Editor’s Note: Evans is a creative consultant who works in both web and print, driving creative solutions to small and medium sized businesses at Evans Akanno Creative Design Agency. With a degree in industrial chemistry, he has been able to develop his science background to different areas especially design, web, social media and online marketing. Fueled by good music, a relaxed atmosphere for work and an insatiable hunger for web technology, he develops innovative branding and clean websites to grow startups.
At the agency we talk all the time about new businesses, the pros and cons involved with start-ups, the next big thing or things even close. We sit to analyse new start-ups such as Coursera, Nextspeel, I-GASP and Numbers. We discuss the things that make them all so acceptable, presentable and almost so workable without completely ignoring the fact that they are all quite commendable business ideas. Most times, it boils down to having an enormous budget for everything. Other times, it’s the possession of a large wealth of dedicated expertise at disposal.
In our line of work, we are faced with the challenge of following through with professional advice that will eventually help with the development and running of a client’s new or existing business. Our first few conversations are always about tailoring our services to suit our client’s brand ideals. Even as we take unique approaches for our unique clients, there are certain business must-haves that we fail not to mention in every one of these conversations; elements that we have worked and have seen work; elements that businesses almost solely depend on to survive.
In this post, we intend to explain considerably certain practices that give successful start-ups an edge and reasons why they ought to be employed in other start-ups such as yours:
1. An interactive website design
It’s simple really, buy space on the internet and then expand. Start with the simple things like mowing the lawns and sweeping the dirt to a lot more time and cost consuming things like painting and buying furniture. Eventually, people would love what you’ve done with the place and come visiting.
It all starts with an easy to remember domain name. Once this happens, you are ready to populate your web page with all the content that you deem worthy in order to appeal to your target audience and boost web traffic. Successful businesses usually have websites that are possess intelligent navigation and important call-to-actions to help users on the website to make a next move. As a start-up, you want to work your website up to this phase and fully optimize any chances it has of converting leads and with the use of contact forms collect important data from your users.
2. An ‘’Attention-Seeking’’ Brand Identity
Just like as seen with our brand identity best practices, it is important for your designs to make a statement. Apart from brilliant ideas and reliable products, customers and investors are attracted by consistency and organisation – Your brand identity depicts these to a very large extent. Strive to achieve a striking logo design at the very least; one largely complemented by beautiful brand colours as well as imagery. If you already know this, then you know that no one takes a start-up with a poor brand identity seriously.
3. Unique Service Propositions
Most people just want to offer any service to the public and make money while doing so. But in order to truly build a niche, you need to be sure of what you do and sometimes back it up with unique service propositions, USPs. It’s the only way users can understand your brand and form basis to choose you over another. A typical example is Konga.com, Nigeria’s Largest Online Mall. The have USPs such as: Free Nationwide Delivery, Lowest Price Guarantee and 7-Day Return Policy. So most times we ask, do you have USPs? This way we can understand what to sell in our designs as well as in your marketing campaigns. It’s very important for you as a new business to define these things before entering the market so you don’t swallowed by competitors.
4. Effective Social Media Marketing
How do you get people to visit is the big question after you’ve gotten yourself a kick-ass website. The answer is the internet! And everything on it. People have built platforms; use it – Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Social media marketing have fast become a major tool in this area. It might involve a fairly big budget, but you would break even eventually if it is done right. See 6 social media marketing don’ts for businesses. Other forms of marketing include SEO and SEM; these are more organic means of online marketing that involve harnessing and exploiting the power of keywords to rank higher in search engines. Never leave out email newsletters; it is considered a very personal means of reaching out to people and is still very effective. In order generate significant leads for your business, it is strongly advised that all forms of online marketing are considered.
5. A Content Raving Corporate Blog
I can almost picture every time we email to ask for contents. We can’t stress its importance. The web is filled with bots that watch out for contents and so new and heavy content is treated specially by search engines. As a startup, you can employ content marketing with blog pages that have been setup on your website to reach out to your target audience just by writing. It is important to note that while putting up contents, you should pick topics related to your trade. For example, if you were adidas, you could blog about shoes and sporting gear or perhaps if you were Sony, you could blog about tech, gadgets, and electronics. Blogs can also be a medium for disseminating important information or landmarks set by the brand which means that you can quickly get out news about your brand without spending large amounts of money on regular ads. Unlike these ads, blogging is absolutely free!
Did you find this piece interesting? Share your thoughts in the comment section below or simply drop us a line – Let’s have a conversation.
