Category: Marketing

All types of marketing and promotion strategies for startups

Restaurant Business Plan – Do’s and Don’ts

by liftmystartupBusiness Ideas / Knowledge / Marketing / Mistakes / PlanningLeave a Comment on Restaurant Business Plan – Do’s and Don’ts
Restaurant Business Plan

Are you set for opening your restaurant? Is this the plan you had a long time back but 

could not implement it because you were afraid of risking your money and time into it?

Well now, this might be the right time to sit down and draw up an idea to open your own restaurant business.

Don’t worry, we are here to assist you to produce the right direction for achievement and grow your restaurant business without worrying about the risk factor.

No doubt it is a tough business which will consume much time and money but That’s Where we will guide you with a modernized restaurant 

business planning helps and makes your business a successful run in this restaurant market.

To know more about business planning you should read our this article- how to make a business plan ?

First lets know what are the drawbacks in failure of some restaurant business.

Hey, wait! We do not want you to discourage you or any aspiring restaurateurs out there, or to lower the morale of the Present ones,  however, we tend to believe that “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

So let’s go through it first:

Poor location planning and rent:

 Location is the key factor before you set-up your restaurant business

some restaurateur spend a lot in renting for the location inside the busy locality and end of being in loss because of high rent.

it is important not to overspend. Often good locations come at a high price, and restaurants are not able to cover their costs.

If Also they get the right location they fail to find their right audience also analysis the location properly before setting up your restaurant business.

Inexperience of owner:

Well it is said that anyone with financial support and time can open a restaurant business but it is very important for the owner to have

The right planning and idea for the restaurant business. lack of inexperience leads to failure in business.

Staff management problems: 

Untrained Staffs and thefts can lead the restaurant business down within some time.

Many restaurants fail because of poor staff management this will harm your business and be the major reason for failure because it’s all about customer satisfaction at the end.

Poor menu structure:

Some restaurants have a complicated menu which is not structured well and creates confusion in the customer’s mind and dissatisfaction of customers leads to a loss in business.

No involvement of the owner:

Often restaurateur does not have experience in this business market and end of depending on the manager of restaurants. they only think

investing money is enough for the long successful run for business, but this also leads to the breakdown of the business.

Lack of analyzing:

The main thing restaurant fails because of lack of analysis of the market which dish isn’t doing well to exclude those and to bring a new dish which will be liked by the customers and in trend dishes.

Also, it is the responsibility of the higher management to identify the loss of business and bring on solutions to sustain in restaurant business market.

At last, the main thing in today’s world is the marketing of your business to the right audiences.

All the things are done great location, well known trained staff, good menu structure but still, restaurants fail…. Why?

Well they forget the power of marketing in today’s generation. your business won’t make an impact in the restaurant market if it is not marketed properly in both online and offline.

So Now hopefully you understood Why some restaurant fails.

Now keeping this in mind let us guide you the business plan you should have before and after 

Market Analysis:

Before establishing your restaurant it is important to make the market research of what customer likes to have, What should be the proper location for your restaurant business 

what is the trend dishes for restaurant business all the reports from some successful and failed restaurant business 

and then have a conversation with the expert to make this business plan a success.

Branding of your Restaurant:

From the information of reports you can have a clear idea of how to step ahead in the process. It is important to make a presentation of your restaurant brand by introducing your goals some unique selling points of your restaurant your right ambiance of restaurants etc. 

In this stage, you have to also invest your time and money in marketing your restaurant business.

Proper Menu Structure:

Your Menu is the important element of your restaurant business a well-structured menu will drive customers and your customer won’t be confused

also, your menu design should be eye-catching and it would be great if the design matches the theme and ambiance of the restaurant then it will be very good for your business.

This means you are focused on every detail of the restaurant. the menu should contain every information of the dish in a summarized way so that customer should have an idea 

what he is ordering.

Staff Hiring:

It is important to hire a well-experienced staff in your restaurant business because these will be the people who will be interacting with the customer.

Customer Satisfaction should be the main goal of any kind of restaurant business. 

Restaurant design and ambiance:

The design of the restaurant will be the key attraction for the customers to drive them into your restaurant. Here you can show the customer

the creativity and thoughts you put in-to the restaurant mainly here you are showing the concept of the restaurant.

Right Location:

As we discussed before that location also plays a vital part in a successful restaurant business, it’s important that your targeted audience can come to your restaurant without facing any difficulty also analyze the location before setting up the restaurant business. 

Regular Audit:

This should be happening more often to analyze whether the restaurant is making profits or not and what steps should be taken to improves it, also 

analyze which dish is not selling and remove that dish which something new which will be liked by customers.

