HOW DIGITAL MARKETING HELPS #SME TO INCREASE THEIR #BUSINESS MANY FOLDS

The heart of any good marketing strategy is to go where your customers are, and today that means having an effective online presence. The world wide web has brought about a fundamental shift in the way the public shops for products and services, and people are increasingly turning to the internet and social media to research their purchases before they pull the trigger.

Major corporations understand this, and rely on their digital marketing divisions to build their brands, mobilize their customer base, and increase their market share. But, digital marketing isn’t the sole province of big businesses with deep pockets.

The internet has leveled the playing field, and small business owners can take advantage of digital marketing techniques to go toe to toe with their major competitors. Unfortunately, too many small business owners fail to see what this inbound marketing can do for them, and how it can help to grow their company and make it prosperous.

DIGITAL MARKETING – ARE YOU MISSING OUT?

If you think digital marketing has nothing to offer your small business, think again. At last estimate, more than 60% of all online shoppers began their transaction with a general search. That means they were unclaimed customers who were open to finding new businesses offering the product or service they needed.

But, it’s not just online shoppers that are up for grabs. Recent statistics show that more than 81% of all shoppers research a product or service online before making a purchase, whether that purchase is online or at a brick and mortar establishment.

That’s a large pool of potential customers and clients you may be missing out on if you fail to have an internet marketing strategy. If that’s not enough to pique your interest, let’s look at what else internet marketing can do for your small business.

What are some examples of digital marketing channels?

• Search Engine Optimization
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Paid Advertising

REACHING MORE PEOPLE

Digital marketing makes it possible for your business to reach more potential customers, and your reach is only limited by your ambitions. A local mom and pop restaurant, for example, can use the internet to promote their business using local SEO strategies, and build their reputation as the best eatery in town. Driving customers to their doors through mobile searches and online reviews.

Retailers can use an inbound marketing campaigns to reach beyond the barriers of distance to service customers around the country, and even globally. Digital marketing can be used to broaden your target market, making your brand recognizable to more potential customers.

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

But digital marketing isn’t just about increasing your customer base, it’s also about building long term relationships with those customers, using techniques such as social media marketing. Client retention is one of the keys to growth, and inbound marketing is a vital component. It can start with something as simple as a confirmation email after a purchase, and extend to building an online community through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

You can use email marketing to offer customers special discounts, and encourage them to leave product reviews on your website. You can create an entertaining and informative blog that gets customers to revisit your website (even when not making a purchase), and encourages them to share your content and your brand with others, increasing your pool of potential customers yet again.

LEVERAGING SOCIAL MEDIA EVEN FURTHER

Social media has become an increasing important part of any successful marketing strategy, especially when social signals are used with SEO. It provides a unique opportunity for small business to increase their online visibility, establish their brand, and drive traffic to a primary website where leads can be converted to customers. A recent study by the Harvard School of Business found that consumers were highly influenced by social media, and that businesses with a social media presence saw an average increase in sales of 5%.

TARGETING YOUR AUDIENCE AND YOUR ADVERTISEMENTS

A large part of digital marketing is data collection and research. You know what your customers are buying, how often they are making purchases, and what areas of your website they visit most often. This data can be used to personalize the customer’s web experience, keeping the products and services they are interested foremost in their minds and allowing you to make actionable suggests as to future purchases.

The same data can be used to help you target advertisements to specific customers, offering up products and services that you know they are already primed to purchase. This makes your paid advertising more effective, and gives you a better return on your advertising dollar.

IN SUMMARY

Digital marketing isn’t just for big businesses and large corporations. It is a cost effective way for small business owners to build brand recognition, increase their customer base, and improve sales over all. Like any marketing strategy, it takes time and constant attention to see results. But, digital marketing can be a real asset for small businesses, and the return on the investment can be substantial

How to increase business for #Restaurant with the help of #DIGITAL #MARKETING

1. set up a google account

Besides being the undisputed master of Search, Google has a suite of products that assist restaurateurs run their business online:

• Google Maps
• Google+
• YouTube
• Google Analytics
• Webmaster Tools
• Adwords
• And more!

