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Why It Is Not Advisable to Not Have a Business Plan

Plan

When you start a business, different people will advise you differently on how to turn your venture into a success. While it looks natural to have a business plan beforehand, do not be surprised if you find some people telling you to not have one. According to some, having a business plan limits you in your exploration and prevents you from taking risks. That might hold true in some cases, but that’s not how it is for everyone. Having a business plan is a sensible step, but if you are on the fence about whether to have one or not, here are some disadvantages of not having a business plan to help you make a well-informed decision.

Why Not Having a Business Plan Is Not Advisable

1.      There Is Nothing to Achieve

Milestones have to be an integral part of any venture. When you don’t have any milestones and targets, there is nothing for you to achieve. Having no business plan is the first sign of your non-seriousness with your business. If you could not take out time to create a detailed plan, how can one expect you to manage your business – an activity that could require even up to 16 hours of continuous working at times? The problem with having nothing to achieve means you will have no strategies for your expenses, profits, revenues, etc.

How would you ever know how much you should spend or not spend? Why would you invest in marketing when you don’t have any goals?

2.      There Is Nothing to Interest Investors

There might be some proponents of the idea that a business does not require a business plan, but there are still more people who believe in having a business plan. Investors always need indicators from entrepreneurs to judge their personalities and potentials. Business plan is one of the strongest indicators of a person’s potential of doing a business. When you ask investors for a certain amount of money, the first question they ask is why you need that money or what you need that money for. Your answer to this question can make it or break it for you.

In fact, that is not the only question. They will follow up this first question with a lineup of crucial follow-up questions. For example, if you tell them you will invest the money in marketing, they will ask you about the type of marketing you are aiming for, the return you expect and the costs of customer acquisition. How can you answer all those questions if you do not have a business plan?

3.      Your Marketing Will Go Awry

One of the damages of not having a business plan is your marketing plans going awry. Entrepreneurs have more power to them today than they ever had before. These days, startup owners have internet where they can collect information about their customers in the startup stages. Collecting customer information helps them create buyer personas and target their audience with appropriate marketing. Here are some pieces of information you will have to collect.

  • What age group and gender my product appeals best to?
  • What interests my target age group and gender?
  • What platforms is my target audience most active on?
  • What is the average buying power of my target audience?
  • What type of content best attracts my target audience?
  • What expectations do my potential customers have with my product?
  • How can I personalize my marketing to my audience?

That’s just few of the many questions that you have to get the answers for to make your marketing endeavors profitable. However, all of this homework is a part of your business plan.

4.      Your Team Won’t Share Your Vision

It is crucial for a business’ success to have a team that shares the same vision and endeavors to achieve it. Several studies and researches have proven that employees do not perform at their best when they don’t understand the vision well. You must define clear and vivid targets to your employees for them to know exactly what they have to do to be of value for the company. What you have to realize is that telling your team the vision of the business is not enough. It is a broad concept and does not define the action plan to your employees.

What you have to do is break the process of achieving your vision into small parts. These small parts are the milestones and within each milestone the role of your team is clearly defined. In short, break the entire pursuit of vision into small missions, and explain the role of every team member to achieve a milestone.

5.      You Won’t Know When to Exit

One of the biggest mistakes most startup owners and entrepreneurs make is that they don’t know when to exit. If you can close down your business before it starts hurting you financially, that’s a form of success. The true failure is when you cannot realize that your business is hurting you and you keep burning dollars for its success. An integral part of a business plan is defining favorable and unfavorable conditions for the business to exist.

In a business, you have to define a deadline before which you must see positive results. You have to define a time frame within which you can continue to invest in your business. However, you have to draw a line to make it clear when you cannot continue anymore. If you have been running your business for six months and the money has been going out of your pocket, it might be an indicator that it won’t work for you.

Conclusion

A business plan should be considered a part and parcel of a venture. It is not an optional component because your success rests on it. If you are looking forward to starting your business, it is advisable that you sit down and take time to write and review your business plan. If that is too much for you, hire a professional to write it for you.

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Eion Funded $12M to Build Up the Carbon removal Technology Distribution for Economic Beneficial

Carbon

Eion is a Princeton, NJ-based originator of fine-grained mineral material invented to terminate carbon permanently and at scale while delivering economic benefits to rural communities. The company’s product rapidly captures and holds carbon dioxide when applied to agricultural soils, providing farmers and the agricultural industry with a supportable pathway to decarbonization.

