In the last few months, you have finally decided to launch your startup? You have :
- built your market research,
- performed your SWOT analysis,
- defined your strategic objectives and your target clientele,
- Work hard on your business plan and budget forecast,
- Everything seems to be in order, but beware... you probably still have some things to do!
Establishing a brand image
Have you started working on your brand?
One of the biggest mistakes made by aspiring entrepreneurs is to overlook the importance of building the brand before launching their startup.
Your brand is your identity in the marketplace. Your brand image helps you position your product in the market. Your brand should be meaningful and tell a story.
Your brand image must be easily identifiable and creative enough to generate recall.
Choosing a domain name
Your domain name is your personalized business address. It must take into account your strategy and the universe of your brand.
Choosing the right domain name will impact your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), social media and other online marketing strategies to boost your brand.
The domain name is an essential element when it comes to setting up your startup. So think carefully!
Also make sure that the domain name you want is available.
Read all the steps and tips to help you choose the right domain name.
Having a professional website
To boost the creation of your startup, you need a professional website that reinforces your brand image.
Your website is your online workplace. It's where your prospects will find you and hopefully be convinced.
To be effective, your website should have the following qualities:
- Have an attractive home page
- Have a fast download speed
- Be perfectly configured for smartphones
- Be accessible via all browsers
- Be equipped with fully functional social network sharing and call-to-action buttons
- Be fully optimized.
Perform a beta test of your products and services
A trial is the closest phase to the creation of a start-up.
You have certainly tested your product or service, and now it's time to test the last stage of development before creating the final version of your offer.
Invite people from your contact list, preferably those with whom you have professional ties.
In a beta test, you are looking for 100% objective customer feedback on your products or services. It is therefore best to avoid asking your friends for their opinion, as they will inevitably decide in your favour.
You should consider beta testers as those who best represent the end users of the product.
Collect and analyze all data. The time between beta testing and the official launch date of your startup should be sufficient to implement the necessary improvements.
Take advantage of social networks
The benefits of a strong presence on social networks are multiple for those who want to create their startup.
Just keep in mind that setting up an effective communication via social networks can take a lot of time. To improve your digital presence without spending all day there, here are some tips:
Choose a maximum of 3 to 4 social media to implement your campaign, in order to make it easier to manage on a daily basis.
Create a Facebook page for your company. Facebook is ideal for creating viral content and has over 1.5 billion users.
Use Twitter to acquire followers. Twitter is fast and easy to use, and the more you tweet, the more likely you are to gather followers.
LinkedIn is very popular as a professional network and used by many prospects.
Don't neglect content marketing
Have you thought about developing a blog on your website? If not, ask the designer of your website to create one.
Why start a blog when you're just starting out?
Blogging is the centerpiece of effective content marketing: if you want to be recognized as an expert, blogging is your way.
You can always blog through a community website or on social networks, but the benefits of blogging on your website cannot be overlooked.
The best approach is to create a blog via your website and then spread it through different social media and online channels.
If you don't have the time, or if you don't feel like a blogger, why not call upon a professional web editor consultant, who will be able to bring relevant and well-written content to your articles?
Adopt e-mail marketing
Despite the popularity of social networks, content marketing and other forms of web marketing, email marketing remains very effective.
In fact, many studies show that e-mail advertising is just as powerful a marketing tool as social media.
Advertising e-mail works because it puts you directly in the prospect's inbox. E-mail is probably the first thing people check in the morning and the last thing they read at night.
In the meantime, many people check their inboxes 3 to 4 times more.
So, with advertising e-mail, you make sure that your content will be read.
So, when launching your start-up, rely on a proven strategy: send all your contacts an e-mail about your product or service, and offer attractive discounts or free trials.
Consult a good guide for creating e-mail campaigns and learn how to :
Build a list of email addresses of prospects,
Optimize your emails to increase the opening rate and click through rate,
Automate your mailing process to save time and efficiency.
Surround yourself with additional skills
The above elements are not only implemented to launch your start-up, but to support it in the coming months, becoming part of your company's natural activity.
Do you have the necessary skills to manage these services?
As a business leader, it is better to get help on tasks that do not bring you sales, and devote your time to the main functions of your company.
Working on your Value Proposition
Without a doubt, the most difficult part in creating an online startup is finding out where you stand in relation to your competitive environment.
If your business doesn't meet a need, or if there are no people looking for what you can offer, you will only be an entrepreneur for a few weeks.
The only way to generate traffic to your website is to be useful and meet a need. Your business has to fill a gap in the online marketplace, so you have to be useful.
For example, you might have a great idea and a passion for the beauty industry. But the internet is already teeming with online beauty websites, retailers and beauty bloggers.
So what is your unique Value Proposition? What more can you offer your customers?
Finding the answers to all these questions will put you on the right track to build a successful startup.
Playing with visuals
Nowadays, the obsession with looks and appearances predominates. The Internet has not only turned us into maniacs of selfies and meal photos, but we also put the visuals to the fore when it comes to surfing the Internet.
We know all the websites that have the same template (the first websites from the 1990s).
If you want customers to browse your website or online store for more than 2 seconds, focus on the visuals.
Spend a lot of time streamlining logo, fonts and colours - create an attractive, harmonious visual image that tells a story.
Focus on the studied multi-presence (or be wherever you need to be)
Any online business that wants to survive in the modern world needs a broad virtual presence.
You need to:
- attract the right online stores with your products,
- be on social networks,
- have a website,
- engage other forums and channels...
In fact, you shouldn't try to be everywhere, but rather be everywhere you need to be.
How do you know that?
A company that relies heavily on visuals has to be on a platform like Instagram.
If you're more on the abstract help side, for example if you're launching a personal development coaching activity, posting videos on YouTube is more effective in getting your message across.
Test the online presence
When you launch your startup and online presence, whether it's a website or an application, don't forget to test and re-test everything.
The virtual must work properly or you will start losing customers. No one has time for images that load slowly, payments that don't go through or 'Error 404' messages.
The only way to avoid this is to test on a variety of devices.
If all this technical jargon scares and overwhelms you, make it a priority to find someone who knows it.
Pay attention to the small details
It's easy to get lost in the chic world of online business and entrepreneurship.
Then your life is filled with cloud solutions and embedded software. Starting an online business can easily distract you from these little details.
The focus is on the "flying" ideas and you can forget about thinking about the basics.
- Is your computer good enough to handle your workload and the software you use?
- Do you have a dedicated phone line for business use only?
- Do you remember to do your bookkeeping on a regular basis?
Have you planned your salary payments?
While you have to spend time starting a startup, don't forget these small daily tasks. Spend a day every now and then going through the practical aspects of running a business - sorting through your phone contacts, e-mails, office equipment, etc. - and then you'll be able to get back to your business.