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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• 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!!

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According to the 2011 census, India’s differently-abled population stands at 2.68 crores and according to WHO, around 100 million are people with special needs including senior citizens and people with severe health disorders. Surprised? Well, you should be.

Disabled- friendly infrastructure has not dawned on India completely, which hinders the accessibility, hampers movement and also limits the social interaction of disabled people having moderate to severe disability levels. And as this was not enough, people also struggle with clothing and fashion because of their disability due to the dearth of ‘Adaptive Clothing’ in India. There are almost none clothing line designed especially for those who are bedridden, a wheelchair user, senior citizens, suffering from age-related and limited mobility issues and they have to end up with adjusting to the conventional clothing.

To confront this, ‘BillionAbles’ has turned up with India’s only adaptive clothing line “Clothing4All” which has been designed especially for ALL, yes ALL. Adaptive Clothing makes it breezy and changes everyday clothing into styles that can be easily worn by people with physical disabilities. It is designed to make it easy to dress/undress by providing easy access to certain body parts without having to fully remove any clothing, making life simpler for everyone.

About the Initiators

BillionAbles is a social enterprise working towards accessibility, inclusion and empowerment of persons with disabilities by introducing them to a more inclusive and accessible world.

The company is the brainchild of Sameer Garg, disabled due to a spinal injury two decades ago and Deepak Kumar, the technical wizard of the company. ‘BillionAbles’ is India’s first all-inclusive online platform to discover accessible places, products and services for the person with disabilities, special needs and elderly. The website currently has 350 listings among various categories across India with more than 2000 users actively using the platform and the number grows each day. It has a strong presence in Delhi, Rajasthan and Goa with verified listings added to daily.

Insights of Adaptive Clothing

Contrived for the people with physical disabilities who experience difficulty in dressing themselves due to the lack of motion required for self-dressing, Adaptive Clothing caters remedy to their inability of manipulating closures, such as buttons and zippers.

Adaptive clothing typically offers rear-closure designs so that an individual can be dressed more easily. A common misconception of adaptive clothing is that it is only for wheelchair users or others that suffer from severe disabilities. While these groups do benefit from the garments, adaptive clothing is for anyone that can be limited by traditional clothing. Adaptive items use different features such as Velcro closures and magnetic buttons to make dressing easier, while still having the outward appearance of typical clothing. Other tweaks include using flat seams and replacing standard tags with tag less options to allow more comfort to the skin.

Apprehending the traction

Some of the milestones Clothing4All has achieved so far:

• More than 1000 users are availing their services on web and mobile app.
• Selected in Catapooolt Product Czars along with the top 50 startups from India.
• Featured on All Major Media Platforms(Your Story, GadgetsNdtv, The Hindu, Indian Express, VC Circle, BWDisrupt, Businessworld ) to name a few.

It’s an attempt at leveling the playing field so that this long-ignored segment can go out and have fun, just like the majority of the population. Your support will help them in the validation of the concept and pitch to the investors for making it a commercially viable and sustainable business model. Help this crowdsourced social revolution to empower the persons with special needs by introducing them to a more accessible world.

Want comfortable apparel? That’s easy to slip on by “Clothing4All”. Support them in reviving up the lives of 15% of the disabled population by backing the funds at https://www.catapooolt.com/clothing4all

The post Clothing4All: Inclusive platform for democratizing the clothing world appeared first on Catapooolt.