Does this sound like you? If the situation above is relatable, then most of your digital marketing problems are going to be solved in this article!

Let’s talk social

Social media is one of the most cost effective ways to market your startup.  In addition to providing a platform for growing your brand, it offers an easy medium for promotion and customer service opportunities.

• Always be consistent- Social media is a way for you to build your brand’s voice. You should not only post regularly, but there should be a uniform identity to your posts. Additionally, do not over post or deviate from your brand’s message, the ideal number of posts to Facebook is between 5 to 10 times a week, Twitter is 5 tweets a day, whereas LinkedIn and Google+ are tied at 1 time a day.
• It’s always about your customer– Most brands use their social media accounts only for promotional purposes. This strategy has proven to be a failure as it provides no value to followers. Instead, find and share information that your customers want to see and occasionally mix in your promoted content.
• Build engagement with your followers- Social media is a way for your startup to interact with current and future customers. Leverage your followers and make them feel like valuable members of your brand. Also, do not be afraid of social confrontation, approach any complaint as an opportunity to show your brand’s customer-service capabilities.

• Try small investments into the platforms- There are a number of different social media opportunities that you can invest in – all of which have merit depending on the industry and your unique selling proposition. Experiment with the following options and see what warrants the best ROI for your startup.

• Facebook: Facebook is steadily becoming a pay-to-play platform and if you want to see any engagement you will need to invest into promoting your Facebook posts.

• Tweeter: While Twitter still provides a good amount of organic engagement, the micro blogging platform also has paid solutions for businesses, with one being a sponsored tweet which ensures higher engagement with followers.
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn has a number of extremely valuable paid features, including a Sales Navigator that makes finding leads and contacts seamless. Best of all, you can try the service free for a month.

But Content still rules Social Media!

Content marketing is one of the most overlooked investments in launching a Startup. It is the vehicle for conveying your brand’s message. If your message is unclear, not properly frames or used too many vague claims then you will undoubtedly struggle to succeed.

• Think about your message beforehand– Content marketing should not be a process of throwing messages against the wall and seeing what sticks. To effectively brand your startup, you should engage in industry research and formulate a unique selling propositions. Your message then needs to keep these USPs as the focal point.
• Find affordable and creative ways- Creative content does not have to be expensive. You can find affordable and high-quality content on sites like Elance, Craigslist or Fiverr. For instance, on Fiverr you can have an animated explainer video made from a top seller for a fraction of an agency’s price. These videos are perfect for startups, because they quickly and effectively convey your new product or service to potential customers.
• Optimize your website- What do you want visitors to do when they land on your site? Your entire content strategy should be built with this question in mind. Once you know the action you want users to do then you can find affordable tools for perpetuating those actions.
• Find free plugins for capturing emails and then leverage affordable services like MailChimp or Constant Contact for drip campaigns.

• Use free tools like Google Analytics to monitor visitor’s paths to the website and once they are on it, find opportunities to create a more user-friendly experience.
• Optimize forms on your site to build a stronger inbound lead funnel.
• Find inexpensive and reliable cart services to sell products directly through your site.
• Whatever your objective, there is a cheap and often free solutions available.

• Effective promotion– One of the most important steps to an effective content marketing strategy is the content promotion. After you produce an incredible piece of branded content you need to amplify that piece of content as much as possible. Leverage your social media profiles, email industry experts, reach out to LinkedIn groups or industry forums, and contribute to other popular sites that your consumers might visit. Invest a few hours a week to outreach or off-site writing and your startup will begin to gain traction.

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Entrepreneurs and private companies are now looking for non-conventional ways to raise finance to begin something new or expand their existing base. Non-traditional alternatives such as asset based financing and crowdfunding have become popular and this is just tip of the iceberg!

Crowdfunding especially, has become an easy alternative for Entrepreneurs and Independent ventures. It can be utilized to raise capital from a number of individuals, some of whom might be friends or family. Crowdfunding can be utilized to boost projects or inventions, launch a business, pre-sell new products, launch a new clothes line or even finance production costs for a feature film. 

Testing markets for a new product or raising working capital for raw materials or inventory are some other possible outcomes for crowdfunding. The situation is changing every day with the spirit of entrepreneurs, who like to stay undeterred when faced with a financial barrier. 

Billions of dollars are raised annually through crowdfunding and these platforms typically charge 5 percent or more on the funds raised.

But contrary to the popular belief, crowdfunding is an old concept. One of the most famous examples is the Statute of Liberty in the United States of America.

The American Committee for the Statue of Liberty was short on cash for the Statue’s pedestal in 1884 and a newspaper distributer Joseph Pulitzer saved the day with his innovative idea. He composed an article and distributed it in his daily paper which compelled about 125,000 New York citizens into contributing $1 or less to raise the cash required. 

This produced $100,000 to pay for the Statute of Liberty pedestal. As a token of appreciation, every contributor’s name was published in the daily paper. The facts of the case reflect modern crowdfunding elements. 

