversion
2. Loyalty factor can lead to more sales
3. The methods of implementing it are far less expensive and as a startup you can’t spend heavily due to financial constraints
4. Easy to use and ready-made tools available online

Inbound marketing can be related to what Seth Godin describes as ‘relationship marketing’ which can turn out as long-term strategy for your startup business if implemented wisely.

Three quick points for Startups: Content, SEO and Social Media

(1) It Costs Less - Outbound marketing means spending money - either by buying ads, buying email lists or renting huge booths at trade shows. Inbound Marketing means creating content and talking about it.

For more information visit:  http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4416/Inbound-Marketing-the-Next-Phase-of-Marketing-on-the-Web.aspx

photo credit: manfrys

‘SEO’ (Search Engine Optimization) is a term widely used to mean “the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (organic) search results” (Wikipedia).

As a startup, you have your website ready with excellent content but how will you get it across to the ultimate users? Your website is in a space where there is a lot of search traffic, but how will you make it to the top of search engine rankings and generate traffic (ultimately leads)? There is a lot of confusion by founders of startups around SEO and how it works for a startup.

What we believe – SEO is extremely important for small businesses because normal users (those who don’t live and breath technology) only type a few of their favorite websites directly into the URL bar and for everything else go to search engines, most likely Google. In the 90s, people talked a lot about “home pages” and “site flow” – which matters if you are getting most of your traffic from people typing in your URL directly. However, for most startups, this isn’t the case (at least for the first few years of existence). Instead, the flow you should be thinking about it users going to Google, typing in a key phrase and landing on one of your internal pages.

Search engines are ‘matchmakers’ between users “demanding” information and websites “supplying” it. SEO helps tracing the gaps in the supply of information and providing traffic to your startup website.

The following article and slideshow provide great tips for Startups on SEO:

http://www.slideshare.net/willobrien/try-will-o-brien-startup-corner-seo-and-social-media
http://socalcto.blogspot.com/2009/11/seo-for-startups.html
As a startup founder, don’t overvalue better results with SEO than is deserved. There is a great value in SEO for startups. The beauty of SEO is as a long-term strategy for building inexpensive traffic.

 In the same conversation about SEO for startups, the founder either tells me:
•    There's a ton of search in my space
•    I'm not sure how much search there is in my space

photo credit: hellfroze

Start-ups also have a ton of options. They really are enter­ing with a clean slate most of the time and, often, a huge num­ber of resources. They have investors, boards, friends, fam­ily, old col­leagues, old net­works, etc., all push­ing for them and offer­ing a help­ing hand. So when it comes to decid­ing where they want to invest their energy and call in those favors, it can get tricky.

 

Marketing is a very important aspect of business which startups usually tend to ignore at the launching stage. It is true that startups have budget constraints and they can’t really concentrate on marketing at this stage. But there are some low cost tactics a startup can use for promotion and relationship maintenance – all online. Start by choosing a name that works; something simple, memorable and unambiguous. Then probably kick off a blog and not to forget keep checking the website traffic through some analytics. These tactics and suggestions are explained in further detail by the Startup Guru Dharmesh Shah:
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/9008/Startup-Marketing-Tactical-Tips-From-The-Trenches.aspx

Probably the tactical steps don’t do much individually, but in aggregate they do start laying the foundation for much bigger things.

Find three closest competitors.  Pretend like someone is paying you $10,000 for locating each competitor.  Really try hard.  Barely managed to find three?  Take a lot of effort?  Great.  Now find 3 more.

Whether you’re a startup, small business, medium business or a huge firm, your brand value is gravely important in distinguishing you from your competitors. Unfortunately, the brand positioning is not taken seriously in the small firms. Most of the small businesses don't realize the value and the intent of positioning their brand as a trenchant marketing tool. Branding doesn't have to be too expensive or overpriced, but it does need to be in tune with your goals and markets.

Here is a skillful post by Stoney deGeyter on why branding is important: http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/why-branding-matters-to-small-businesses.php

A solid branding strategy is important for any small business and should be a part of your online marketing efforts. If you're like most small businesses you are more concerned about selling products or services than in establishing a name for yourself. Why go through the effort? Simply put, branding helps sales.

 

Google is floating a new CPA (cost per action) model for Adwords advertisers who target US cities and states. If you are one such advertiser, just open up an account with Google Merchant Center and include as much information as possible for your products like accurate descriptions, images and price.

Merchants who have large product inventories now do not need to create ads. Just do your basic keyword research and determine the ones for which you want to show your ad. You pay only for the results and as the ads are charged on a CPA (cost per action) basis rather than CPC (cost per click). Thus, risks are lesser and a lot of time will be saved too as the advertisers can just update the merchant center with relevant information (and possibly keywords).

Currently, product listing ads are available only to a handful of advertisers but should open shortly for all advertisers across USA and may be other countries too. Read more…