Category: Startup

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Startup

How to grow sales with Email Newsletters?

“Do you Want to grow your sales?”

An Email Newsletter is a very powerful tool. It can motivate, inform, sell and entertain your target subscribers. Sending Email Newsletters
 regularly can convert to sales by promoting your brand, targeted engagement and driving repeat business through incentives.

Here are 7 important tips to increase your sales through newsletters:

1. Know and Understand Your Target Audience

  • Out of all the Email Newsletter tips that we’re going to talk about in this article, knowing your audience is the most important tip. The email messages that you send out to your subscribers need to be relevant to their interests. This can only happen when you know your target audience.
  • Every subscriber on your email list is different, which is why it would be a mistake to send them the same email message. Emails relevant to the receiver tend to drive 18 times more revenue when compared to general emails.
  • Always make a segmented email list which allows you to divide your Email Newsletter list into smaller, more targeted sub-groups. Segmenting your list will let you target your consumers based on their personal preferences.
  • Age, gender, geographical location of your subscriber, helps you send relevant emails which improve your chances of getting a higher of sales.

2. Create Brand Awareness and Drive Traffic

  • Use regular Email Newsletters to make your subscribers familiarize with your brand. Send at least once a month or once a week, to surprise your subscribers about the new things.
  • Sending newsletters regularly helps building the relationships between you and your subscribers, by keeping your business and brand at the forefront of your readers’ minds.
  • People are more likely to buy from you if they know who you are, what you represent and that you value their business!

3. Send Regular, Consistent Emails

  • When you are building a list of your loyal subscribers who open and read all your emails, you shouldn’t have any problems sending out weekly or daily emails to your list, and getting more sales.
  • Sending regular Email Newsletters is that you’ll have a record of stats from each send. This means you can email a group who all clicked on an image to see a Product, but didn’t buy it, for some reason. Targeted sends are highly effective.

4. Make the Most of Your Subject Line

  • The open rate of your email completely depends on your subject line. The content of the Email Newsletter wouldn’t matter, if people don’t open your emails. So investing in it will immensely help your Email Newsletter campaign.
  • Connect to your subscribers on an emotional level so that they enjoy reading your emails. Keep each subject line to the point. Longer subject lines are not only confusing but are also hard to understand.
  • Questions and numbers are proven to get a higher click if done rightly but make sure you are not confusing anyone.

5. Have a Dedicated Landing Page for Your Campaign

  • Most of the time your subscribers click from your email to your homepage, product page or landing page. In order to get higher returns on your investment, it always makes sense to build a dedicated landing page and direct your email traffic to it.
  • Keep in mind that the message that you convey with your email should match your landing page or else it beat the purpose of creating one. 

6. Create Urgency with Time-Sensitive Discounts and Flash Sales

One of the fastest ways to increase sales is to send discounts and flash sales newsletter. 

Types of time-sensitive discounts can include:

  • Event Discounts (Birthdays, Mother’s Day, Anniversary, Valentine day, Festivals ETC)
  • First Time Shopper Discount
  • Pre-Launch Items Discount
  • Thank You Discounts
  • Abandon Cart reminder
  • Customer and company milestone discounts

A flash sale is also effective pushing those people who are on the edge of make an impulse buy. 

7. Target Future Sends Based on Past Action

  • You should send more targeted newsletters by utilizing the last purchasing history. For Ex; you can send email to the customers who bought Product A in the past and let them know about Product B or C, which will appeal to them.
  • Sending email will drives traffic to your website and will increase your sales. Email Newsletters are as powerful as social media, if not more, when it comes to engaging your audience and offer ROI.

Here is a free tool to start creating Email Newsletters:

MailChimp is a powerful and easy to use option for those who want to focus on business growth. MailChimp’s email service allows you to:-

  • Integrate your emails with CRM’s and shopping carts.
  • It allows you to use free email service for your first 500 subscribers.
  • It has smart editing tools.
  • It creates a personalized sign-up that matches your brand and gives you the opportunity to post them on your social media accounts.
  • You can also create a customized template and you can also send customized messages to your subscribers.
  • With the help of MailChimp, email marketing is easier with its drag and drop feature.

