Chances of Your New Business Failing and How to Prevent It
Unless you are already established like Bill Gates is now, you are probably having a difficult time in the beginning stages of starting up your business. In fact, in 2020 it was estimated that 90% of businesses started in 2020 failed. That means that only 1 out of 10 startup businesses will survive in virtually the hunger games. If you are a couple of months in and are still holding on, I’d suggest rewatching the Hunger Games movies.
If you haven’t seen the movies or read the books (which are better), let me give you a little context. In The Hunger Games, there are 12 districts. Youths are selected from each district and sent to a televised event where they must all fight to the death and survive an obstacle course of genetically engineered wasps and minefields.
However, they do have the chance to gain favor and assistance by marketing themselves to get sponsors. The more sponsors they have, the more items they get, and theoretically, the better chances of survival they have.
That book is set at a 5th-grade reading level, geared towards 11–13-year-olds, and forms an accurate picture of what it is like starting your own business. If you don’t have capital backing you, business is going to be a lot harder. You have to market yourself based on what your target audience wants or needs.
Top Reasons for Business Failure
A poll from Failory lists that 16% of startup businesses failed because of financial trouble, but that wasn’t the biggest issue. The first issue was product-market fit, and after that, it was marketing. That’s right. 22% of startup businesses failed because they didn’t know how to market their services or products properly.
The truth is the world is changing at an accelerated rate and businesses must adapt. Digital marketing is the future of business. Just last year, it was estimated that marketing was responsible for leading the revenue growth at 38.4% of companies.
Digital Marketing And The Future
Hopefully, you have a good marketing team on your side, but if you are a startup or new business, you might not. With marketing contributing such a hefty toll on businesses, this is something to consider when you plan your budget.
One of the best ideas is to find someone who can work with your budget. Many businesses go with the goal of 10% to invest in marketing. This could be in the form of training someone and hiring them on to your staff (which is expensive), reaching out to another business that specializes in marketing, or you can find a marketing freelancer who is just as skilled but isn’t going to charge you past your budget. This might not be feasible for your company. However, there are many great ways you can get the word out about your business at little or no cost.
Networking
By social networking, you can speak directly to your targeted audience and people with similar interests. Those common interests turn into leads, referrals, and then conversions. LinkedIn and Twitter are the most popular social platforms for branding your business online. 75% of B2B content marketers used Twitter for organic content marketing. Businesses say that social media marketing and advertising produced 86% brand exposure and 78% in improved traffic.
“The network (Twitter) has 303 million active monthly users, 40% of which visit the site daily. 90 million senior-level influencers and 63 million decision-makers use LinkedIn. 92% of Fortune 500 companies use LinkedIn.”
If you are starting in business and marketing, try making a free profile and connecting with similar brands. Check out the comment section of popular posts that are marketing their products or services. You will find a wealth of information in the comment section.
Also, don’t be shy. Connect with people and send a message telling them why you are following them or connecting. A simple ‘Hi, I like your products’ or ‘we have similar interests” is sufficient for most people and businesses. If they are on social media, they are doing the same thing you are starting, marketing and research.
Website and SEO
I am sure your innovative startup has a functional, scrollable website with all your unique ideas so investors and possible leads can send you their hard-earned money. At least, I hope you do. Having a website for whatever venture you are doing is essential and the necessary foundation for getting your ideas into the world.
And if you do have a website, make sure it is Search Engine Optimized (SEO). In a nutshell, this means that the all-powerful Google will recognize your site and toss it into its results it provides to people based on keywords they type in.
When I type in ‘Startup businesses worth investing in’ Google gives me about 1,200,000,000 results (0.74 seconds). That’s amazing, but how did those top results get there before your business on page 50?
There are a lot of different factors into that, but one of them is SEO. It helps Google get you in front of the people looking for your website using keywords and ranking the content on your page as relevant to those keywords someone is searching for.
Thought Leaders
A thought leader is a go-to person in their field and gives their informed opinions about their expertise. I wouldn’t want to go to Gordon Ramsay and ask how to make a cellphone. He might know, but I wouldn’t say he is an expert. Instead, I would go to a field leader like someone who works for Apple or Samsung.
When you post about the things you know, it gives you credibility. Blogging has become a booming industry and can be a useful marketing tool that will allow you to share your expertise and reach people you may not have connected with otherwise.
Blogs don’t have to be exclusive to a website, however. You can effectively use LinkedIn to create a bridge between yourself and your targeted audience.
Newsletter / Email Sequencing
You might not think that a good ol’ email is worth your time. Don’t people check those, right? Did you check your email this week? If so, how many times? It turns out, emailing is still an effective marketing strategy for businesses.
“Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (Campaign Monitor, 2019)”
These newsletters can cover a wide array of topics such as recent articles about your company, business changes, events, free resources, membership deals, or promotions. They can also be simple articles relating to your field. The possibilities are endless. The bottom line is that optimized email marketing is a strategic move that will boost business when done right.
With these simple changes in how you market yourself, you can start generating leads for your business. The truth is, most large companies already do all these things. If you hop over to your favorite business, you can see they probably have a thought leader and a marketing team or specialist.
I hope these tips will help you with your business venture and my last little bit of information for you will be a quote that I look at every day for motivation. “I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” -Steve Jobs.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
