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4 Things Every Startup Should Do Before Their First Trade Show

Posted: 21 Feb 2019 10:00 AM PST

Trade shows are a wonderful way for startup companies to enhance their brand image and to acquire new customers. However, as new businesses, they're often hesitant to enter the world of trade shows. There are so many questions, fears and concerns that first-timers have, but it doesn't have to be intimidating. 

Here are four smart things to consider before you attend your first trade show as a startup.

1. Choose your show wisely.

As a startup, it's likely the company has a lot less capital than the big players in the industry. The big guys can afford to attend 20 trade shows a year, whether the shows really produce anything of benefit for them or not. In some cases, they attend just because people might wonder about the company's health if they're not there. However, as a startup, you need to focus on the trade show or trade shows that will provide the biggest benefit to you. Choose one or two, depending on your available capital and invest in that to start.

Editor's note: Need help with your trade show display? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you with free information.

 

2. Choose your booth carefully.

Depending on the trade show, booth space could be very expensive or it could be very cheap. It's tempting to invest in a large booth space, but a larger booth space means you need a more elaborate and likely more expensive exhibit to fill that space. If your startup is brand new, it's easiest to play it safe and choose a 10x10 exhibit or a 10x20 exhibit. If you spend too much on a trade show booth space, then you could end up blowing your budget for the year and maybe a couple of people's salaries on an exhibit to fill that space. 

3. Design your exhibit well in advance.

When you work in advance, you're able to take advantage of any discount pricing, plus you have ample time to design and redesign items. Being the early bird helps save a lot when it comes to exhibits. When you're prepared, it helps keep the costs down so that you can remain competitive in your space without going broke your first time out. 

4. Be mindful of who you bring.

Who you bring to a trade show is just as important as your trade show booth and your exhibit design. You'll want to bring a subject matter expert, likely a salesperson who is trained on how to approach people and draw them into a conversation to determine whether or not they're a likely prospect. 

Startups should really only bring bare minimal staff, as the costs can add up if you bring many people – there's hotel, transportation, meals, per diems and overtime pay if the individuals are hourly employees. There are many things to consider regarding who you bring to a trade show, so think about it carefully. 

Startup companies have unique challenges that larger competitors don't have, and as such they should plan the details out and be very mindful of the who, what and where every step of the way.  That way they can be a success at the trade show and continue to exhibit in the future. 

 

How to Build Your Martech Stack Without Trying Every Tool

Posted: 21 Feb 2019 08:00 AM PST

To say there aren't enough hours in the day to master marketing technology (martech) is an understatement. If a full-time marketer spent one working hour with every martech solution on the market, they'd do nothing but try tools for the next three years.

What's more, signs indicate that the martech tub will continue to fill faster than it drains. While last year's newcomers represent a 27 percent year-over-year increase in the total number of tools, only 4.5 percent of 2017's tools were no longer on the market in 2018. In other words, the pool is only going to get more crowded from here.

So what's a marketer who's already stretched thin to do? The answer isn't to give up entirely, nor is it to default to the trendy tools; it's to understand what you need and why.

Why martech matters

Marketers understand digital's growing dominance better than anyone. Think of martech tools as the flight instruments that help companies navigate this new airspace. Marketers that don't bother to invest in them are flying blind, conducting uninformed campaigns and delivering limited feedback to the crew.

While it might be tempting to think instruments are only visible to those in the cockpit, consider what the low-tech customer experience looks like. Now consider what those in the flight tower see: pricey activations without attributable results. No wonder 69 percent of marketers turn to martech – it improves their return on investment, according to Ascend2's Marketing Technology ROI Survey, while 40 percent use it to improve decision-making. No matter their objective, 92 percent of respondents say they've been "very" or "somewhat" successful in achieving their objectives with martech.

Understanding martech's popularity, however, isn't the same as knowing how to invest in it.

Get started on your suite

Any effective martech suite – no matter the number of tools it contains, the company's industry or the user's chosen channels – contains three types of tools: audience, activation and attribution. 

1. Audience tools: Comprehensive customer profiling with behavioral segmentation

Audience tools must strike a tough balance: concisely summarize data while providing serious granularity. The best tools offer both self-serve functionality and automated reporting.

Look for tools that can sort audience members by demographics, interests, or influencers. You'll also want something that provides a bird's-eye view of customers' online conversations, giving marketers the ability to search by sentiments, keywords, hashtags, and more. AI-based tools can automate audience trend detection and monitoring, categorizing consumers by the sentiment expressed, topics frequently discussed, demographic data and more.