Building a brand for your company through newsletters is a difficult task. It takes effort and time to notice results. Hopefully, these 7 important tips can help you turn subscribers into repeat customers!

To know about Email Newsletter and more marketing ideas that involve zero cost or very less cost, buy the Zero Dollar Marketing Course by Bada Business today on Bada Business mobile App.

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Startup

How to protect your Working Capital during Coronavirus Downturn?

How to protect your Working Capital during Coronavirus Downturn?
How to protect your Working Capital during Coronavirus Downturn?

Cash is King: How to manage Working Capital during Downturn

Working capital is the amount of capital needed to run a business and is calculated as Current Assets – Current Liabilities. Coronavirus lockdown has led to a drop in demand for goods and services. At a time like this business owners need to do an in-depth analysis of their cash requirements for efficient working capital management.

We get you 5 important steps for efficient working capital management during the Coronavirus downturn:

1. Operating Expenses Breakdown
There are 3 types of costs that you need to analyze:

  • Direct Costs- Costs that directly impact or are related to revenue.
  • Indirect Costs- Costs which are not directly related to the product or service but would be supporting costs to keep the business functioning. For e.g. marketing costs, office supplies, local travel etc.
  • Salary- Cost of employees working for the organization.

A proportionate cut down on indirect costs can help prevent the extra cash outflow. For e.g. spends on marketing can be put on hold or any IT related expansion can be deferred till the situation and revenue become better.

Cash conserving measures become the need of the hour

Important Lesson

Businesses need a positive working capital and cash flow to grow their companies. During a downturn they can still grow or remain afloat if they have access to enough working capital or have assets in cash or cash equivalents.

2. Inventory Management

  • Focus on reducing or finishing stocks.
  • During Coronavirus outbreak companies are getting stuck with large inventories as the customer is not buying the way he used to.
  • Instead of blocking your cash in procuring more inventories, try to reduce the number of times the product is stocked till it meets the consumers buying pattern and working capital management is not affected.

3. Look at working with multiple suppliers

  • During a downturn, businesses are sometimes not able to provide the product or service to the customer due to lack of adequate supply.
  • Look for additional suppliers so that you can source similar products.
  • Multiple suppliers will help in a price competition between the vendors and will help in bringing down your supply chain cost

4. Keep a lookout for alternate financing sources

  • During a downturn in the market, you can assume working capital requirements for your business will increase as customers will take longer to pay for goods and services.
  • Check the availability of your usual credit lines.
  • If you have a line of credit, consider taking the funds before and keep it in a separate account. In this case, this cash will be available if more working capital need arises.

5. Discontinue non-profitable Products and Services

  • Products that are sucking cash out of the business should be stopped immediately for reduction in working capital management.
  • Entrepreneurs can look at what products can be made using a ‘pull’ system which means avoid wastage in the production process, what can be produced on made-to-order basis and what should not be produced at all.

A lot of entrepreneurs only have their local chartered accountants taking care of accounts or they hire young account executives to do the same. This is to save cost. In times of a downturn, entrepreneurs must take consulting from finance experts that have seen similar situations in life and can help you make quick and efficient decisions.

In downturns, entrepreneurs must divide their working capital decisions in two parts:
1. Tactical
2. Strategic

Tactical decisions are the one’s that you will implement in the short term. That is, in the net 30 – 90 days.

Strategic decisions are the one’s that you will implement in their long term. That is, in the next 2-4 years.

Only those companies will survive the Coronavirus downturn and bounce back that understand working capital management. They need to keep a close account of how much cash is there within the company and how to use it judiciously.

To know more about how to manage working capital for your business, subscribe to the online problem-solving course on working capital management available in the Bada Business Mobile app.

