You can be on Entrepreneur’s cover!

Look Out Startups, 2014 is About Results, Not Buzz Companies may have been able to get ahead before with cool ideas -- but not anymore.

By Erika Trautman

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Shutterstock

Companies whose products many of us use daily -- Dropbox, Twitter, and, of course, Facebook -- all sprouted from tiny startup seedlings. And while these all serve as great success stories, the truth is that most startups won't see this level of achievement. It's no secret that for every Instagram, there are hundreds of other apps that fail simply due to oversaturation. And yet that fact hasn't slowed the startup buzz machine.

But the promise of the next big startup win may be losing some of its luster, leaving both investors and brands to look beyond the glam and glitter, instead focusing on business fundamentals and results.

David Berkowitz, CMO of marketing agency MRY and AdAge contributing writer, postulates in his article, "Why Brands Will Focus Less on Startups in 2014," that lack of results, along with clutter and PR, is the reason why startups' relationships with brands and agencies will fade like a tired high school fling this year. And I couldn't agree more. In 2014, brands are looking for results, not hype.

Related: 9 Reasons Why Most Startups Fail

For startups, this means understanding and answering the key questions that all brand marketers are tasked with finding the solutions for, such as, "Will it work on mobile? Is it scalable? Will it integrate with our current content? Will it improve awareness, engagement, conversions? By how much?" These questions ultimately lead to three areas of focus for startups: mobile, serving customers' needs and analytics.

Mobile. I can vouch that mobile is one concern addressed in almost every one of our sales meetings. And for good reason. In our studies, mobile viewing time actually exceeds desktop viewing, with campaigns such as Philips' "Designed to Play" seeing viewing times of more than five minutes on iPhone and Android. The importance of mobile for brands is unequivocal, so it is crucial that startups have solutions that work in a fragmented but very important ecosystem.

Serving customers' needs. Startups looking to succeed in 2014 will also have to quickly solve the existing business problems of the companies they're working with in order to see results, instead of wasted time and resources. Whether a brand's issue is a low number of sales qualified leads, a high website drop-off rate or a decline in subscriptions, as a startup, your solution needs to fix those problems.

Related: Be Selfless, and You May Develop Products Customers Actually Want

Case in point, Gaiam TV needed a way to bring a more informed consumer through the checkout process, while also increasing conversions. We devised a head-to-head competition, pitting a standard landing page against an Interactive Video landing page, and ended up doubling subscriptions in less than four weeks, solving the company's pain point.

Analytics. For a brand to spend a chunk of its marketing dollars on your startup, you need to have the numbers to justify spending. Unfortunately, we too often see data chains that don't provide insight because no one has thought through which metrics matter and how to measure them. Startups need to be savvy about how to integrate their solution into a complex ecosystem of existing analytics and should be prepared to help their customers implement these solutions.

"Journalists are going to start craving more meat." Berkowitz writes. "After the fifth brand-sponsored startup hackathon at South by Southwest … serious journalists will focus on what such partnerships accomplish."

No matter how great the idea, if your startup doesn't create hard and fast results with analytics, targeted business solutions and mobile integration, it won't survive in 2014. Launching a startup can't just be about how cool your product is. No business can subsist off of just buzz and press. This year, startups must focus on business fundamentals and start emphasizing partnerships that generate results.

Related: To Avoid Common Startup Ailments, Try These Preventative Measures

Erika Trautman

Founder, Rapt Media

Erika Trautman founded Rapt Media, a Boulder, Colo.-based creative platform for interactive enterprise video. Before Rapt Media, she founded and ran an Emmy Award Winning Production company, Outlier Films, and worked as a documentary filmmaker.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Business News

Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Multibillion-Dollar Crypto Fraud

Southern District of New York Judge Lewis Kaplan said that the loss amount to the victims of Bankman-Fried's crimes surpassed $550 million.

Side Hustle

This Mom Started a Side Hustle After a 'Shocking' Realization in the Toy Aisle. Her Product Was in Macy's Within the Year — Seeing Nearly $350,000 in Sales.

Elenor Mak, now founder of Jilly Bing, didn't plan to start a business — but the search for a doll that looked like her daughter inspired her to do just that.

Growing a Business

To Achieve Sustainable Success, You Need to Stop Focusing on Disruption. Here's Why — and What You Must Focus on Instead.

Instead of zeroing in solely on disruptive innovation, embrace a pragmatic approach to innovation, recognizing and leveraging the potential within ongoing industry shifts.

Marketing

5 Ways to Get on the Media's Good Side (and Stay There)

When you're trying to make a name and a mark for yourself and your business, it's really important to get on the media's good side — and stay there.

Business News

Mark Zuckerberg Told Meta Engineers to 'Figure Out' Snapchat's Privacy Protections: 'We Have No Analytics on Them'

Recently unsealed court documents detail "Project Ghostbusters," Meta's project to work around Snapchat's end-to-end encryption to intercept data.