Modern crowdfunding has been around since the 2000s, here are some types: 

Debt – Interest is charged in return of the funds raised, with a specified time frame for repayment.

Equity – Ownership or a stake in the company/product is offered in return of the money contributed.

Unfortunately, Debt and Equity based crowdfunding is not allowed in India, at present.

Donations – Money is raised with no promise of something in return. Everyone contribute because they believe in the cause. 

Rewards – A reward is promised to every contributor, in exchange of the money raised. Rewards can be a Product, social media recognition or invite to an event.

Through crowdfunding, thousands of entrepreneurs and inventors have raised funding for new technologies, research and products. Crowdfunding makes it easier to enter the market which previously wasn’t so simple. Though, Crowdfunding can’t serve everyone’s purpose and different platforms don’t have everything in common, but it presents as a very easy and non-conventional method of raising finance.

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• Hiring for the Attitude towards Aptitude and not just Skill: As Startups are aimed at creating niche aggregators in the new wave economy, it is crucial that the minds aimed at achieving it should have the right focus and attitude to innovate. Today’s youth lack this crucial side and hence finding such linchpins in the system should be a responsibility together shouldered by the HR and the Team Leads. Right and suitable talent need to be nurtured and given large scope of relevant work. This not only bring out a sense of responsibility with authority amongst the employees, but they truly expand their boundaries to innovate. There needs a strong attachment and connect to the vision and mission of the company’s goal that need to be conveyed to the candidate right at the final selection stage.

• Social Media Attraction: Social Media is the latest dotcom burst and is being largely used these days for talent hiring. But lot of profiles are factious and many other carry false information. So while it is good to make social media checks and headhunts, but relying totally on it could be a mistake. I still remember one incident wherein the requirement was to fulfil a sales position and the requisite was for someone presentable with good communication skills. Later when a candidate was called tapped through one of the social sites, the truth came out to be totally different from what the skills were quoted. Hence, as recruiters one should verify all possible information before investing in an individual and not fall prey to the fanciful information shared with no authentication.

• Communicating Properly Defined KRA’s: Most of the hires fail to deliver at times because of the difference between the deliverables and expectations. This happens mostly coz of the lack of clarity about what is expected to be delivered. So the tech leads should create such defined KRA’s as per deliverables for different profiles and share it with the HR for evaluating candidate on the same while recruiting. This make the hiring more efficient and effective and the candidates also come well prepared with their performance goals.

• Strong Employee Referral Program: An effective employee referral program is the strongest approach for Startup talent acquisition. The existing employees are the best brand ambassador and promoters of your company’s image and hence can efficaciously contribute in good talent hiring. A good referral system can encourage employees to network with their peers in the industry and help them getting hired. A good employee knows both the system and the recommendation they are making. So, he/she can be utilized as a good source to hire the best they could have been in network with.

Head hunting for startups is more experiential and is largely a complete talent acquisition strategy rather than mere recruiting and filling a position. This requires involvement of not Just the HR who holds the prime onus for this, but also all the strategic stakeholders at the same time. An effective hiring can be achieved only when all these stakeholders make a collective effort to create a flawless system of integrated synergies.

Happy Hiring!!

The post Hiring the StartUps Way appeared first on Catapooolt.

However, after SEBIs (Securities and Exchange Board of India) new guidelines, a lot of questions have been raised as to whether crowd-funding will be able to achieve what is worth since equity crowdfunding holds no existence in India now. But the massive response that reward based crowdfunding portals are getting, clearly illustrates that Indian markets are investment ready, thereby proliferating the effect. Hence, emerging start-ups, social causes, events, tech innovations and even real estate can look at it as one of the major avenues for fundraising.

So, the sectors that can expect a lot from crowd-funding are as follows:

1. Social Causes-  People around are indulged in some or the other way to benefit the society. For such social causes, crowd-funding can be extra beneficial as it can fuel up the entire initiative by gauging financial help and stitching more hands to join the initiative or cause.

Source- The Hindu Business

2. Innovation Start-ups-  For start-ups, reward based crowd-funding has become the easiest way to reach out to masses in the first phase of launch itself. This in indeed instilling them with lot of confidence in themselves as well as the product because they are not just raising funds it is also fetching them with a POC (PROOF OF CONCEPT) at a very early stage which helps them in company evaluation. Also, when a start-up raises funds first via a crowd-funding platform and then reaches out investors, it gives investors a lot of confidence in the product because if masses are ready to support, then it is quite evident that the product will be a big hit post launch.

3. Tech Products- Young students, tech geeks, coders, hack-a-holics are working hard to come up with the most creative, hard to think and innovative products in the market to make lives simpler and easier. Crowd-funding is the best way to let people know about these innovations and also enable them to become a part of the product life cycle by creating a backbone for the innovation and be the their first set of early adopters.