Marketing to and for:

Well Marketing your restaurant business to and fro is important so that to make customers know that your restaurant keeps on updating new dishes,

new offers, some festive offers, etc. It’s important that the Restaurant should be in constant presence in social networks to drive new customers.

So this is some of the guides you should be looking into before setting up a restaurant business…

Yes, it is a little long but it’s worth your time reading.






10 Ways Digital Marketing Can Help Startups

by liftmystartupDigital Marketing / Marketing / PlanningLeave a Comment on 10 Ways Digital Marketing Can Help Startups
Digital Marketing for Startups

Digital marketing is one of the best and cost efficient ways to strengthen your startup. 

In this fast paced digitally driven world, you need to formulate a powerful digital marketing strategy to establish your brand name. 

Everything you do in the digital platform contributes to your online presence and puts your company on the map of the digital world.

It is very important to hire a dynamic Digital Marketing Agency (Provide link of Top Digital Marketing Firms) that takes care of your online activities.  

Here are 10 crucial digital marketing tips for startups:

  1. SEO Optimization

SEO optimization is one of the most reliable digital marketing strategies to get organic traffic to your website. It is not easy for a startup to rank on top initially. Due to competition and SEO technicalities, it is better to hire a good digital marketing agency to do your SEO. This will save you time and add value to your investment.

2. Relevant use of social media platforms

It is essential to be dynamic in nature as the social media platform keeps changing all the time. It is very important to keep up with the current trends. You need to stay updated and see how you can use the latest trends to increase your sales. 

The voice of your brand needs to be present on every social media channel. According to research, it is effective to put up 5 to 10 posts every week on Facebook, once a day for LinkedIn and 5 tweets daily on Twitter.  

In order to run a successful campaign, it is important to have a clear brand voice first. 

3.Constant site updating

Making sure that your website is ready and user friendly is very important. And constantly updating your website with new products that are introduced is essential. 

Your website should also be ready for conversions whenever a user decides to purchase something. The customer should not face any issues as this is one of the major parts of brand building and customer retention. 

4. Video Marketing

Video marketing is seeing an upward trend in the market nowadays. A majority of the current generation prefers to watch videos compared to reading things and this makes video marketing a powerful tool. 

You can consider video advertisements, Facebook live, Instagram stories and SnapChat stories to engage your audience. 

5. PPC Marketing

PPC stands for pay per click. This is a form of marketing in which the advertisers pay a fee each time their advertisement is clicked. It is a way of paying to get visits to your website rather than earning those visits organically. 

Google Ads is popular platform for this form of marketing. 

6. Educate your customers

Nobody likes only promotions. Customers will like your brand more if you are educating them and answering their queries. 

7. Engage your target audience

Your posts don’t always have to be general. Engaging your target audience is an important task. Tag them in curated content, conduct Q&A sessions for better interactions, ask interesting questions and conduct an audience poll. Basically keep the target audience engaged with your brand. This will make them feel like you care for their needs and their loyalty towards your brand will increase.

8. Concentrate on your target audience

This is one of the best strategies to convert your viewers into customers as they are looking for exactly what you are selling. It’s important to narrow down your market as they are the segment that’s likely to give you business.

It’s a smart move to segment your target customers according to gender, region, age and so on for maximum returns. 

9. Creative content

You will have to invest on a solid content writer and a good graphic designer. The content these people produce will primarily engage your audience. 

Creating content that is unique and relevant can have a strong impact on your target audience. 

10. Be Dedicated

Be dedicated with your digital marketing. You should invest time and put your best efforts for your campaigns to be successful. 

If you are dedicated and devoted to your startup, you can achieve your dreams in no time! Don’t hesitate to take calculated risks. No risk, no return.

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How to make a business plan?

by Srivatsa SMarketing / Mistakes / PlanningLeave a Comment on How to make a business plan?
How to Make A Business Plan?

How to make a business plan ? – This is a common question in the head of most of the new entrepreneurs and startup owners.

A goal without a plan is just a wish. It is essential for every business to have a business plan. It helps in providing direction and attracting potential investors.

A business plan is important for the success of your business. But, how do you make a business plan? Relax! This article will help you answer all your queries.

Firstly, What is a business plan?

A business plan is a document of your business’s future objectives and strategies for achieving them.

It is very important as it helps in understanding the vision of your business, it helps in analyzing your plans for finance, marketing, manufacturing, production, sales, etc. and this will increase your chances for success. 