Eion was funded $12 million, led by AgFunder and some strategic angel investors of Ridgeline. New and returning investors contain SLVC, Carbon Removal Partners, Mercator Partners, Trailhead Capital, Orion, and Overture.

This budget round will help Eion to continue to make out its distribution partnerships and expand the availability of its patented CarbonLock™. This nature-based soil amendment removes atmospheric carbon dioxide permanently and verifiably through improved rock weathering on farming soils. The company will also employ the funds to draw high-impact talent to make out its financial, commercial, and science teams.

Adam Wolf, Founder, and CEO of Eion, said Eion’s technology allows permanent carbon removal on agricultural soils, but their vision is much broader. Eion seeks to leverage carbon removal to diversify agriculture and maintain land productivity, enhance margins for farmers, help the bedrock of American businesses in our supply chain, and boost rural vitality.

Tom Shields, Partner at AgFunder, said Eion’s CarbonLock™ solution delivers farmers a low-disruption way to help decrease carbon in the atmosphere. They are keen to work with Eion to accelerate the usage of carbon removal as a crucial part of addressing climate change.

Brandon Harris, Principal at Ridgeline, also states that Eion’s rare combination of solid agricultural co-benefits for farmers and high capability for checkable carbon removal positions the company to be a leader in the future.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

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Black Sheep Foods Funded $12.3M to Scale-up Global Production of Plant-based Meat

Meat

Black Sheep Foods, a San Francisco, CA-based. Producer of plant-based meat intended to provide an environmentally sustainable alternative to animal meat. The company’s products are a plant-based alternative to ground lamb. They are made using analytical chemistry from soy protein, coconut oil, and natural flavors. They enable consumers to lessen their carbon footprint by choosing the cheap lamb alternative with the same taste.

Black Sheep Foods was funded $12.3 million led by Unovis, alongside Bessemer Venture Partners, AgFunder, other strategic angel investors, and KBW Ventures. It intends to use the funds to raise production for its debut lamb produced from plants for global distribution.

Sunny Kumar, co-founder, and CEO of Black Sheep Foods said their senses associate meat with a form, a texture, and a flavor. The surface has been the focus of meat innovation, and the taste is a white space. The debut lamb produced from plants includes more depth of flavor, richness, and delicious aromatics than other meats, full stop. They’re in the business of giving consumers access to the most delightful meat variety, using plants instead of animals.

Charles Billies, CEO and Founder of Souvla, said they are incredibly thoughtful when selecting a plant-based meat partner. Since launching Black Sheep Foods’ product in their restaurants last year, they’ve been seriously impressed with its integration into their menu and the overwhelmingly positive response from their many loyal guests. They stay keen on the fate of their product offerings and this vital action in the years to come.

The company says Black Sheep’s lamb has gained a following in the Middle East. Prince Khaled calls the lamb “shockingly good.” But, he says, as someone who grew up with the taste profile in Saudi Arabia, he couldn’t believe the authentic mouthfeel and flavor. With preference being a vital aspect of customer adoption, Black Sheep Foods will easily overwhelm plant-based meats.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

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Stony Creek Colors Funded $4.8M to Develop the Proprietary Technology for Natural Plant Dyes

Natural

Stony Creek Colors is a Springfield, TN-based developer of dyes technology designed to offer bio-based dyes for the textile industry. The company’s technology provides clean and safe natural dyes that replace the hazardous chemicals currently used in the supply chains, enabling the textile and fashion industries to give their consumers access to environmentally conscious premium products.

Stony Creek Colors was funded $4.8 million led by some strategic angel investors in Lewis & Clark AgriFood and Levi Strauss & Co. The company will use the capital further to grow its farming infrastructure and the dye extraction procedure to bring regenerative solutions to farmers and the textile industry.

Sarah Bellos, Founder and CEO of Stony Creek Colors. The company remains the only industrial-scale manufacturer globally of 100% bio-based indigo, as permitted by the USDA BioPreferred Program. Its vertically-integrated prototype allows full traceability-down to the farm level–that brands and consumers trust.

Since its inception, the company has grown, reaped, and processed its proprietary indigo sorts on over 500 acres of farmland via its repeatable and expandable farmer production model. The company’s natural indigo procedure fixes nitrogen and catches more carbon than it uses, boosting environmental progress for the farms where the crops are produced.