The most important for any restaurant of Google’s products is Google Business.

Why?

Firstly, it saves time as it avoids the need to make duplicate entries while still providing information across Google products. Restaurateurs need only to enter their information one time and it will populate into all of Google’s services. As Google notes “Google My Business connects you directly with customers, whether they’re looking for you on Search, Maps or Google+“.

Did I mention it’s a free service?  Now you’ve got to like that!

What you do need to do though is keep the information updated as customers will be searching you out and using the driving directions to your restaurant in Maps, checking your hours of operations, writing reviews and making a booking on their mobile phone by clicking you phone number all via Google.

2. socialize

Yes, in 2016 you do need to ensure social media has a seat at the marketing table. Participation in social media is crucial as it not only affords you an opportunity to connect and engage your customers, but it can also greatly increases your search rankings.

Unlike setting up Google Business which may net quick results, think of social media as a long term digital marketing strategy – it is a marathon, not a sprint! You won’t necessarily see immediate results, so don’t give up.

Facebook:
With over 1 billion users worldwide Facebook is the Big Daddy of social media. In Australia over ½ our population is on Facebook and we are ranked one of the heaviest users globally spending more time on Facebook than any other social platform.

If you choose to use Facebook for internet marketing purposes, please remember a few fundamentals – set up a Page with the correct category, enhanced for check-ins and add your menu.

Instagram:
Instagram is owned by Facebook and was one of the fastest growing major social networks in 2015. Engagement on Instagram is higher than Facebook and now with Facebook’s integrated advertising capabilities and user generated #hashtag campaigns, Instagram really is emerging as a leader in hospitality marketing.

Twitter:
Don’t discount Twitter in 2016. This is a social network where the tendency of users is to obsess about food and drink – work it to your advantage.

Pinterest:
Restaurants can net great results on Pinterest as it’s ideally suited for beautiful images and who doesn’t love beautiful food and decor images. Professional looking photography is required so if you’re just learning how to take photos on your smartphone, leave out Pinterest.

Google+:
Google’s social network for people– we’ve sort of covered it with Google My Business. If you set up a My Business account, Google will create a Google + account. Make sure you are there, even if only as an outpost at present and you choose not to use it as a social network.

NB: There are many more social media networking sites, these are just a few of the fundamentals you may wish to consider for your restaurants internet marketing.

3. review the reviewers

Best to keep an eye on any review sites as customers can gather information as well as post opinions of your restaurant. Review sites and apps include:

• TripAdvisor
• Yelp
• Zomato
• Foursquare
• And the list goes on

It’s unsurpassed word of mouth marketing, but unfortunately if the information is incorrect or you’ve received a bad review, you could be looking at potential brand damage.

Ensure that you monitor these sites, claim listings where possible, take note of reviews and keep the information updated. If you do receive a bad review, deal with it in a professional manner and remember your reply will be seen by anyone researching your restaurant, so don’t get personal or caught in name calling.

4. win with a website

Unlike your social media channels, you actually own your website so it should be the epicenter of your online marketing and contain attractive pictures, exceptional content, social proof and be search optimized and mobile responsive.

Sadly, many resource poor restaurants still believe they cannot afford a website. Realistically, with so many website building platforms around nowdays this is not the case. If you have put a website on the backburner or just don’t know where to start the process, download our free website design brief guide which will step you through the process.

If you do have a website, keep it up to date – Google likes new content as do your customers! So update your menu, images and other relevant information as needed.

5. get campaigning

Food and Wine are part of the travel experience and the demand is growing globally. Tourism Australia created the ‘Restaurant Australia’ campaign in 2014 to highlight to the world Australia’s unique food offerings. Since the launch of the campaign in May 2014, spend on food and wine tourism in Australia has grown by $697 million (or 16.6 per cent) (source Tourism Australia). For more information on how to get involved in this campaign, visit the Tourism Australia website.

