Starting an IT company can be risky. You must have a solid business plan, be ready to work hard, and understand the basic rules of running a business. If you are in the know of the latest technologies and enjoy using it, you can run a successful IT company. And this article will help you to build the IT firm from the ground up.
I want to start with the discussion of the IT business types. Information Technology (IT) is a model of the development, maintenance, and usage of computer software, systems, and networks for data processing and spreading. It is a relatively new business sector. However, we store and share information since the appearance of humanity.
You can find several classifications of IT types. Some scholars divide IT companies on service-based and product-based. But we classify them on five categories:
· Outsourcing IT agencies
They are firms that have a contract to provide a certain number of people to perform specific tasks: build, maintain, update the client’s software, hardware, and systems. Outsourcing is the standard practice for cost reduction. However, they have to accept the strict rules of the clients.
· GIC (global-in-homes centers)
They are offshore centers that perform designated functions for large companies. As a rule, global organizations open such centers to fulfill their IT needs. And usually, they are situated in countries with a lower cost of labor and a big talent pool (South America, Eastern Europe, India).
· SaaS (Software as a Service) companies
These companies produce software that unites business knowledge and tech expertise. They develop services for corporate clients and end customers (B2B and B2C).
We can say that it is one of the most prevalent IT businesses because they can handle almost every business task. There are seven popular types of SaaS apps:
Accounting and invoicing. It offers a full range of financial tracking and reporting services.
CRM (Customer resource management). This software helps handle customer information and track sales through the customer journey funnel.
Data management. This software helps analyze and protect a company’s confidential data.
E-commerce and web hosting. It is a remote server that can handle everything digital business needs.
ERP (Enterprise resource planning). It is a system of many SaaS applications that are most suitable for big enterprises.
Human resources. This software schedules and manages the hiring process and tracks employee hours.
Project management. This tool helps the staff of the company keep in touch.
· Technology consultancies
These firms help other companies solve business problems by advising them about technology solutions. They define the best software solution based on specific business needs. Many outsourcing IT firms are tech consultants.
· Technology solution providers
These companies handle the project needs of their clients from concept to installation. They study the client’s current infrastructure, evaluate their need, specify a mix of hardware/software to meet goals, install, maintain hardware/software at the client’s site, including ongoing services.
Now it is time to highlight the main steps for developing an IT startup.
1. Get professional help
To begin with, you need to develop a step-by-step plan. Or you can ask Adloonix for help. We are a digital marketing agency that can offer you to test your business idea before starting an IT company. Our agency also provides online businesses with all the important services. We will talk about them later.
2. Choose your business structure
It is important to choose the business structure of your business before starting an IT company. Sole proprietorship, general partnership, LLC (Limited Liability Corporation), and C corporation are the main types of business entities.
Sole proprietorship. This type is appropriate for your business if do not want to build a big corporation.
General partnership. You have to set a partnership when you are going to work with several partners.
LLC. This type of company includes one or more owners. The Board can choose if they want to pay taxes as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation.
C corporation. This type is perfect if you want to grow and expand internationally. However, it is more complicated to run this type of business structure.
3. Make a business plan
The next step is making a business plan. It is a road map of your business development. It should include your goals and how you want to achieve them.
4. Register your business
You cannot run a business unless you register it. The process of registration varies depending on your business structure and the state laws.
5. Create a professional website
The website is the facade of your IT company, and it must be flawless. Marketers can help you to define your aims and design and develop the site for you. But you cannot create a website once and forget about it. You should improve it constantly. Our team will help you to achieve this task.
6. Start promotion
You have to use all available services and networks to promote your startup. Modern digital channels are the best way to achieve business recognition. Our team can help you set up effective content marketing.
I told you that we provide IT startups with all the important services. It is time to describe them.
🔬 1. Market research
Firstly, we gather all the information about your IT startup, market, potential competitors, customers’ behavior.
· Market analysis
A detailed market analysis will help you to make important decisions, for example, how to improve your website to adapt it to your target audience.
Marketers also study the demand for your product or service. There is no sense to enter a market where is no demand for your products or services.
· Competitive analysis
IT business is highly competitive. Your task is to decide how to stand out from the competitors. More information you have about their peculiarities, special offers for customers, their strengths and weaknesses, more leverage you have upon them.
We pay attention to how your competitors run marketing campaigns and launch new products or services. You can save your time and money, determining what not to do and avoiding these mistakes.
We can give you the list of your competitors with a detailed analysis of their business conditions, define their product baskets, and predict their future innovation.
· Target audience analysis
The most significant point is to distinguish your target audience on the new market. Your promotion strategy will be more effective when you create your ideal customer, Buyer Persona. Knowledge about the needs and pains, goals, and dreams of your ideal customer will help you to attract more customers to your business.
