In 2016, starting a new venture and developing your product or service requires working efficiently. Even though you may have limited resources and may be racing against the competition to be first to market. You need to ensure your startups offers value in terms of innovation, quality and convenience.

 
Small startup teams are too busy raising funds or searching for an affordable developer who actually provides added value vs actually running the company, market it effectively, analyze data, or provide extensive customer service. Outsourcing these marketing, automation and customer outreach services will enable a business to focus on facilitating growth and establishing sustainability.

 
OUTSOURCING TO GET DEVELOPMENT WORK DONE
Even for those who have access to some type of funds, hiring the perfect developer in your office’s vicinity is not that easy anymore. Try finding a high quality developer in San Francisco these days. Like a famous saying when it comes to relationships, the good once are taken. Hiring leftovers to build your product in the competitive world we live in is never a good option.

One solution to address the limitations of a small team and limited budgets is to outsource. Outsourcing is a good option to consider when you are faced with time-to-market challenge and shortage of talent. It can continue to be a strategy option as you scale up your business. Thousands of startups all of over the world are already outsourcing administrative tasks like development, accounting, human resources, and customer service.

Outsourcing is not exactly new, but today’s cloud-oriented environment has introduced innovative ways to execute certain business or technological processes that will not break the bank for a small business. Here are a few concepts, best practices and resources.
 
MARKETING AUTOMATION
Automation usually allows for more time and resources to be dedicated to other areas and thus, it plays a key role in the success of a business. A variety of tasks can be automated, and various tools exist to make it happen.

Social media marketing which can be a cumbersome activity for understaffed companies. Over 50% of businesses said to be managing their own social media marketing campaigns, but most of them are not capable at doing this on their own. Especially with an ever changing social media environment.

Take a look at Youtube marketing for instance. While my personal experience with over 500 customers shows that Youtube is one of the ‘must haves’ in any marketing plan, only 7% of the companies in the US effectively work with Youtube to market their company or product.
 
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Scripted and NewsCred are are examples of Web content solutions for businesses that may not be able to produce the content required to promote or sustain their business.

The offerings include;

• Blog posts

• White papers

• Website copy

• Product descriptions

• Articles

• Local content

These services are an excellent option for startups that have the technical knowhow to develop their product, but need help in building a descriptive marketing copy.
 
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Not all small business can afford to outsource their customer service divisions to an offshore team. A cloud based help desk is a good solution which enables customers to find useful information themselves.
 
BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS
Cloud-based tools can be used by small business owners to collect data about their proceses in order to determine existing or potential roadblocks to efficiency and productivity. Without good tools in place, data can be skewed, presenting a different picture of the overall business.

Simply measuring the business with data isn’t enough. To determine where the business is doing weel and where improvements can be made, it’s important to analyze the data you collected.

There are examples of big data platforms such as Insight which aims at small businesses, including apps which create actionable reports out of your collected data. Which such information, a small business can focus on making data-driven decisions, particularly in making adjustments to marketing campaigns, production or other aspects of the business.
 

It’s a beautiful time for future entrepreneurs. Bringing your idea into reality 50 years ago meant big investments and lots of persuading along the way. The only thing standing you in the way to launch your company today, is your own willpower and a good internet connection. If you have those in place, you can reach a potential mark of millions and even billions.