These are a few basic tips to help you be found by your customers online. In no way is this a definitive guide. Just think of it as your internet marketing basics – a checklist.

Until next time…..

PITCH DECK

If you’re raising money for your business, having an impressive pitch deck is a key component in your fundraising toolkit. A great pitch deck gets potential investors excited about your idea and engages them in a conversation about your business, hopefully leading to an investment.

In this article, I’m going to give you the formula for what you should include in your own pitch deck. I’m leveraging the knowledge I’ve gained having listened to hundreds—if not thousands—of pitch presentations. I’ve seen all different kinds of pitch decks and presentation styles and found that there’s a simple formula that just works.

I’ve also built my own pitch decks and presented to major Silicon Valley VC firms over the years and have learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

While every business is different, I’ve found that the following format works for most businesses and is most likely to generate interest from potential investors.

Goals for your pitch deck

This may sound counterintuitive, but the goal of your pitch deck is not to raise money. What? I know that doesn’t sound right, butthe real goal of your pitch deck is to get to the next meeting.

Remember, your pitch deck and pitch presentation are probably some of the first things that an investor is seeing to learn more about your company. And, because investments rarely are made after just one meeting, your goal is to spark interest in your company. You want investors to ask for more after they hear your pitch and not just show you to the door.

So, while a solid pitch deck is critical to raising money, the key goal of the deck is to get to the next step—another meeting and a request for more information.

The 11 Slides:

Slide 1: Vision and value proposition

This is a quick one sentence overview of your business and the value that you provide to your customers. Keep it short and simple. A great way to think about this slide is to imagine it as a tweet: describe your business in 140 characters in a way your parents would understand.

It’s common for tech companies to make theirvalue proposition a comparison to another well-known company. For example, you see many pitches that start with things like:

“We’re the Uber for Pets”

“We’re the Netflix for Video Games”

This can work, but be careful to make sure your comparison makes sense and you’re not just using a high profile company like Uber to signify growth potential. Your business model has to truly be similar to the company you are referencing.

Slide 2: The problem

If you aren’t solving some problem in the world, you are going to have a long uphill climb with your business.

Use this slide to talk about the problem you are solving and who has the problem. You can talk about the current solutions in the market, but don’t spend too much time on the competitive landscape on this slide—you’ll have a chance to do that on a later slide.

Ideally, try and tell a relatable story when you are defining the problem. The more you can make the problem as real as possible, the more your investors will understand your business and your goals.

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Slide 3: Target market and opportunity

Use this slide to expand on who your ideal customer is and how many of them there are. What is the total market size and how do you position your company within the market? If you can find the data, investors will want to know how much people or businesses currently spend in the market to get a sense of the total market size. This is where you tell the story about the scope and scale of the problem you are solving.

If it makes sense for your business, you’ll want to divide your market into segments that you will address with different types of marketing and perhaps different types of product offerings.

Be careful with this slide, though. It’s tempting to try and define your market to be as large as possible. Instead, investors will want to see that you have a very specific and reachable market. The more specific you are, the more realistic your pitch will be.

Slide 4: The solution

Finally, you get to dive into describing your product or service. Describe how customers use your product and how it addresses the problems that you outlined on slide two.

You’ll be tempted to move this slide closer to the beginning of your pitch deck, but try and resist the temptation. This is classic story telling where you build up the problem and describe how bad it is for lots of people. Now your product or service is coming to the rescue to help solve that problem.

Most entrepreneurs are very focused on their product when instead they need to be focused on their customers and the problems those customers face. Try and keep your pitch deck focused with this format and you’ll tell a better story.

If possible, use pictures and stories when you describe your solution. Showing is nearly always better than telling.

Slide 5: Revenue model

Now that you’ve described your product or service, you need to talk about how it makes money. What do you charge and who pays the bills? Sometimes these can be different people, so it’s important to flesh out the details here.

