Top tips for founders from four start up and content experts!

Golden nuggets of info to radically improve? your marketing and communications efforts

I did the research on what the experts have to say, so that you don’t have to. These are the tips that I have found most useful to share with clients of mine this year!?

Matt Lerner is a start up growth strategist and founder of SYSTM who spent 15 years as a marketer in Silicon Valley and 10 years at Paypal.

1. Make sure you have a ‘growth mindset’

In a startup, it is inevitable that mistakes will be made. It’s more important to choose the right work – focus on things that can have an impact, move quickly and learn from your mistakes.

2. Know your North Star Metric

This should be a number that increments when you deliver value to customers and it should be simple and memorable. Come up with a simple thing that everyone in your company can understand. It should represent the entire funnel and it should not change. That’s why it’s called the North Star.

3. Get your language/market fit right

?If you do not have language/market fit, put down your tools and go find it. You will be looking for the exact right words to explain your product or service to prospective customers, words that resonate with goals and struggles that are already in their brains. When you talk about your product, a lightbulb in their heads switches on that says, “That is EXACTLY what I’m looking for” —? they feel like you’ve read their minds.

A good language/market fit helps you understand and size your market, narrow in on what to build, validate demand and demonstrate traction. The business impact is abrupt, not gradual. It’s like picking a lock. And when it finally clicks, it’s thrilling.?

Jay Baer is a global business strategist and serial entrepreneur who has authored seven books and is a Hall of Fame keynote speaker.

1. Customer service is the new marketing

Responding to reviews and making a habit of it results in a tremendous free marketing research tool that can help companies to do better on the things they know they are bad at. When you make it part of your business processes to find reviews, to take that information to heart, and then to respond back, you will go from good to great. Reviews can be in a petri dish for operational improvement.

1. Let your customers grow your business for you?

There is a time and place for advertising, but in many cases the most successful brands advertise the least because their customers and clients spread the word for them. Even though word of mouth is the #1 way of generating business, fewer than 1% of companies have a word-of-mouth strategy. If you want your customers to be a proactive word of mouth engine, you have to give them a story to tell.

3. Focus on the problems you solve, not on the services you offer. People don’t want services, they want a fix to the problem they have.?

Joe Pullizzi is a content marketing speaker, strategist, author and content entrepreneur, and the founder of the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), a leading education and training organization for content marketing.

1. Be a thought leader

Consistently produce insightful content and share your expertise through speaking engagements and interviews. By positioning yourself as a leader in the industry, you can build a strong personal brand and establish credibility in the field.

1. Content marketing can attract an audience much more effectively than traditional advertising.

Today’s customers are drawn to creative content, not advertising. Unlike traditional advertising, content offers important and immediate insight into what your potential customers connect with. Pay attention to how potential customers engage and respond to your content by, for instance, reading the comments they leave and tracking how they share it.

You can even do this during the production phase of your product. By creating content and keeping an eye on what your potential customers are most excited about, you can focus on those aspects. This will help ensure its success when it goes to market.

1. Use the right platform to reach your audience

The right kind of content should attract customers like bees to pollen, but for your target audience to find that content, you need the right platform.

Your choice of platform should be a channel that is perfectly suited for your target audience, one that makes it easy for them to connect with your content.

Brian Clark is the founder of CopyBlogger and a writer and entrepreneur.

1. Build your audience first, listen to what they want, and then develop the product .?

Sometimes they can’t tell you exactly what they want. But that doesn’t mean they won’t give you indications. Usually it’s in the form of problems, frustrations, and/or desires. And then it’s up to you as an entrepreneur or a businessperson to help solve the problem or satisfy the desire.

2. Social media is the greatest free-market research environment ever because people out there are acting on their own and being more honest than they’ll be in a focus group. You can survey people, but if you ask the wrong questions in the wrong way, they’ll tell you what you want to hear. You want to hear the truth because you don’t want to make an expensive mistake developing the wrong thing.

3.Headlines are the first thing that people will see, and often, unfortunately, the last thing they see of your content because a shockingly large amount of people will be scanning Twitter or scanning their e-mail inbox or RSS feed reader. You basically live or die by the headline. So if you don’t grab them there, you've lost. This is why headlines are so important. There’s an art and a science to writing good headlines. And the science is when you see how much higher a percentage of attention your content gets, versus when you might not try so hard with your headline.

In a world where startups thrive or wither based on their strategies, insights from seasoned experts can be the compass guiding your success. By following the above key principles of understanding customer needs, leveraging content for engagement, and using platforms adeptly, you can not only navigate but also thrive in the competitive landscape of business.