Mapping the startup landscape can be an insightful exercise, one that throws up as many don’t’s as do’s. In hindsight, successful or failed startups would point to many defining factors and one that invariably stands out is the viability of a venture’s marketing strategy. We are living in times when stories are all that matter - narratives that are endorsed in a social media driven eco-system and which get translated into the right optics for your product or service. Controlling this narrative is a matter of investing in marketing resources efficiently.     In a conversation with Forbes magazine, Kipp Bodnar, CMO of  HubSpot, a business growth platform , has an interesting observation to make regarding startups and their marketing approach, “They have one marketer. They essentially have 30-50 hours of labo u r a week. The firm/marketer decides to do the following 1) W eekly email newsletter 2) Social media communicat ion 3) M arketing automation 4) Monthly ...

The latest buzzword in marketing is empathy. Many companies are successfully utilizing the power of empathy to push their brand to the next level.  Some examples: Philips invented a miniature version of a CAT scanner called the ‘kitten scanner’ along with  toy animal characters that were used as patients and a TV screen to dispel the fear of MRI among children   P&G ad released in time for London Olympics 2012 shows the trials and tribulations of mothers raising young athletes.   Microsoft’s interactive site Anatomy of a Data Breach that explains how data is stolen and how one can protect own data. Enhancing empathy not only outside your company but also inside is great for your business.  Yet, according to a 2019 survey by Businessolver, 92% of employees feel that their bosses do not give enough importance to empathy. But what has it got to do with marketing success? The same study says that 93% of employees are more likely to...

A consumer’s decision to purchase a product or service is dictated by several rational factors like pricing, utility, affordability, reviews and comparisons. But beyond such tangibles there is one factor that every marketer needs to be aware of: EMOTIONS! Why would people otherwise choose expensive branded products over their exact generic equivalents selling at a fraction of their price? Emotions typically operate on a level of irrationality, that is both undefinable and undeniable. The author of Descartes Error Antonio Damasio argues in his book that emotions are an essential ingredient in almost all decisions. He says, whenever we have to take a decision our past related experiences come into play. These emotions create preferences depending on the options we are considering, leading to a decision.   That is why you hate going to a restaurant the second time when your first experience is not good or you prefer to buy a certain kind or brand of shoes, p...

The Shared Economy Concept, at its core, is based on the most efficient use of money and resources. In the era of start-ups, gathering the resources is the most challenging aspect of any start-up. The broader vision of the founders of a start-up need to be simplified into micro plans so as to achieve the objective initially set. These micro plans focus on the resource requirements of the start –up. By resource requirement we mean all the tangible and intangible forces which are needed to build up the venture. It includes manpower requirements, space requirements and funding to name a few. Since the funds available to a start-up are usually limited, manpower planning plays a crucial role. An essential ingredient to effective leadership is to manage the resources efficiently. As the funds are limited, resource sharing can play an important role in the success of the venture. The technological advancement across all industries today makes resource sharing a very convenient and appropri...