You can also reference the competitive landscape here and discuss how your pricing fits into the larger market. Are you a premium, high-price offering or a budget offering that undercuts existing solutions on the market?

Slide 6: Traction and validation/roadmap

If you already have sales or early adopters using your product, talk about that here. Investors want to see that you have proven some aspect of your business model as that reduces risk, so any proof you have that validates that your solution works to solve the problem you have identified is extremely powerful.

You can also use this slide to talk about your milestones. What major goals have you achieved so far and what are the major next steps you plan on taking? A product or company roadmap that outlines key milestones is helpful here.

Slide 7: Marketing and sales strategy

How are you planning on getting customers’ attention and what will your sales process look like? Use this slide to outline your marketing and sales plan. You’ll want to detail the key tactics that you intend to use to get your product in front of prospective customers.

Finding and winning customers can sometimes be the biggest challenge for a startup, so it’s important to show that you have a solid grasp of how you will reach your target market and what sales channels you plan on using.

If your marketing and sales process is different than your competitors, it’s important to highlight that here.

Slide 8: Team

Why are you and your team the right people to build and grow this company? What experience do you have that others don’t? Highlight the key team members, their successes at other companies, and the key expertise that they bring to the table.

Even if you don’t have a complete team yet, identify the key positions that you still need to fill and why those positions are critical to company growth.

Slide 9: Financials

Investors will expect to see your sales forecast, profit and loss statement, and cash flow forecast for at least three years.

But, for your pitch deck, you shouldn’t have in-depth spreadsheets that will be difficult to read and consume in a presentation format. Limit yourself to charts that show sales, total customers, total expenses, and profits.

You should be prepared to discuss the underlying assumptions that you’ve made to arrive at your sales goals and what your key expense drivers are.

Remember to try and be realistic. Investors see “hockey stick” projections all the time and will mentally be cutting your projections in half. If you can explain your growth based on traction you already have or compared to similar company in a related industry, that is extremely useful.

Slide 10: Competition

Every business has competition in one form or another. Even if you are opening up an entirely new market, your potential customers are using alternative solutions to solve their problems today.

Describe how you fit into the competitive landscape and how you’re different than the competitors and alternatives that are on the market today. What key advantages do you have over the competition or is there some “secret sauce” that you have and others don’t?

The key here is explaining how you are different than the other players on the market and why customers will choose you instead of one of the other players on the market.

Slide 11: Investment and use of funds

Finally, it’s time to actually ask for the money. That’s why you’re doing this pitch deck, right? I know—I said that this pitch deck isn’t about actually getting funded. That’s still true, but your potential investors do need to know how much money you are looking for.

More importantly, you need to be able to explain why you need the amount of money you are asking for and how you plan on using the money. Investors will want to know how their money is being used and how it is going to help you achieve the goals you are setting out for your business.

If you already have some investors on board, now is when you should be talking about those other investors and why they chose to invest.

ARE YOU A START UP IN INDIA ....CHECK THIS OUT by ANGEL GROUPS

Highlights on the pros and cons of the many options entrepreneurs have for raising seed capital for startups in India

We get the opportunity to talk to 100’s of entrepreneurs in India every year who are just getting their business off the ground and are looking to raise seed capital. One of first question we ask is “why are you interested in raising seed capital from a fund like us?” Often this leads to an interesting conversation where the entrepreneur describes some of the different fundraising options they are considering and we talk through the pros/cons of each option. We thought it might be helpful if we wrote up some highlights of those seed funding options discussions.

Revenue!

The #1 option for seed funding is to generate revenue. Not only does this not require you to go through the complexity of taking outside money, but it demonstrates that there is real demand from customers. The challenge is that often revenue is insufficient by itself to cover the startup costs of a business as the entrepreneur experiments with various strategies and needs to pay other staff.