In complement to farming supply chain integrations, Stony Creek Colors is known for its innovations in current dye applications and customer point-of-use for this natural chemistry. Earlier this year, Stony Creek Colors publicly established IndiGold®, the first plant-derived, pre-reduced indigo for denim mills, with global metier chemicals leader Archroma.

Stony Creek Colors’ vertically-integrated technology eliminates the significant documented inefficiencies in plant-based indigo production. To authorize a high-purity dye appropriate for its industrial denim mill customers while showing a soil health-enriching and favorable climate chemical that fits well into farmers’ annual crop rotations. Stony Creek is increasing accessibility of renewable color chemistries as demand for plant-based innovations rises in the fashion and textile demands.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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What Are the Necessary Means to Improve Your Business

ImproveEntrepreneurs are not born; they learn things by experiencing ups and downs in a business. To make consistent improvement to improve your business status is critical to maintaining sustainability. Successful entrepreneurs perpetually monitor their business process in order to identify loopholes.  Monitoring your business cash flow and identifying your strengths and weaknesses is a key process that helps you improve your business.

Apart from this, there are several things you can do to keep the risk minimum while enjoying a double-digit growth every year.

Here we have included an overview of some necessary means you can use to improve your business growth

Ways to Improve your Business

1.     Assess Your Business Situation

As mentioned earlier, monitoring the progress of your business is a key to bring improvement.  This is where you identify the areas that need change. However, before you make the changes, it is ideal to ensure that you are aware of the factors that are affecting the success of your business.

These factors may include emerging market trends, your current business strategies, weak market strategies or even lack of competent staff. Fortunately, there are a number of tools you can use to assess your business status. Following tools can help you:

SWOT Analysis:

It is an effective tool that is designed to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your business. Not only does it help you assess the strong areas of your business operations, but also threats and opportunities. You can work out all internal as well as external factors that keep your business from growing.

SWOT is one of the widely used analytical tools to help you in the decision-making process.

SWOT

  • Builds on strengths
  • Minimizes weaknesses
  • Seizes opportunities
  • Counteracts threats

Market research

It is another important tool to investigate the business market to help entrepreneurs identify emerging trends, new technologies, and customer demands

Trend   Analysis

The tool uses your business data for the last five years to identify and assess consistent trends.

Benchmarking

It is a smart tool that is used to measure business performances with the same size of business being operated in the industry.

2.     Business Goals

Whether it is business or your life, without goals it is completely directionless. Business goals keep you focused and energetic, which makes your business successful. You can use these objectives as a part of your ongoing business plan to make sure you keep moving forward.

However, there are certain criteria that need to be considered while setting these goals. Your goals have to be SMART- specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. That means they have to be practical to be achieved within a set timeline. It would be better to prioritize your business goals or to write them down on paper.

You can plan short or long -term strategies to accomplish them. It will help you determine the time, finances and resources.

3.     Develop a Strategic Plan

There is no doubt that businesses whether small or big, take time to progress. That is why it is important to create a smart strategic plan that has an outlook of at least 3 to 4 years. The plan should be made keeping the business goals ahead.

Make sure each year defines your business goals plus how your team will achieve those goals over the estimated time. Besides this, it is important to prepare a financial plan to meet the growing needs of your business.

That means the business strategy will not only define how your business will make profits, but also where and how much you will invest.

According to expert entrepreneurs, it is always beneficial to review your business strategic plans. It helps you match the set goals with the profit your business has produced.

4.      Be Passionate About Meeting the Goals

This might seem a no-brainer or something trivial, but it can make a huge difference when it comes to accomplishing your business goals. When you are passionate about your work, your colleagues and employees can feel this energy as well.

In other words, showing enthusiasm and excitement cannot be underestimated as it plays a critical role to make your team more hardworking, and focused toward their work productivity. The passion and enthusiasm translate to a better outcome.

Unhappy workers, on the other hand, pass through negative energy and make work more challenging.

5.     Implement Strategies

You cannot achieve business goals unless you implement the changes. Once you have made the strategic plan and estimated finances, it is the time to implement strategies. The implementation process includes several tasks and actions.

It is always a good idea to device an action plan, divides the workload, and tasks accordingly.  Following are some of the important points to help you implement the changes for business improvement.

