Most Common Marketing Mistakes By Indian Startups Startups have shown an innate affinity towards making a particular kind of mistakes in general.

Starting a business is a different ball game altogether, and hence committing to certain mistakes is simply inevitable. However, startups have shown an innate affinity towards making a particular kind of mistakes in general.

Since most of the entrepreneurs hail from a technical background, it is difficult to understand and imbibe the core principles and essence of marketing. However, in order to relish long term business success, here are a few most common marketing mistakes that Indian startups must definitely avoid.

Getting disillusioned with short-term marketing objectives:

Here is a fact: 9 out of 10 startups fail, even after securing early stage investment. Although that may be attributed to a number of factors, one pattern they all had in common was getting carried away in short term marketing objectives and hence, losing sight of the long term goals.

It is easy to burn VC's or investor's money in acquiring more customers. However, if you are recklessly abandoning the cash in hand to acquire the customers, how do you plan on to managing your other vital operations?

Besides, a customer that is coming on to your site simply to grab some discount isn't going to remain loyal. Any other player, be it an established organization or a competitor offering better discounts, would acquire the same customer in jiffy.

Hence, in contract to gaining the fickle minded customer by simply offering discount, shift your attention on building a strong product and offer a modest pricing model, warranting customers' loyalty. There have been players who have retained almost all of their customers, simply by providing faultless support and winsome after-sales services. Since startups are all about disrupting the industry, it is about time we disrupted the fixation at short-term customer acquisition.

Avoiding Content Marketing

Content marketing is relatively a new marketing channel that helps in not only driving more sales but establishing the brand and positions the CEOs as thought leaders, influencers and business experts.

As a CEO, perhaps from a technical background, one doesn't have a natural affinity towards content marketing and hence tend to overlook the entire array of benefits the channel contains. However, that is exactly the mistake you need to avoid making, in order to taste the everlasting business success.

Content has the inevitable power to inform, educate and arrest the attention of the readers. The entire dynamic and visceral emotions an articulate piece of content draws, remain incomparable and unrivaled by any other challenge. You need content to narrate the story of your brand and the same story would seep into the psyche of the readers, driving them to not only select your product over others, but establish a long standing bond with your brand.

Lastly, it isn't enough to only come up with enticing and thought-provoking stories around your brand. You also need to market the same effectively, ensuring that your target audience is compelled to read, view or listen to it. In order to establish yourself as a thought leader in the industry, guest blog on popular sites hosting valuable traffic on a monthly basis. Also, link back to your landing page or social channels, in order to re-route the traffic to your business platforms.

Invest time in demystifying various content marketing hacks and inculcate the same in your startup, in order to build the authority of the brand and the founders running the business.

Avoiding ORM and ignoring the comments around your brand

Online relationship management systems and software may appear costly in the beginning, and hence the urge to avoid the same is understandable. However, in the long run, avoiding ORM may do more harm than good to the business.

The present day generation, especially millennial and Gen-Z take internet for granted and would spare no opportunity to utilize their influence on social media and destroy the brand with a scathing review.

In the past, several established startups like Ola, Uber and Paytm have suffered at the hands of scathing online reviews by users, that by default were perceived with more trust by other users, as against to the entire brand's communication.

Procuring the right customer reviews goes a long way in building the brand's trust and influence on the market segments. Hence, as an ambitious entrepreneur willing to grow and expand at the soonest, invest in your online presence, pay heed to the buzz around your brand from the actual users and invest in online reputation management to give your startup the shield and the mileage it deserves.

Inability to track and measure results & success

While measuring seems like the most obvious thing to do, a lot of startups fail to precisely manage success or failure of their marketing efforts; more so from the social media channels.

By not tracking the results, you are not only wasting the efforts, but are also shutting yourself to all the learning opportunities constant analyzes provide.

You may want to use a tracking URL for email marketing and social media campaigns and carefully study the CTA that are working in your favor, and the overall user behavior on the campaigns. Eventually, you would have a strategy of your own, one that works faultlessly for your business in particular.

While it may be overwhelming being an entrepreneur and taking care of the marketing, the drive to remain continuously focused and learn over the time makes all the difference. With these mistakes to avoid, young and nascent startups may significantly propel their marketing outreach, established their presence in the circuit successfully.