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Startup

11 strategies to increase Employee Productivity

बिजनेस टिप्स
बिजनेस टिप्स
Improving employee productivity
is one of the most important objectives for every organization. Higher productivity leads to the economic growth, profitability and better social development. In Addition, employees who are more productive get better growth opportunities.
 
They stay longer and find meaningful work. Moreover, higher employee productivity tends to maximize organizational competitive advantage through cost reductions and improvement in top quality of output. 
The most critical and obvious way to start with is to set the right goals for the employee; make sure that the objectives are SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely and are in-line with the employee’s skill set. 
1. Give people a purpose larger than themselves
’ When employees have a purpose that is larger than themselves, they will be self-motivated to deliver more. The purpose has to be established by the leader of the company or leaders in the company. The greatest organizations in the world are the one’s that have clarity of purpose.
Framework: Help employees answer ’why’, ’what’ and ’how’?
Why are they being asked to do what they have been asked to do?
What is their role and how is it going to impact their future growth within the company and in the larger working ecosystem?
How does the company work and what is expected of the employee?

2. Communicate Effectively
’ Transparency is the best key for effective communication; clearer the communication, the more productive the employee will be. Encourage your employees to have phone calls and quick meetings; this reduces the time spent on other ineffective modes of communication. It will also help in team building as there is a personal connection in both these forms of communication.

3. Incentivize Employees
’ One of the best ways to motivate employees to be more productive is to actually give them a reason to do so. Appreciate and encourage your employees to increase their productivity.
4. Train and Develop Employees
’ Helping the employees to expand their skills will build much more advanced workplace, which will benefit your company in the long run and improve efficiency and employee productivity.
5. Include psychological hint to boost employee productivity
– Psychology has shown that the things that surround an employee could affect his or her mental state. These cues can help the employees in increase their focus. Among the elements that a company can incorporate include: Music, Plants, and Lighting etc.
6. Encourage employees to help each other
– Human beings are social animals and the natural inclination is towards helping others. Collaboration takes multiple methodologies, including brainstorming, cross-document collaboration, or picking up projects where other employees get stranded. Additionally, this sort of partnership fosters teamwork and a more united attitude towards the job.
Organisations can use team collaboration apps like Slack, Whatsapp groups, Facebook for work to increase employee collaboration across the department.
7. Give frequent and timely feedback
– When an employee achieves something, give him or her that recognition. Always consider giving a reward for employee service that exceeds expectations. Even negative feedback helps because it ensures employees understand expectations. Ensure that the feedback is timely. Create a process-driven timely feedback loop.
Most global organisations use the 360 degree feedback process to ensure that employees gain the right feedback at the right time and from the right person. Today a lot of companies also share feedback within peer groups. This also creates a lot of understanding within peers working together.
8. Be open to receiving feedback too
– Listen to your employees when they ask for better tools. Listen to their needs to ensure if they’re happy with the equipment or not. For better employee productivity, ensure each person is in the right role for his or her needs and skills.
9. Offer workers the tools they require
– Modern workplaces can provide a wide array of the necessary equipment to get work done. Keeping these assets up to date ensures that employees can get the job done when they need to. 
10. Make achievements public and celebrate them
– Celebrating achievements offers employees the chance to enjoy the fruits of their labor in the short term. The achievement might not be an essential goal, but it does constitute a milestone. 
11. Build a culture of efficiency
– If you’re going to increase the employee productivity in your workplace, you need to build a culture that supports efficiency, hard work, and focus.
Many organisations move their senior employees across several departments every year. So every key employee has a taste of each department and knows what it takes to grow the company. You can also create a culture of inter-team understanding. This will help your organization thrive through tough and good times.
Some employees when given the opportunity can also find new portfolios of work where they might be able to use their skill sets more.
Employee Productivity is an outcome of how they are being treated at their organization, are they aligned with their work, are they being heard, does their feedback matter? 
Organizations need to increase their focus on making the workplace more employee-friendly to ensure the best and productive results. Discovering these root causes can help exposing the path to maximum the employee productivity.
Categories
Startup

Why Startups Fail in India?