  • Time Frame: Determine how long a specific task will take to complete. Set tentative dates for the task.
  • Actions: Divide the tasks among those employees that you think are the most appropriate to accomplish them. State actions to be taken precisely.
  • Responsibilities: Assign responsibilities; make sure your teams get the work done in time
  • Resources: Compile a list of supplies, budget, and other finances
  • Outcomes: State your desired outcomes and how the results will be evaluated

6.     Evaluate Success

You need to establish some measures to evaluate whether you have achieved your business goal or not.   These assessment measures depend on the type of tasks you are working on. If your business goals are significant, the measurement process will be more complex, such as measuring profits by a set percentage.

Along with these measures, you can set percentages for each task. It will help you evaluate the success statistically.  Plus, you need to consider how frequently you wish to measure your business achievements. It is very helpful when it is about setting new goals.

Final Thoughts

Your business does not only need your time, but also smart strategies and an effective action plan to improve revenues and profits. The above-mentioned tips are necessary means all entrepreneurs must adopt to sustain a prosperous business.

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Some Unnecessary Small Business Expenses to Avoid

Business Expenses

When you start a business, you have to be extra careful with how you spend your capital. There are many ways for small business owners to increase their profits. Reducing their costs is one of the simplest and most effective ones. A lot of the times, entrepreneurs would add costs to their budgets that they don’t necessarily have to make. It might appear to them that these are necessary expenses when that’s not the case. They can add many of these expenses once their business has established.

Expenses That Small Businesses Should Avoid

Excessive Advertising

Yes, advertising is quite important for businesses, but excessive advertisement is not. It still makes sense for large businesses to go full-on with advertising because they have the budget to do so. However, when it comes to small businesses, they must do intelligent and selective advertising only. Their first course of action should be to identify the advertising channels that work best for them. Just because you are a restaurant at the corner of a street does not mean you have to use awnings, vinyls, neon signs, and all other types of materials for advertising purposes. Pick the ones that work and skip what doesn’t.

Too Many Work Hours

You don’t necessarily have to follow the trends of your competitors to compete with them. It does not matter how good they are, even the best ones can make mistakes at times. Many business owners choose to keep their premises opened for customers for long hours. They will open the business early in the morning and close it late at night just so they can serve more customers. However, one must do cost calculation before taking such a step? What if you are getting only five customers in the first three hours of the business and five more at the last two hours?

Now imagine the cost of utility, wages of your employees, etc. Are you covering the costs of keeping your business opened for five additional hours with only 10 customers? Even if you want to continue this way, you better test it for a week only. If the response is cold, you should quit this practice as soon as possible.

Pursuing the Best of Everything

The idea sounds great but is not the way to go about doing business when you are in your early stages. You should spend your money on things you need, not the things you want unless you have the budget to do so. If you are renting space for your office, you should look for a place that you can easily afford. Going for the best location in the most commercial area will cost you a lot of money. You can save your money even when it comes to internal equipment. Why buy new couches, seats and brand new computers when you can do with high-quality used equipment?

Why go for a printer with fancy looks and capacity to print hundreds of pages in a minute when you won’t ever need that many printouts at a time? Go with simple and beautiful when it comes to decorating your office. You don’t want to spend your budget on things that are not going to yield any benefits for your business.

Hiring IT Staff

IT is integral to any business today, tech or non-tech. However, it does not mean you have to have an IT team on board. One of the beauties of modern technology is that it allows you to outsource a lot of the business processes. The best thing about outsourcing business processes is that you can save a lot of money by doing so. Managed IT services are a perfect way for you to save IT costs while benefitting from expertise of the best professionals of the industry. Rather than paying thousands of dollars to three or four IT people, it makes more sense for small businesses to outsource their IT processes for a small monthly fee.

The good news is that you can outsource almost anything IT-related. From basic helpdesk to on-demand data officers, IT outsourcing can cover a lot of ground for you.

Unnecessary Debts

Taking loans when starting a business is imperative for your growth and to have enough cash in hand to support your operations. However, there are more ways to fund your business than you might realize. Many small business owners follow venture capitalists and conventional banks when it comes time to fund their businesses. However, crowdfunding has emerged as an amazing funding option for startups and small businesses. The good thing about crowdfunding is that you do not necessarily have to offer equity to the investors in your business. Sometimes, you can just reward them with a sample of your product.