2. Activation tools: Contextual intelligence about consumer preferences

After marketers know who they're talking to, their next goal is reaching those people. Activation tools tailor marketers' messages according to each customer's preferences and stage in the sales funnel. Customers are demanding brands do the latter well, with 81 percent of consumers telling Accenture they want brands to know when (and when not) to contact them.

One simple step every company can take to show customers it knows them is email personalization. Choose a platform that allows you to schedule messages, A/B test emails, track open rates and link clicks, and more. More advanced tools focused on multichannel personalization can help you target not only users' inboxes, but also their mobile app notifications or even specific devices like vehicle dashboards. 

3. Attribution tools: Integrate on- and offline data

More than ever before, consumers' online and offline actions are two pieces that can only be understood as part of the whole. Which attribution tools are right for a given company, however, heavily depends on its product and promotional channels.

Marketers who put a heavy focus on web and social channels should find tools that use link tracking to show which web properties and pieces of content are delivering. Good attribution software can create custom maps and reports, and integrate with popular platforms like AdWords and HubSpot. Other metrics your software should track include clicks, average revenue per user, organic and non-organic installs, and interactions after app installs.

Companies that conduct offline sales, in particular, should look for a tool that can associate online actions with those customers take in the real world. Look for software than can leverage location and device data to tie anonymous online actions to purchases, thereby giving marketers a full view of the path someone took from site to store. 

Don't forget about integrations

Whichever tools you choose – the average enterprise uses 91 separate cloud marketing software – it's critical to ensure that the solutions play well together.

When researching tools, ask about their application programming interfaces. Some platforms integrate with many other marketing technologies;  others work only with software produced by partner companies. A few even charge extra for use of their APIs.

Between APIs, feature sets, costs, and implementation challenges, marketers have a lot to think about when making martech choices. Keep those functional buckets in mind and research diligently, but don't worry about trying every tool: The only wrong answer is to avoid martech altogether.

Outrageous Expense Reports and What They Mean for Business

Posted: 21 Feb 2019 05:15 AM PST

The absurd business expense report is a corporate tale as old as time. It's no secret that the corporate credit card is often used as if it's limitless to impress clients. Some employees just don't seem to grasp that there are (and should be) limits to company spending. Gentlemen's clubs, basketball games, late-night poker sessions, Michelin-starred restaurants – it's amazing what some employees have tried to expense on business trips. While there are limits to company spending, there are no limits to what some people think is appropriate to expense.

A spontaneous rainforest journey

Patricia Campbell, human resources director for Pro Bono Legal Advice, once had an employee leave the city where he was supposed to be entertaining clients.

"I once had an employee submit a $3,000 expense for taking a private limousine to a petrified rainforest three hours away from the city where he was supposed to be entertaining clients," she said. "Obviously, this employee was terminated upon submission of this expense report. Over-padding an expense report is akin to embezzlement … It is unlawful." [Interested in better managing your business's expenses? Find out how to choose the right business expense tracking service.]

 

Editor's note: Looking for accounting software to track your business expenses? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you with free information.

 

 

How to violate a $2,000 preapproved budget

Matt Schmidt, CEO of Diabetes365, used to work as a financial advisor for a large financial institution. At the beginning of his career with the company, rumors surfaced after a fellow employee was abruptly fired. As details emerged, it became very clear to Schmidt and everyone else at the company what had happened.

"He used the company corporate card to host a happy-hour event for clients and prospects," Schmidt said. "All of this was preapproved ahead of time, including, I believe, a limit of up to $2,000 ... My co-worker hosted an event at a gentlemen's club, and when [the financial institution] got the statement, he got shown the door."

Competition woes?

Competition in the business world can drive people to do crazy things. Daniel Herrmann, co-founder of Germany-based Monokel Consulting, used to work for a boutique energy consultancy. Three partners were vying for the CEO position, and one candidate "went wild with expenses."

He started staying at luxury hotels, such as the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. He was also "inviting clients and prospects to restaurants, which were rated with Michelin stars," Herrmann said. "Like all the places you ever wanted to go but would never go within reason. Expenses included bottles of wine for several hundred bucks. Also turned out some of the clients or leads didn't even work in the energy industry – probably just some of his friends."

Why expense fraud matters and what it looks like

Expensing outrageous purchases, or simply padding normal purchases, can have a big impact on small business. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners found that expense reimbursement makes up 14.5 percent of business fraud. This means businesses of all sizes need to stay on the lookout to ensure expense reports are accurate and honest. Expense report fraud can come in several different forms, including padding existing expenses or expensing fictitious purchases.

