Despite its attractiveness and numerous benefits, joining the entrepreneurial ecosystem is not as easy as it looks from outside.
As the statistics reveal, an overwhelming percentage of start-ups go bankrupt during the first year of operation. Most of the times there are several reasons why startups fail, reasons which can be avoided if identified as weaknesses at the right time.
The business trends are always changing, but as a rule of thumb the impact of a specialist’s work makes a difference no matter the trends. To enlarge your business expertise, here are 5 things to check on your “To Do List” for growing a business in 2019.
How Many Startups Fail
As researches reveal, 9 out of 10 startups fail. This is why optimism does not go hand in hand with realism when it comes to entrepreneurship. However, these statistics shall not be an impediment, but more of a wakeup call, for novice entrepreneurs, to embrace bold thinking and harder work.
Why Do Entrepreneurs Fail?
Lack of market demand.
Among the top reasons for startup failure, there is the lack of market need for the services or products offered. As dumb as it may sound, this is a common cause to end your fresh career as an entrepreneur.
Therefore, it is mandatory to firstly rigorously researched the market demand for your products and make sure is profitable to invest your efforts into growing the business.
If losing yourself, efficiently, through tones of statistics is not among your strengths, reaching a specialized excel consulting company will do the trick and offer qualified information.
Sell business ideas, not only products.
Another important weakness is related to the ability to sell. The selling skills do not refer only at selling your products or services to final customers, but, also, to the ability of selling your business idea to investors.
Whether the company gathers a team of workers highly skilled on this path, or whether the business manager owns this quality, the highlight shall fall on the fact that this strategy will keep away the second common obstacle in growing a business: running out of cash.
The Founding Team.
The founding team is crucial for growing a business no matter the year we are living in. However, the right team is not an assurance of a sustainable startup if it does not focus on working on the business rather than working in the business.
Keeping a keen eye on the business process, to solve even the smallest weaknesses, is vital for growing a business. If this strategy is poorly managed, failure comes in place.
“To Do-List” for Growing a Business in 2019
1. Bring innovation into your customer service
Ignoring customers leads to bankruptcy for 14% of the startups. In a competitive market, customer service shall be optimized constantly to maintain loyal clients and expand your business.
To improve customers’ satisfaction, answering their requests in a timely manner is a “must”, and as a trend for 2019, more and more businesses are looking forward to using chatbots.
The chatbots, those programs that simulate conversation with a real person, are among the marketing trends that the business founders shall not ignore in 2019.
Chatbots are available 24/24 hours, 7 days out of 7 and can fulfill a wide set of responsibilities. They integrate with different messaging applications (like Facebook Messenger, for example) or Live Chat on your site and if programmed correctly, they can perform several main functions, important for developing a business, such as:
- Schedule appointments.
- Answer promptly to frequently asked questions.
- Direct people to the products / services they are interested in.
- Bring traffic to the site.
2. Build a strong online presence
If you are not reaching the online environment, you risk to not be very credible these days. What is the first thing one does when a product or services, respectively a company, catches its interest? He googles it and evaluates the brand’s social media presence.
Before starting a social media marketing campaign and following a social media trend, find out who you are as a brand and to whom you are addressing. Do not look at social networks superficially, just from the like/share point of view as, most of the times, these do not reflect the real conversion performance.
If you are not aware of how social media campaigns work, how to choose the right channels to rise brand awareness and convert leads, you should leave this duty for specialists.
Since Facebook and LinkedIn can be either friends or foes when it comes to your marketing budget, opting for a Facebook Advertising Agency might save you important bucks and promote your company in an efficient manner.
3. Embrace video content
Having a strong presence in the online environment goes hand in hand with choosing the right tools to make your business stand out from the competition.
Video content is becoming an increasing popular tool for 2019. As poor marketing is among the reasons for 14% of startup failures, one shall embrace this technique in order to take advantage of a major trend marketing this year.
The consumers are using more and more video content, much of it on mobile devices. Reuters predicts video will grow 14 times over the next 5 years and 70% will be consumed on mobile devices.
Despite the benefits offered, creating videos seems to be the main challenge that prevents more businesses from using this type of content. If this is a challenge for you as well, approaching a video marketing agency shall be on your “To Do List” for growing a business in 2019.
4. Keep an eye on SEO marketing changes
SEO marketing techniques are changing but not in the sense of the technique’s importance. These techniques still play an important role for growing a business even in 2019.
What changes is the technical matter, as technology makes it easier for SEO strategies to be implemented this year. An accurate SEO audit can now be easily performed with just a few clicks. The same goes for when you are looking boost your website’s visibility to meet the competition standards. With just a few clicks you can find competitors keywords.
Otherwise said, among the highlights for the 2019 marketing, stands a less technical SEO with challenges, in terms of technically optimizing a site, being fixed effortlessly, with just a few clicks. The element that attracts attention and requires more struggle is what the users do after they visit your site and if they can easily find what interest them.
5. Incorporate ‘voice search’ as a tool in marketing
More and more marketers believe that by 2020, half of all search queries will be based on voice. As a result, an increasing number of brands are optimizing their content for voice search. Recognition technology helps consumers of all ages to conveniently search for the products or services they need in a comforting and fast manner.
This technology is believed to become an important tool also for gathering clients’ insights which will lead to better targeted marketing strategies. For now, most voice searches are based on utility – people use it most when they have their hands occupied or when they drive.
But as technology advances, consumers will become more accustomed to using voice searches, therefore, optimizing content for voice search shall be a prior objective for managers looking to grow their businesses in 2019.
Final Thoughts
Before dipping into the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, you shall firstly understand the common causes of failure encountered by the past players. Monitoring competitors shall also be a day-to-day priority.
Keeping an eye on the movements of this ecosystem and learning the market trends will positively contribute to your business development in 2019.