Hiring Only Full-time Employees

If you own a small business, you might want to consider hiring interns. Interns can benefit your business in many ways. First, you do not have to pay them the salary of a full-time employee. Second, you can ask them to do a lot of the mundane tasks that otherwise affect the productivity of your full-time employees negatively. While it might not be the best practice, in some countries of the world they have free internships as well wherein you do not have to pay your interns. However, that’s not the right thing to do, and you should compensate their work to keep them motivated.

Conclusion

You should consider avoiding these expenses if you are a small business owner or about to be one. You can always take advice from those who have their own businesses to figure out what’s necessary and what’s not. Keep yourself up-to-date with new technological advancements. Taking advantage of modern software and hardware solutions can help you save a lot of money. Take the example of a printer with duplex printing option. You could cut your paper costs in half by printing on both sides of the paper. In the end, look into your current setup and operations to see what some expenses are that you can easily live without.

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Carv Funded $4M to Empower the Web3 Gaming Data Identity

Gaming

Carv is a Los Angeles, CA-based developer of a gaming platform designed to provide all games in one place. The company’s services offer achievement display, friends, game discovery, and direct monetization, enabling gamers with data sovereignty and games with intelligence.

Carv was funded $4 million led by Vertex, Temasek Holding’s venture capital arm, with participation from EVOS, Infinity Ventures Crypto, YGG SEA,  SNACKCLUB, UpHonest Capital, Lyrik Ventures, Lintentry Foundation, PAKADAO, 7UpDAO, Angel Investor Aliaksandr Hadzilin. The company intends to use the funds to onboard talent and continue building the interoperable credential infrastructure alongside ecosystem partners.

It uses blockchain-based technology to allow users to host their usernames and information and carry it between applications. This information can include data such as achievements users have earned in games, their reputation, connections to friends they have met along the way, and more. Decentralized identity acts as a single sign-in where the user generates a unique identity that the user control.

The company concentrated on Web3 gaming because of the considerable consumer-facing demand, and that’s where the most significant draw for decentralized identity opportunities currently exists. Web3 is the name given to the possible successive era of the web, learned as the decentralized web, where apps use peer-to-peer without centralized authority and run using crypto token economies.

This also builds data infrastructure and analytics to empower game studios to recognize gamer activities accurately, capture an insight-driven understanding of the user base, and effectively reach the desired group of users.

CARV is continuously building the gaming space with partners to kick off gaming tournaments and game night campaigns backed by talks, in-game hunts, and rewards to bring engagement to its product.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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Gravitics Funded $20M to Develop Future-Generation Aerospace Units for Humans

Aerospace

Gravitics a Seattle, WA-based developer of aerospace stations designed to form the building blocks for human life in space. The company manufactures space station modules with interfacing options, space armor, and shipyard-style fabrication, enabling clients to execute their outer aerospace missions.

Gravitics was funded $20 million conducted by Type One Ventures, with other participants from Draper Associates, FJ Labs, The Venture Collective, Giant Step Capital, Helios Capital, angel investors in Gaingels, Spectre, Manhattan West, and Mana Ventures. The company plans to use funds to expand operations and its development efforts.

The company founded in 2021 and headed by CEO Colin Doughan. Gravitics is developing the StarMax™, a flexible-use aerospace station module. The StarMax module delivers up to 400 cubic meters of functional habitable volume – nearly half the significance of the International Space Station in one module. StarMax’s lineage of modules is consistent with launching on any of the following generation takeoff vehicles, including ULA’s Vulcan, and SpaceX’s Starship, Blue Origin’s New Glenn.

From an investor perspective, Tarek Waked, Type One founding partner and Gravitics board member, said his company noticed numerous underlying trends supporting the company’s future vision.

The exact margin that Gravitics is making is not as a space station operator. Rather than compete with other companies, Gravitics wants to be their core supplier. Gravitics is seeking to complete the ongoing needs of these stations once they are operational. Also, meeting organic demand that the company is betting on will emerge as costs for launching cargo and crew drop.

The company has already begun assembly of its first StarMax prototype. It is equipped to operate module pressure tests in early 2023, with projects for an upcoming orbital test mission to be announced soon.