Padding existing reports

Padding expense reports involves either adding costs to an existing purchase or unnecessarily opting for more expensive products or services. As detailed in a blog post from Ernst & Young, this can be adding a tip when the tip is already included for a meal, going to an unnecessarily upscale restaurant, or opting for limo service when public transport or a taxi would suffice. Padding existing reports means claiming an item or service cost more than it did in an expense report. Properly managing receipts and requiring a paper trail with employees can help in both these instances.

Fictitious purchases

Fictitious purchases occur when an employee either expenses a personal item to the company or claims to purchase something they never actually purchased. According to the same post from EY, this commonly occurs when employees modify or falsify receipts when filing their expense reports.

How to avoid expense fraud

Expense report fraud may seem like an obvious problem to combat – why not just hold employees accountable when they overstep their boundaries? In larger companies, this may be easier said than done. However, even small companies can struggle to hold people accountable and enforce a reasonable, legitimate expense report policy.

Clearly defining and implementing a policy can be the best first step toward managing expense report fraud. Vague language in employee handbooks, or rules and regulations established to meet tax or audit guidelines as opposed to company ethics guidelines, can provide ample opportunity for both confusion and malice when it comes to expense reports. Defining your policy is half the battle, and implementing it can be one of your biggest challenges. As with most business policies, the key is holding managers accountable for these policies. If your managers aren't going to work within a reasonable business expense policy, it's unlikely any of your other employees will.

In the end, protecting your business against expense report fraud comes down to managing employee expectations and staying vigilant about employee spending.  

Selling Your E-Book on Amazon? 3 Tips for Success

Posted: 21 Feb 2019 05:00 AM PST

If you're going to sell your e-book on Amazon, you need to have a strategy for how you're going to market your product. It's not enough to have a valuable item on the market; your audience has to want to make the purchase or at least consider doing so if you're going to see revenue come in.

With Statista reporting there were more than 90 million people reading ebooks in 2018, there's a ton of potential revenue you could bring in with your digital content. There are several places where Amazon markets your ebook to customers, including but not limited to:

  • Shopping cart recommendations
  • Frequently bought together items
  • More items to consider
  • Customers with similar searches purchased
  • Customers who bought this item also bought

Here are three tips for successfully selling your e-book on Amazon.

1. Use a creative cover.

People do judge books by their covers, so you need to make sure yours is appropriate for your audience, visually appealing, and relevant to your overall topic or theme. Steer clear of blank, boring covers that scream laziness or covers that aren't relevant to their content. Use a mix of colors and fonts for a balanced, professional look.

If you're confident in your graphic design abilities, you can use Amazon's Cover Creator to design your own cover. Customize the fonts, colors, images and layout to your liking by choosing from several different design options. Make sure it's proportioned properly as a full-size image as well as a thumbnail since this is what customers will see when your ebook is recommended to them. Your thumbnail will appear in Amazon's search results, detail pages and automated merchandising. You can also hire a freelance graphic designer to design and create your e-book cover for a fair price. 

2. Create an author page.

Readers like to know whose content they're digesting especially if they connect with it. When they put a face to a name and get insight into who you are and what you do for a living, it gives them a better look at who you are. This creates a sense that your audience knows you and can possibly connect to your ebook even better than before.

Demystify your identity and tell your audience who you are. Create an author page and fill it with the information you think your readers would like to know. Add your biography, photos, blog posts, videos, and tour events so they're always up to date on your work and what they can expect in the future. The more information you have filled out, the more serious of an author you appear to visitors.

Author Central also lets you track your ebook sales for free to stay on top of your conversion rate. Keep track of where your ebook is selling and how frequently so you can optimize your marketing strategy where there are gaps or more attention is needed. There is 24/7 phone support for users in the U.S. and email support you can expect to hear back from in under 24 hours.

3. Promote like crazy.

You can't rely on producing high-quality content to match your desired sales growth. The only way you're going to make a substantial amount of sales is if you spend most of your time promoting your e-book. According to the 80/20 principle, 20 percent of your time should be spent creating content while 80 percent should go towards promoting it. It's a highly important part of your marketing strategy.

Use all your active social media channels to promote your e-book by informing followers what it's about and explaining why it would appeal to their tastes. Show how this is something that would benefit them and bring them value and joy. Connect with other authors and cross-promote each other's content for higher visibility.

If you already have a website, create a landing page for your e-book using compelling, persuasive copy and powerful images and descriptions. Create a simple opt-in form so that the process of signing up is easy for users. Use A/B split testing to test different colors and word choice and determine what converts the highest.

Selling your e-book on Amazon is no simple task. You have to know how to market to your target audience, show them who you are so they feel a connection, and do a ton of promotional work to get noticed. Though not easy, it's a great way to show you're an expert in your field and want to share that knowledge with the world while building your following.
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