We have written these 9 steps to help you develop a business plan for your business –

Table of Content

1
Executive Summary
2
Company Summary
3
Detail about management
4
Overview of market size
5
Details of products or services
6
Sales and Marketing plans
7
Goals
8
Detailed Financial Projection
9
Funding requests

1.) Executive Summary:

An executive summary is a short document that summarizes a long report or a proposal. It is an overview of your business and your business plans. When you’re trying to pitch your idea to a potential investor, you’ll need to craft a perfect executive summary.

Curious to know why you write one? Here’s why- Investors, lenders, CEO’s and managers are always busy. When you’re writing your business plan, your goal is to get into the door of the investor.

Assuming that your business plan is a good fit for the investor, a strong executive summary will get you a meeting with the investor. A poor executive summary will leave you standing in the cold. 

2.) Company Summary:

A company summary is an important part of the business plan. It is an overview of the major points about your company- your history, management team, number of employees, location, mission, vision and legal structure. 

  • Company history: Includes date of founding and the people involved.
  • Management team: Details about who runs the company and other key roles of the employees.
  • Location of the business: Details about the place of your workspace. 
  • Legal structure: There are several business structures like Sole proprietor, Partnership, One person company, Private limited company and Public limited company. The summary must include what structure you’ve decided and who owns what percentage of it. 
  • Mission statement: Is a short statement of who you are, what you do and what you desire to become. 

3.) Detail about management:

A management team consists of all the employees that work together and manage a company. These individuals manage the daily operations of a company to ensure efficiency and customer satisfaction. 

If you’re a startup or looking to expand, there may be team members you’re lacking. In that case, mention the roles and what your plans are to fill those job opportunities. 

If you plan to present your business plan to banks or potential investors, this is crucial data. 

It includes who is the CEO in your company? What qualifies employees for their respective positions? Work experience, Past success and their degrees can be referenced for each person. You want to showcase everyone in a good light as investors invest in people first and business second.

4.) Overview of market size:

Market size is the number of people in a certain market segment who are the potential buyers.

Companies should determine the market size before launching a new product or service.

Now, it’s time to focus towards your target market. Who are you selling to? Once you have identified your target market, you should discuss the trends for this market. Talk about the market’s evolving needs, tastes or other forthcoming changes in the market. 

5.) Details of products or services:

Your customers don’t care about you. They care about themselves. They care about their needs, their wants, their dreams and their goals. If you’re able to help them reach any one of it with the help of your products or services, your business has a great chance of making high profits. 

It’s certainly useful for you to include a paragraph about your products and services to show the investors what you offer.  

6.) Sales and Marketing plans:

Before you even think about writing your marketing and sales plan, you must have your target market well defined. Without truly understanding who you’re marketing to, it will not convert into a sale. 

The marketing and sales plan section of your business plan helps you strategize how you can reach your target audience, how you plan on selling it to them, what your pricing plan is, and what types of campaigns and partnerships you need to make your business a success. 

7.) Goals:

A goal describes where you want to be in the future. Business goals describes what a company expects or hopes to achieve over a specific period of time.

Not only whole companies have goals but also departments and employees usually set goals. If they achieve their goals, they get a promotion. The business goals and the employee’s goals usually go hand in hand. 

8.) Detailed Financial Projection:

Financial management is at the heart of any business. It is one area that can help drive it forward. A financial projection is an essential part of your business plan.

It is one of the main things the investors pay attention to. It is basically the projection of future revenues and expenses. The financial section of your business plan should include sales forecast, expenses budget, cash flow statement, balance sheet, and a profit and loss statement. 

9.) Funding requests:

If you’re planning to start your own business, you’ll need the funds to turn your vision into a reality. While some entrepreneurs have personal assets to fund their business, most require assistance from an outside source, in which case a funding request is required.

A funding request is basically a written request to obtain funding from a lender or an investor for your business. Whether you’re obtaining capital from a bank, private investor or an angel investor, you should create a funding request. It increases your chance of getting the funds approved.

Useful article –

Restaurant Business Plan

10 Important Things To Consider Before Starting A Startup

by Amit DadhichCulture / Marketing / Mistakes / PlanningLeave a Comment on 10 Important Things To Consider Before Starting A Startup
10 Important Things To Consider Before Starting A Startup

Many people are thinking to start the start-up in the present world but not all people get success.

After helping more than 1000 businesses we have listed down these 10 most important points to consider before you start your own startup.

Point No. 10 will force you to think twice.

Table of content-

  1. Understand the scope
  2. Market Sizing
  3. Competition Analysis
  4. Finance Mapping
  5. Risk Analysis
  6. Timelines
  7. Testing
  8. Marketing Strategy
  9. Find Proper Talent
  10. Your Partners

1.Understand the scope-

Just having the brilliant Idea does not mean that business is going to be successful. 