By: K. Tagura

Author statement:

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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8 Silly Ways Small Businesses Waste Their Marketing Budget

Marketing Budget

Irrespective of your business size, your business’ marketing budget is a precious resource. It is your investment, which can help you grow your company’s business and stock value. So you surely want it to give results for the growth of your business.

Large-scale businesses usually have high marketing budgets as compared to small-scale businesses. Small companies normally allocate a small budget for marketing due to their limited resources. It means that if you are a small business owner you do not have the finances to put to waste.

As a small business owner, you need to ask yourself these questions:

“Are you spending your budget on the right tactics?”
“Are you making effective and optimal use of your budget?”
“Is it working for your business?”

To put in simple words, are you wasting away your marketing budget?

Adobe researched how effectively companies spend their marketing budgets. It was not a surprise that most of those companies were not doing a good job.

Do you feel that you also fall in the category of these small businesses that are not spending their marketing budgets the right way?

Then you should continue reading to know the silly ways in which you might be wasting your marketing budget and how to fix them.

Use of social media for building following:

Undoubtedly, social media is a great tool for small businesses to use for their marketing. But most businesses start their marketing on social media without a proper strategy.

Gone are the times when Facebook marketing was free and reach was high. Now you need to invest money and efforts in Facebook marketing thanks to its evolving algorithm. Small businesses need to spend on the paid advertising to make their business ads visible and get their content seen by the target audience.

How to fix this?

The price of Facebook ads is not too high but due to increased competition, it is likely to get higher shortly. This means you may need to spend more money to make your content visible to your followers. Presently, what you can do is use your social media investment to build an email list of your followers. This will allow you to have direct communication with them. Give incentives to your followers for sharing their email addresses.

Expecting instant and high-end results:

Many small businesses begin with a strong ambition, but most of them fail within a few months. The problem lies in their unrealistically high expectations. They want to see results in just a few months following their launch. And when they fail in getting those results, they back out.

How to Fix this?

As a small business owner, you should expect a ramp-up period of two years. If this looks impossible to you, smartly create a marketing strategy to keep your marketing engine fueling and running. Then, create as much influential and informative content as you can afford to create to promote your business.

Inability to understand your target audience:

To grab the attention of your audience, you must understand the behaviors and attitudes of your potential customers. Otherwise, you are just making your marketing budget go down the drain.

A Fix:

KNOW your target audience, their behaviors, and attitudes before you even create a content strategy. Then figure out ways to communicate with them effectively.

Not realizing how you succeeded in attracting your valuable customers:

You can refer to them as your loyal customers or valuable customers who come back to you again and again. You should know what marketing techniques and content brought those invaluable customers to your business. These top 20% of customers may give you nearly half of your business revenue.

Spending a significant portion of your advertising campaign: You can find lots of marketing tactics to give a try. Some of these may perform great, but in most cases, they may not work for you especially when you have a limited budget to give a one-time shot. Small businesses should avoid diving into big-time five-figure spending on marketing campaigns.

What is the Fix?

You need to adopt a test and trial method before investing big. First, invest in $1000 or less. If that particular marketing tactic does not work at an investment of $1000, it is highly likely that it will not work on $1500 or more.

You are not keeping proper track of your marketing investments and efforts:

Many small businesses set up a Google Analytics account, but don’t use it. In case, some are using it they don’t know how to make optimal use of it and get the benefit. Same is the case with Google AdWords for PPC. You may buy the space for ad campaigns, but end up wasting a lot of money without analyzing how those ads performed.

An Easy Fix!

You can easily learn Google Analytics tracking and AdWords through free online courses on Google. Setup conversion tracking for your advertising campaigns in Google analytics. This enables you to effectively see and analyze the activity of your potential customers on your website. If you haven’t done this yet, do it right away!

You are trying to be the jack of all trades:

Small business owners with limited resources often try to manage multiple things alone. You cannot afford to hire a complete marketing staff, but just one or two people for it. You cannot manage the entire marketing strategy all alone.

A simple solution!

Keep your focus on understanding your audience, on which platform you can mostly find them and which marketing tools and content they like.

You are following the same marketing strategy for years:

This is the biggest mistake because the marketing landscape is evolving at a rapid pace, nowadays. While focusing on the above-mentioned things, it is also recommended that you try a few new techniques every year.

The solution:

With the evolution of marketing tactics, you need to evolve as well! Always remain on the lookout for the latest marketing techniques that fit your low budget.

