Priyanka Writing
I was tempted to skip this work year review but I saw that I had managed to post 3 blogs in 2017. Not bad, I thought considering that I cannot recall when I last landed on this blog dashboard! The reason I wanted to skip it was because I already wrote my travel and spiritual year-end review in November at the Jain New Year, and not because there is not much to write (when does that ever happen!)
This year has been quite a roller-coaster ride!
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In my earlier blog post I highlighted why all companies including time-strapped startups should have a robust email marketing channel, and how to go about building it. I extolled the many benefits of an email marketing channel for startups and bigger brands alike. It sounds so simple. Then what are the few reasons due to which a lot of companies fail in their email marketing attempts? Here are 3 common email marketing challenges I have come across in most companies I have worked with,
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I don’t do much of business reading, but I like a good autobiography. The previous one I read a while back was Sam Walton’s Made in America. It was an intriguing read. I still remember how Sam Walton, founder of Walmart had valued the buck as a kid and never really lost that habit of looking for Value For Money in everything he did. Recently I picked up Akio Morita’s Made in Japan – surprising how both the books have the similar name style. 🙂
I was intrigued to know more about Akio, because Sony has been a household name since ages, I still remember how I spent hours listening to my walkman as a kid. Now a days it is all available on mobile and the days of the tape are gone still I was intrigued to know about the company. I had no idea about it’s history at all. What also intrigued me was to know more about the Japanese work culture and industrialization history. And this book really provides insights into a lot of it. Here are some snippets that I find worth sharing (there were many of those, I am sharing the ones I remember now. 😉 )
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The other day I had a talk in a entrepreneurship cell event at KJ Somaiya college. I spoke about Branding for Startups…
Having worked with a large number of startups at DigiWhirl in different stages – one person startups, 5 – 10 people, 25-30 people and then of course bigger companies as well – Branding is an interesting topic for startups because a lot of times they don’t really do any major branding. A lot of people that met me after the talk were wondering about what branding to put in place when they were really Early Stage startups – like just a few months into their company.
Typically in early stage the focus of the startup should be on fine tuning their deliverable whether it is product or service. Also unless already funded, there won’t be any employees or just the bare minimum employee strength which means the founding team is doing everything. So practically in terms of time and money it is never possible to put in a great branding in place.
So what I suggest to them is to set up a really, basic branding in place. This shouldn’t take more than a days brainstorming within the team. Request an experienced entrepreneur or marketing person to be part of this session if possible. Then you can just quickly wrap this up. Because the most important thing in early days is speed so you can test out your product/service and get enough market feedback to ensure this is a viable venture.
Remember, all your branding elements need to be created keeping in mind the person it is intended for.
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