Introduction
  • Are you planning to start a new business?
  • Do you want your Startup to be successful?
  • Do you know why startups fail in India?
No Indian city is among the top-10 most popular Startup Cities in the world, whereas only one Indian company (Asian Paints) could make it into Forbes top-25 innovative companies in the world.
Owing to the inability to run business, funding to Indian Startups plummeted from $7.5 billion in 2015 to $3.5 billion in 2016.
One of the major reasons behind the failure of Indian Startups is the lack of innovation based on consumer’s needs.
If you too are an entrepreneur and struggling to retain your Startup, the following points will help you figure out why startups fail in India and how to recover from the crisis.
Reason #1: Missing Innovation around Customer’s Money Making Model

Undeniably, the major reason why startups fail in India is the lack of exactly needed innovation to cater to the problem of customers, due to which no Indian company could dominate the world market so far.
They lack the innovation to invent a product which can make people’s life easy by understanding their need.
Reason #2: Negative Cash Flow, Negative Working Capital
Another most important reason behind the failure of Startups in India is negative cash flow and negative working capital.
Continuous cash inflow is necessary to run your business. Even if your book of accounts is showing profits, delay in payment may hurt your working capital to continue the operations.
In the absence of adequate working capital owing to delay in cash inflow, you start searching for funds to continue the business, which after some level fades away investor’s trust in you.

Reason #3: Expansion with Negative Margin
Many Startups in India, without having adequate gross margin, go on expanding their business by giving heavy discounts and deals.
Commons reason why startups fail in India are:

  • They don’t build long term plans for a source of profit to cover their profit margin and acquire market.
  • In the quest of selling at the lower price, they keep on compromising with their gross margin and end up being bankrupt.

Reason #4: Lack of Talented Manpower

If you don’t build a team of highly capable, enthusiastic, energetic, and talented people to execute your plan and vision, chances of making your Startup long-lasting would be less.

You need to work on: Competency mapping, Competence assessment of your manpower, and Convert your ideation into execution.

?Reason #5: Scalability with Recurring Revenue Model

To boost the scalability of your business, you need to create a strong base of regular customers to maintain your recurring revenue. Many Startups go on ’making new customers, at the cost of losing existing ones’.

While engaging new customers, they are unable to retain their present customers, which disturb regular inflow of revenue and consequently hurt their profitability and scalability.

Reason #6: Mixed Marketing Signal and Wrong Positioning

The main reason behind why startups fail in India is that most of the Indian entrepreneurs don’t know how to position their product in the market, who is their perfect customer and who is not their perfect customer.

They launch their product, without proper segmentation of customers through studying customers.

It is imperative to position your product on the basis of its identity, price, value, feature, and reliability after studying consumer behavior. It’s marketing and branding strategy will be based on its right positioning.

Reason #7: Releasing Product as a Laggard

The untimely or delayed launch of a product is the prime reason why startups fail in India, which plays the most crucial part of its market share and profitability.

Indian Startups launch their products so late in the market that the market becomes saturated, which compels them to give schemes, discounts, and offers, and end up ruining their profit margin.

Reason #8: Save Yourself from Getting Outcompeted

While launching your business, you need to observe your competitors and be prepared to tackle any disruption caused by them.

Reason #9: Missing the Process of Converting Feedback into Feed-Forward

Taking into account the customer’s feedback and the complaint is what helps you bring appropriate changes in your product. ’If you ignore their feedback and complaints, they will switch to your competitors’.

Customer’s complaints about your product signify that he wants to be with you, but the only thing that he is expecting is to bring change in your product.

Reason #10: Business Model of Complete Eco-System

Digital giants like Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, and Android are examples of those who have built a huge ecosystem by converging all stakeholders and customers on a single platform that could cause disruption in the market if they plan to exit.

Identify the reasons for your debacle. Correct it and streamline it. Definitely, you will be the next Unicorn.

From the above 10 points, you would be able to understand why startups fail in India and direct your strategy accordingly to make it successful.