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5 Outside The Box Ideas For Marketing Your Small Business

ideas

Introduction

If you think you cannot market a product with a small budget, then you are mistaken. To run a successful business, whether it is small or big, you need to implement top-notch marketing ideas strategies. So, it is essential to take the time and plan effective ways to market your product or service. Take note not that every marketing technique requires a hefty budget.

Therefore, you can find budget-friendly ways to target an audience. In the light of this, here are five outside of the box marketing ideas for your small business.

Develop a Loyalty Program

Loyalty program ideas are simple. They create interest based on top of a brand’s value. So, if you love buying a particular brand, and if you’re offered something extra, such as 30% on your next purchase, you will most likely take advantage of the opportunity. Hence, announcing 50% flat off, coupons or different consumer-friendly offers can provide the limelight to your business that it needs. Moreover, consumers love going to the same brand if it sells high-quality products. One of the best ways to develop a loyalty program is to provide better quality so that consumers come back for more. As a small business owner, you need to retain existing consumers along with attracting new customers. This step is crucial to growing your small business further. When you reward your existing consumers, they will likely return and purchase more.

Plus, if a customer returns to your store more often, it will increase sales, brand image, and brand loyalty at the same time. Therefore, opt for customer loyalty programs as they work as a marketing tool as well. If your existing and satisfied customers recommend your brand, it will help you reach a wide market, influence your customer base, and of course benefit your startup in an excellent way.

Promote Customer Engagement

Sometimes a simple tactic like talking to your customer casually can feel engaging to them. You might ask; ‘would you like to see more items in this range?’ A positive response to this is an open invitation to talk to them, ask for their feedback, their thoughts, and how you could probably make things better for them. You can also use social media to boost your customer engagement. Social media profiles allow you to interact with a wider audience in a short time.

You can always use social media profiles to ask for suggestion and answer queries using direct messaging. Moreover, asking your customers to review your official page on Facebook is another quick way to give your small business a boost.

Moreover, when launching a product go live on your Instagram and Facebook profiles and keep your audience engaged. When you stay active and interactive on public profiles, it will let people know about your business ideas. Apart from this, using social media in the right way can benefit your business in numerous ways. For instance, you can engage the audience by starting a selfie campaign, which also encourages them to share or post more. You should customize hashtags and encourage the audience to use them in their post along with tagging. This is also an effective way to target a new audience.

Personalized Incentive

Customers love to be treated well, and this is for those customers that have value. For example, one valuable customer might be a regular one at your outlet, and another might buy bulk items from you periodically. Both types of customers could be justified recipients of personalized gifts from your brand. You can add complimentary items or products in their orders. It will show that you value and cherish your regular customers. Moreover, organizing a giveaway is another fun way to treat your consumers, especially if they are outside the country. You can arrange a giveaway in partnership with another small business to reach new people.

Host a Webinar

Hosting a webinar shows your expertise in your niche. Engaging experts in this webinar will show how connected you are. Also, the more people you successfully invite as participants will also demonstrate how much people already follow you and trust your expertise. Moreover, a webinar can do wonders for your business. According to a survey, 58% of marketers prefer to use webinars for promotion. Many successful marketing strategists even think that marketing on a webinar is great to reach a wider audience.

Data from different surveys have revealed that up to 40% people become qualified leads after attending a webinar as it provides the information they need. In fact, webinars retain 30-40% more attention so there is a chance that attendees will make a purchase.

Elevate content distribution        

Content production and distribution go hand-in-hand, and your content is only as good as your distribution mechanism. Leveraging major social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube is crucial. This technique is ideal to share valuable, relevant, and constant content on your social media.

It helps in two ways that are significant for any small business. First, it helps attract or target your audience. Second, it will help them turn into potential leads. Make sure your content provides information and resonates with the audience.

You should use blogs and social media posts to distribute your message. Also, the content you share should not be the typical advertisement that forces people to make a purchase. It should speak to them on personal level so they trust you and your brand.

Concluding Lines

Marketing a small business may seem a hassle at the beginning. But, if you opt for outside the box marketing strategies, you will get the desired outcome even on a shoe-string budget. For marketing, you only need to develop and leverage top-notch social media platforms and keep them updated. Other strategies like casual interaction are a smart way to identify your shortcomings and work on them to take your small business a step ahead. If you or are planning to launch a small business, try these ideas and make a difference.

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