→ Here is the link to our Market Research service 🔗
💡2. Analyses and Insights
At this stage, we analyze received information, present up-to-date market research, answer all questions, and give valuable recommendations for future marketing. The agency looks beyond the data by making conclusions and putting the results into the context of your situation.
🐴 3. Digital strategy
The next service is a digital strategy. It includes customer experience, multi/omnichannel marketing, brand and content strategies, funnel marketing.
· CX (customer experience) strategy
When we finish doing market research, we start creating a digital CX strategy. Remember, you have not only say that you are a customer-oriented company but be like that. Customer experience is a vital component of a successful IT startup. The business owners that focus on customer experience, at one time, cut spending, boost profits, and achieve higher results.
· Multi/Omnichannel marketing
I want to mention that we use multichannel marketing as well as omnichannel ones. Multichannel marketing attaches to the ability to target and engage clients with prospects on all available digital channels that work separately and not themselves integrated. In its turn, omnichannel is a marketing model that the brand uses to develop its CX strategy.
· Brand strategy
Branding is an important step in the development of your business. Our team helps you to build a noticeable brand that can draw the attention of your potential clients. You have to concentrate on authenticity, so your IT startup can dominate but only with a careful brand strategy. Banding aims to regulate and expand market share by fulfilling customers’ wants and needs. Not each service or product will interest each buyer.
· Content strategy
If you want to engage more visitors to your website, you need situational and creative content. If you want to turn the visitors to regular customers, you need situational and creative content. If you want to boost your sales, you need situational and creative content. In any case, content should be an essential part of the business plan.
The strategy of our firm consists of several important steps: analysis of the audience’s interests to define a content strategy, optimization of the content after creating, awareness when to publish it, analysis, and improvement of the results.
· Funnel marketing
Funnel marketing is the set of steps that a buyer does before, during and after the purchase. We call it a funnel because many people take the first step. Then, as a person continue to go further, some of them fall out, and the number of users decreases. So if you want to boost your sales, you have to improve your funnel marketing.
→ Here is the link to our Digital Strategy service 🔗
🦄 4. Execution
· Traffic generation
If you do not drive enough traffic to your site, you fail too soon. We usually use Traffic generation to help our clients. It is attracting consumers towards your website. This modern approach will help you to drive more brand awareness, quality leads, and sales.
Moreover, marketers help you to build the conversion machine to accept orders online and collect information about the visitors. In any case, your website must gather analytics, track visitors, and collect contact information of customers.
Our team set up analytics tracking, launch a lot of ad campaigns. Then we can see what works better, what does not work. Next, marketers optimize the campaign, try to reduce cost per click by optimization and testing, and measure what results you have (reach, impressions, clicks, leads). It can help to turn visitors into leads and customers.
· SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is one more useful method of promotion. Search engines provide the most relevant results for any search. The only way to reach higher positions is to offer quality content, great customer experience, and a technically optimized website.
· Content marketing
Earlier I said that you have to use all available digital channels to attract customers to your website. Now we will consider the most useful of them.
You can use SMM (social media marketing) to promote your business, engage clients, achieve business goals. We usually advise clients to use content marketing to achieve a higher effect during SMM. You can create an online blog about your products. It is a great way to post valuable information about your business niche, IT trends, and your services.
Social media ads are a very powerful tool, especially when you know how to use targeted ads. We can target your audience using specific demographics, psychographics, and behavioral information and set up ads for your potential customers. Our team knows how to get your clients via Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter advertisements.
One more powerful and cost-effective digital marketing strategy is advertising with PPC (pay-per-click). It is a useful tool that leads your website to the top of search results, even if the ranking of your business is not the best.
The main function of email marketing is attracting and keeping the target audience. Our marketers use this technique for increasing brand awareness, making the business up-to-date and encouraging repeat purchases.
→ Here is the link to our Traffic Generation service 🔗
📊 5. Measuring
· Measurement planning
A measurement plan is a document that converts your highest business goals into metrics that you can measure on your website. It is also a vital part of a digital strategy. It determines how your digital channels play the best together to achieve your goals.
I want to mention one more time that our digital marketing company can help you to launch an IT startup with no stress. We think about engaging the quality and efficiency of the business inside the market.
Subsequently, you have an unmistakable comprehension of the business prospects, full report about your target market, your competitors, and the target audience. Nevertheless, our team can help you to save your business investments. We know how to help you and are responsible for what we do.
Contact Adloonix 🔗, if you want to get more information about our work process or you want to hire us.
Best Regards,
The marketing architect and founder of Adloonix
Vlad Sapozhnykov 🔗,
E-mail: founder@adloonix
What type of IT business do you run? How do you overcome all business challenges? Feel free to leave your comment below.