Source- oberlo

4. Events and Festivals- We see a lot musical festivals, religious festivals take up the crowd-funding way, to easily access the crowd, generate visibility and sell out tickets early. Music festivals such as Control Alt Delete, DIY Day and Bangalore Open Air festival are a few examples of events that were almost entirely funded by crowd contributions in 2014. One such recent event that was also crowd-funded was Cultural Fest organised by Art-Of-Living, which gauged a lot of mileage through this initiative.

5. Films and Music Albums– “Fans have the power to make or break a celebrity” is very rightly said. They are those who with their power can also launch music albums and fund movies that they wish to. With recent developments in the crowd-funding and crowd-sourcing industry, music albums, movies, theater shows, plays are proving to be crowd pullers because they can showcase to their audience that once launched, they can be huge success.

6. Authors and Books- Getting a book crowdfunded is the new trend for self-publishing authors. Crowd-funding is the best way to procure pre-selling orders for books that have not yet launched, which also helps in generating a fan base and relieves you from the stress of tight funds. Therefore, before you even launch your book, you are already there on people’s shelves and all of this by sincerely leveraging the power of the crowd, who can also become your potential investors.

7. Artists and Art Projects- Very recently, an SRCC student group named “iOTA” launched their crowdfunding campaign to promote Indian art and artists whose DIS-ABILITY is their ABILITY. This campaign gauged a lot of eyeballs and momentum amongst the youth. Similarly, many other artists are looking at Crowdfunding as a decent opportunity to get traction, visibility and worth for their art.

8. Real Estate– Real estate developers admit that crowd-funding is a double-edged sword and needs to be handled carefully. Currently real estate is going through a tough phase, suffering from liquidity woes, lack of transparency, project delays, long gestations period and lack of regulation in the Industry but once crowd-funding enters the picture, all these woes and grievances are taken care of automatically. And according to the back builders and developers, the ROI from crowd-funding in Real Estate has proved to be it to be the best investment so far.

All this very clearly illustrates that Crowdfunding has become the mainstream alternative to conventional and orthodox modes of raising funds. Therefore, as per my perspective of crowdfunding, it promises a bright future and remarkable growth in the times to come, because crowd-funding not only ensures that investors fund the campaign, but people who believe in the project also become a part of it.

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Since new businesses aren’t always the preferred choice for bank loans and investments, Crowdfunding is quickly becoming a new alternative. And if we focus specifically on reward based crowdfunding, we’d find that it’s a way of raising funds without having to return a single penny!

‘But! What is reward based crowdfunding?’ – And we thought you’d never ask.

The base of this type of crowdfunding is the online tech platforms that enable easy access to all the information about the project being crowdfunded and feature to back the project on the spot. The campaign owner – who is looking to raise the funds – puts up all the essential information about his business/product/cause in form of a write up aided by visuals or even a video.

Made insanely popular by forums like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, Reward based crowdfunding works well for new business and social projects who are looking for quick fundraising. Another very core element to this type of crowdfunding is that it limits investor’s access to entrepreneur and still manages to maintain the legitimacy of the business proposition.

The lower target amount with the short campaign duration gives a sense of practicality by setting achievable targets. Plus, the presence of visuals on the campaign page add an edge to the pitch, where the backers can get an accurate feel of the products/causes they are backing.

Even the stats are encouraging.

Looking back into crowdfunding, some of the best examples of reward based crowdfunding campaigns in the recent years are astonishing.

In technology, Pebble Smartwatch raised $20 Million, almost 4,000% of its original goal, in early 2015. Talking of social causes, Flow Hive, a unique Bee hive invention broke all records and raised $2.8 million within first 24hours, as compared to its original target of $70K in 2016. In product pre-sales, world’s best travel jacket, with all-in-one features, raised over $9 million, going way above the initial $20K goal in 2015.

Yet the best part is…

The cherry on the top for reward based crowdfunding is you don’t have to return the money, nor are you expected to provide equity or interest in exchange for the funds. Though what the backers do get in return, however, are the rewards. For example, a fashion designer may offer customized outfits for the backers contributing over Rs. 5,000 for his/her campaign.

Similarly, a tech product, for example, a smart watch or a drone may promise the product to be home delivered to all backers who chose to buy it through the crowdfunding campaign. Offering creative Rewards can add value to your campaign and make the backers remember your platform. 

Like many campaigns offer social media acknowledgements, flashy badges and goodies that the backers can flaunt on social media. This serves two purposes, one the backer feels gratified at having contributed to the campaign and gets something extra to show off on Instagram. The other being, that this practice creates a loyalty in the hearts of the backers, who feel personally involved with the campaign and have social proof to show for it.

All in all,

Reward based crowdfunding is an easier alternative of raising capital for creative businesses and social causes, without the pressure of repaying a loan or stress of interest rates. But there are several things to be kept in mind before a business starts a crowdfunding campaign, for example you need to have a convincing story and you need to be ready to do some of the work yourself.

Crowdfunding is now made easy with Desired Wings. Just sign up and create your own crowdfunding campaign today!

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