No matter how unique your business idea is, you should understand the scope of business before you start it.

 Even the unique business ideas fail because of not having a scope in the market.

To understand the scope of the market you need to do the research. 

It is very important to deliver what your customer wants, not what you want.

2. Market sizing-

 Market sizing is another very important part of a startup. Market sizing is done to understand the potential of the market. 

To understand the market sizing we generally use the “bottoms-up-approach” – Breaking down a big number into smaller sets of numbers and then rolling them back to understand the size of the market

For example you can ask yourself these questions –

 How many water coolers can be sold in India in a  year?

 How many people will be needing morning breakfast in the office in Bangalore? 

How many people need bike repairing services on doorstep in Bangalore?

While answering  these types of questions, at the end you will get to know how much maximum revenue you can generate at the end of the year.

3. Competition analysis-

Before you start any business it is very important to understand your competition as well. 

Try to visit their stores or shops. 

If they don’t have any physical store and shop then call them and ask all the possible questions as a customer.

Visit the websites of all your competitors, understand their content strategy and get yourself signed up to their mailing lists. By doing this you’ll have an idea about their automation and email campaigns.

Click on their ads on Google, Facebook and other platforms to understand how do they retarget you.  

Understand their strength and weakness, & suppliers and customers. This will give a rough idea about your position in the market.

4. Finance Mapping-

Money is a big topic when it comes to starting a business. If you do not map the faniance before you start chances of your failure are very high.

Is it going to be a bootstrap business? 

Or are you going to take a small loan?

Should you look for investors in the beginning?

If you want the investment then how much is this?

You should have answers of these questions in the beginning itself.

Borrowing the money for no reason can sometimes lead to personal and professional conflicts.

If your company can grow only with the help of professional investors then start preparing the proper documents and balance sheets. These are going to help you further.

5. Risk analysis – 

It is important to analyse the risk before we start any business.We perform this risk analysis activity to identify the possible issues in any startup. 

It is not possible to forecast each and every risk in any business but If we recognise and analyse the potential risks then we can save a lot of time and energy later.

6. Timelines – 

It is very important for a new start-up to fix the deadline for every work. With every plan  you should also make a deadline for it to be executed.

 Every team member should know about your plans and the deadlines you have fixed.  

Not being able to execute the plan what you have conducted is one of the most common reasons of failure.

Time is equally important as money in startups and people don’t recognise it in the beginning.

7. Testing– 

Before you come to the conclusion to start a business you have to test your business model first  while you are a full time employee itself. 

 It is not good to quit your job just to do a business because you want to do it without testing it.

You have to verify and crosscheck the plans and the other parameters what you have decided for your startup.

As we know that business is the calculated risk and calculation should be on the basis of testing.

By doing this testing you will understand that what your customers like what your customers dislike, is it good to go with the same product and services what you have? or do you need to modify your plan a little bit?

Knowing the answers to these kinds of questions is also important before you start your startup.

8. Marketing strategy- 

To prepare a marketing strategy for a Startup you don’t need to be a very good marketer.  Rather you should have an understanding of your niche.

Keep yourself in feet of your customers and think about where you can find them.

One of the easiest ways to grow a business is digital marketing so you should be focusing on digital marketing more in the beginning depending upon the type of startup you are into.

Make sure that before starting the marketing you have achievable marketing goals that are aligned with the plans and targets.

Without a marketing goal you should never start marketing.

You must also read – 

10 Ways Digital Marketing Can Help Startups

 

9. Find  proper  talent- 

It is one of the very difficult tasks of a Startup to find the right talent.

 We have seen people hiring  anybody to complete the work because they are not finding  the right talent. 

By doing this you are harming your own business. 

Do not hire people who are not aligned to your company values and goals.

You have to  interview thousands of people just to get that Core Team of your startup.

 Startup definitely depends on the core team members in the beginning so do not compromise in hiring the core team.

  10.)  Your Partners-

Do not partner with somebody because you are not able to find a partner. 

Not everyone can be your startup partner remember this.

Many people boast about themselves and they do not have any proven track record to run a company or to do something great in their field.

 They will promise everything and when it comes to execution they won’t be able to do it.  That’s when you will suffer a lot.

Try to partner with the guy who has different skills than you so that  both of you can use your skills in developing the organisation and your skills will not be wasted in arguing and planning.

Always partner with the guy who wants to learn and doesn’t hesitate in asking for the help.

You shouldn’t be partnering with the people who are not having similar work ethics and lifestyle values like you.

 

Related Articles –

How to Start A Startup in Bangalore?