Crowdfunding is the latest trend in generating revenue for product companies.  Entrepreneurs pre-sell products (or as for funding for projects) via Kickstarter, IndiGoGo and similar sites and get the money in advance to help them complete projects and/or pay for manufacturing. This however is not likely to help a BoP startup as they are mostly service based, and BoP customers are not in a position to order products online or pre-pay.

Self-Funding

Nearly all entrepreneurs put in their own cash in addition to tremendous amounts of unpaid labor in the early days of a startup. If you have the means to put in cash, it also demonstrates additional commitment to investors from whom you might raise money later. Sometimes entrepreneurs fund via loans to their company. This is a fine option, although most venture investors will require that all debt be converted into equity as part of the investment process.

Grants/Prizes

There seems to be another contest or grant prize program announced every week in India. Many of these are structured as either business plan or pitch competitions. If you can get one of these prizes, you’ve got some non-dilutive capital.  And you will get some “bragging rights” and possibly some short-term media coverage. We know companies that have spent lots of time applying/pitching to competitions and have received many tens of lakhs of funding. The disadvantage of these programs are: (a) they often take a lot of time with multiple rounds of competing to win; (b) prizes are typically small; (c) winning generally doesn’t translate to any fundraising advantage with other investors (other than giving you the opportunity to generate more traction before going for investments); and (d) there may be conditions on how the money can be spent and/or reported on.

Friends & Family

Especially for first-time entrepreneurs, the one of the best funding sources is people who know you and believe in your capabilities – your friends and family. You need to be very honest with them about the risks of “losing it all” if your business fails so that their expectations are set clearly upfront. Another risk is that because these “investors” are often not sophisticated, they might have unrealistic expectations on how much ownership stake they should have. You need to be careful about selling too large of a stake in the company too early for just a small amount of capital. The opposite is also a problem – if you give them a tiny stake for their money (meaning you set the valuation very high), you will have problems when professional investors are not willing to pay the same high valuation. SeeAvoiding the Valuation Trap.

A final issue is that friends and family may think of their investment more like a loan and have expectations to be repaid (with interest) in 1-3 years. If you do bring on professional investors later, they will almost never allow their capital to be used to repay your earlier investors, so this could put you in a difficult situation.

Angel Investors

Historically, most India HNIs (high net-worth individuals) usually only invested in their own businesses or in people they already know well, but this is starting to change. There are a growing number of HNIs in India who are investing in high potential startups at an early-stage based on the idea, traction and the team’s qualifications. Most angels invest in business sectors they are familiar with based on their business experience.

In India, most angels are short-term investors wanting to see an exit in 1-2 years with a 2-3x cash on cash return. That means they are looking for 100-150 lakhs returned, soon, on a 50 lakh investment. If your business can start generating sufficient free cash flows within this timeframe, then this might be a good option for you. If you need to raise more venture capital though, this might be an issue as institutional venture investors will be very reluctant for their capital to be used to buy out earlier investors. Additionally, most angel investors are not going to provide much help as you seek to raise more capital because they typically don’t invest in follow-on rounds and they often don’t have great connections with the venture firms.

Angel Groups

Another option is to try and raise capital from angel groups such as Mumbai Angels orIndian Angel Network. These are associations where a bunch – sometimes 10 to 20 – of angel investors agree to each invest small amounts (often 5-10L each) as a group for an early-stage startup financing round.

One advantage of angel groups is that they can often assemble a larger investment round than a single angel can provide. Most angel groups also promise value-added support from the participating angels, but in our experience some angels are very hands-on and helpful, but most are not. Angel groups are setup to be active investors with a target to make a certain number of investments per quarter, unlike individual angels who have no commitment like this. That said, because of this, angel groups receive a LOT of business plans, so you may have a harder time getting your pitch to stand out.

