Every young entrepreneur who enters the world of business should believe in success of his idea, being also aware of possible threats. Currently, setting up a company is a piece of cake – every year the world market is entered by around 21,000 start-ups, but a tremendous 70% don’t stay in the game after a year. What to do to improve your company’s chance for success?
First of all: do good research
Competitive analysis and recognition of the target group are the basis of new business. If you have competitors, analyse their activities and think what you can do better. A similar company operating for a longer time has a lot of experience and perhaps also some failures. Drawing correct conclusions is crucial in this case.
Another step involves determining a buyer persona, namely the profile of an ideal customer whose needs we’re going to respond to. Usually companies have more than 1 persona, e.g. a representative of a given profession aged 25-40 years, having a child. Buyer persona allows for e.g. designing a buying path, segmentation of recipients, understanding motivation of customers, their needs and values. On that basis it is possible to plan a marketing campaign, communications, direction for further development and many other necessary issues. However, it should be borne in mind that it’s not about wishful thinking but relying on real data and – what’s equally important – revising personas once in a few months.
Second of all: be open to criticism
Positive assessment of a new business from your family and friends gives wing, but you should be ready for hard landing. The truth is that the first actions of many famous businessmen ended in failure. Obviously not every start-up will be out of business game, but every person who operates it should assess threats and learn from mistakes. This may seem trivial, but we cannot always control emotions, get properly motivated and start once again with new energy.
If we treat the criticism personally, we won’t know why our innovative solution hasn’t been positively received – even if it’s not necessarily something that has gone wrong, but not fully in line with our expectations. In this case the entrepreneur should show immense flexibility and mind-openness to adjust to dynamic market changes.
Give up long-lasting preparations
Such an approach may seem surprising, but it’s not worth devoting long months or even years to work out the business details. It’s better to develop a general plan, set the direction and simply move to action instead of thinking, thinking and… thinking – simply losing precious time. It’s worth to show a prototype straight away and gather as many opinions as possible from potential customers. It would be perfect to have recipients say openly about their expectations regarding the product, indicate threats and doubts – it’s much easier to respond to the needs than to create them on your own. Are you afraid that someone will steal your idea? Add an element of something new to your business concept, something that will make you unique.
Use innovative solutions
When establishing a start-up, it’s worth testing many forms of communication with recipients. Perhaps Twitter will turn out to be a better solution than Instagram? Social media are now one of many channels supporting a brand image. What is also crucial is a website suitably optimised for browsers, with customised content, banners, popups or push notifications. There are many ways to reach potential consumers – through email marketing, customised ads in RTB networks or mobile marketing.
“Customisation” is the keyword here, as it gives an opportunity to access a specific segment of recipients. A PushAd notification system is one of the methods of communication with potential customers. Such notifications give a chance for quick reaction to webpage users’ behaviour or increasing e-stores’ conversion rates. What we can do is not only reminding a user of products they added to a cart, but also encouraging to come back to the website. Automatic notifications will also allow for informing the recipient of change to the price of the product viewed. PushAd is also used to redirect traffic to subpages with current special offer or new offering.
Every business requires a different approach and strategy; however, it’s definitely worth using innovative solutions offered by companies that… were also at the start one day.
