Since the collapse of the dot-com bubble, tech startups have become the economic champion of freelance technology. New forms of web development and computer technology are being bankrolled each day in the hopes of becoming the next big thing. While it seems a world apart from service-based business, tech startups can provide examples and advice to service businesses looking to get off the ground and ignite economic growth.
Financing
While tech startups often require either venture capital (VC) or angel investment to launch and scale, service businesses are only occasionally reliant on initial outside investment. However, it can still be wise to follow in tech startups' footprints and use that knowledge to gain potential investors for the future. In preparation for finding investors, a tech startup must refine its product, indicate growth opportunities and prove which markets will be most interested. Having clearly defined goals with solid statistics for potential growth can gain the interest of investors.
Investors are concerned with the rate at which they can realize their initial investment and how they can profit.
Social Media
Even though social media networks are deeply entrenched in the tech market, they have just as many benefits to offer service businesses. Through social networking with current and future customers, businesses are able to test the markets for what makes the best possible product and make alterations mid-production to suit demand. With the right marketing, there is also enormous potential for customer onboarding to establish a loyal following that will help launch the brand or a new product line.
Whether founding a tech startup or a service business, the best social marketing examples demonstrate the advantages of lean product development. By its very nature, marketing socially provides instant feedback from customers, sparing new brands the repeated trial and error process of developing a product. Gaining customer feedback only after a relatively lengthy run of each prototype is a process of the past. Utilizing social media to present new versions of products and respond to customer needs trims a large portion out of the research and development budget. That turns into savings, which can add up to a much larger profit margin.
According to a poll from Effie Worldwide and Mashable, 70% of brands plan to increase their social media spending by more than 10% in 2011. So, the big question is no longer whether social media is an important segment of a marketing plan. Instead, the question is how important social media is to a successful marketing plan.
The only way to determine how important social media is to a company is to determine how extensively brand reputation relies on social media. There are three critical ways your brand relies (or should be relying) on social media, customer service, personal connection and engagement, and converting naysayers.
Customer Service
Perhaps the most obvious way in which brand reputation relies on social media is related to customer service. The phone number of a customer service centre with a ridiculous call holding time is not nearly as effective as it once was. A contact form with a note promising a response within twenty-four hours is even worse.
Today, customers want instant responses, and social media allows you the opportunity to provide just that. If your brand is not already using social media as a way to improve customer support, now is the time to look into it. More and more customers are turning to social media for answers to questions not covered on your website.