One of the big disadvantages of angel groups is that you’ll have a LOT of tiny investors and each angel may have a different opinion/interests. They will tell you that they mitigate this by having a lead investor, but that person still has to deal with all of the syndicate members. Also, as noted above, angels often expect exits in 2-3 years at 2-3 times invested capital, which will make raising future venture capital more complicated. Finally, in theory having an angel group as an investor is a positive signal to downstream investors. And it certainly can be much better than having an unsophisticated friend or family member as an investor. But because most angels will not invest in bridge or follow-on rounds, there may be complications when you need to raise more capital.

Bank Loans

Historically, it is very challenging to get bank loans for startup businesses until you can show multiple years of reliable profits. You might be take a personal loan using your home or other assets as security. But do you really want to do this when 9 of 10 startups fail? There are some new government sponsored initiatives to encourage banks to lend to more risky startups with programs for collateral free loans such as the CGTMSE Scheme.

International Philanthropic Impact Investors

If you have a startup that is addressing an important social issue, you might be able to pitch some international philanthropic impact investors for seed funding. Most of them are private foundations based in the USA (e.g. Sorenson Impact Foundation, Lemelson Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Omidyar Network, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Acumen Fund). The advantage of these larger foundations and their affiliated funds is that they have deep pockets and often have lower return (and longer timeframe return) expectations. The challenge for seed funding is that most of them are only setup to invest 6 crores (USD $1m) or more. Also, many of them don’t have investing teams in India, so in addition to the normal bureaucracy of a larger institution, they need to fly people to see you which extends the due diligence process. Finally, many of them require you to be fully aligned with their mission which may be hard to maintain over time, and require regular complex monitoring reports to confirm your compliance.

Seed Funds/Micro VCs

Seed funds are starting to pop up in India over the last 2-3 years. Most of the seed funds are focused on the Internet/mobile sector, similar to their counterparts in Silicon Valley. A new model that is gaining the most traction (in our humble opinion) is the “Micro VC”, pioneered in the USA over the past few years. Micro VCs, often also called seed funds,  make a high-volume of seed investments at a very early stage of a startup … generally long before the traditional “Series A” venture funds invest. The most active tech seed fund in India is Blume Ventures. The most active impact seed fund in India is Unitus Seed Fund.

The advantages of bringing on a professional seed fund as an investor include

• Seed investing is the sweet spot for seed funds, so lots of interests are aligned. They have capital ready-to-invest and can often decide quickly and move even faster to close and deal and get you the capital you need.
• Well-regarded seed funds are a very positive signal for downstream investors (vs. friends/family or inexperienced angels). This should make it somewhat easier to raise follow-on capital.
• Often the best seed funds have principals with significant startup and scale-up operating experience, similar to series A and later-stage venture firms. This enables them to add more value to your business at an early stage than say principals who are mainly from investing, finance, consulting, or legal backgrounds.

The disadvantages include

• Most seed funds don’t have large enough funds to lead large follow-on investment rounds. So, in the future, you will need to bring on a larger venture fund as the lead investor. Good seed funds are setup to help you with this process.
• Since most seed funds invest in a lot of companies, the ratio of seed fund principals-to-companies is higher than for traditional venture funds. So, you might not get as much attention from the seed fund as from a conventional Series A investor who only does one or two deals per year per investing principal.
• Seed funds, unlike angel investors or foundations, have accountability to deliver returns to other investors. As a result, they may have higher return targets than angels or foundations.

Series A / Early-Stage Venture Funds

Many of the name-brand venture funds are the most well-known early-stage investors in India. The advantages of having a conventional venture fund as an investor are:

•  They typically have deep pockets and therefore can provide growth capital in the future, leading Series A financing rounds and participating in Series B and beyond.
• Principals have more time to do “heavy lifting” to help a company to get on the path to success. This can involve everything from helping to recruit new executives to driving strategic planning to helping with strategic partnering.
• Access to other resources – either within the fund itself or via their extensive networks.

The downside of conventional venture funds is that seed funding (despite what they might tell you) is NOT their sweet spot and thereforethey are really buying an option to invest more later, which has consequences for the company. See our earlier post on taking seed money from VCs.