On May 13th, DIGIMARCON and TECHSPO held an annual conference at the Crowne Plaza in New York to help people working in marketing better understand the digital marketing world. At this conference several startups set up their booths to try and attract and network with consumers and businesses.

There were two main talks happening simultaneously which focused on two ends of the market, marketing and sales. Daniel Lemin from Convince & Convert gave the marketing talk and gave me lots of things to share with anyone starting a new startup.

Lemin said there is a 10 step guide that all businesses should follow in order to gain more conversions and brand awareness for your new company.

#1: Knowing Your Audience: Every company new and old needs to know this, your audience will make or break you and not knowing who you market towards is the first step. “70% of B2B marketers are creating more content in 2015 but only 38% say it’s effective.”

#2: About Page Missing: An increasingly apparent issue among new websites and startups is no one knows what you do. Having a clear and clickable about page on your site can make the difference when just starting out.

#3: Not Promoting Your Content On Social: You have got to hustle your content anyway you can and find the appropriate content for each social platform. Don’t just plop any content everywhere and hope it works.

#4: Not Sharing Personal Stories: People forget that businesses are actually people as well. Don’t be afraid to show a personal side to your business on how you started or why you are doing what you are doing.

#5: Poor Editing and Typos: These are never acceptable anywhere, know your content is edited before posting anything.

#6: No Editorial Mission or Voice: This tip really applies to company blogs and Business to Business blogs. But it is similar to the Personal stories one, you’re talking to people, not robots, so you have to make sure it feels authentic. “Good editorial missions create loyal followers.”

#7: Not Visual Enough: “People are lazy. They read only 20% of the text on a page. When an image is paired with it, they retain 65% of the content three days later.”

#8: Not Analyzing Data: This is a biggie, never undermine your analytics. They mean the difference between a thriving blog, business, startup, etc. and a failing one.

#9: Poor Headlines: This is another tip focused in on corporate blogs but it is known throughout many parts of business. Your headline is what brings people in, and if it sucks then you will not get traffic. It is also after analytics which means that your analytics should inform your headlines. “Optimal headline length is 6-8 words.”

#10: Ignoring Comments: Especially when you are small, your comments are everything. They are your budding community who follow your business or blog and want you to do better, or in some cases fail horribly. Listening to them and altering your content appropriately is how you gain more of the loyal followers you already have. “You might have sparked a thrilled discovery or conversation, but if you don’t monitor comments you’ll never know it.”