Krishen Iyer: An Innovative Marketing Approach Key to Leveraging Growth in the Miami Startup Scene

Over the past few years, South Florida has consistently ranked near the top in startup activity. In 2017, however, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale region finally eclipsed its competitors as the top-ranked region for new business creation. This will certainly come as no surprise to those living in the Miami Metropolitan Area, as the sustained rise in startup activity has been readily apparent to local observers for quite some time now.

Of course, a number of factors play a role in encouraging or discouraging startup activity. Market opportunity is perhaps one of the most important factors, and the Miami region rates well in metrics measuring each individual region’s market opportunity and features quite a large percentage of startups that can be credibly defined as opportunity-driven businesses. The numbers are indeed impressive, yet there are legitimate questions concerning the sustainability of the startup activity and the staying power of the newly created businesses.

The businesses growing out of Miami’s startup activity show a great deal of promise, but, at least for the most part, they are not growing quite fast enough. In fact, the region ranked close to the bottom nationwide in several metrics designed to measure the rate of startup growth. The region’s poor performance in these metrics -- which include metrics focused on employee growth as well as annual revenue growth -- reflects weaknesses in either the scale-up environment or in the scale-up strategies selected by the startups.

The availability of capital and talent influence how quickly a startup is capable of scaling up, and there are countless strategies designed to make both capital and talent far more accessible to startups. Krishen Iyer of Managed Benefits Services, for example, believes startups looking to scale up stand to gain a great deal through the use of innovative marketing strategies, especially those that yield improved results while introducing greater levels of cost efficiency into every aspect of a company’s marketing approach.

Iyer, the founder of Managed Benefits Services, focused on how improved digital marketing campaigns influence a startup’s ability to scale, explaining that far too many startups focus on traffic or lead generation numbers without considering the quality of that traffic or those leads. Startups that filter out lower-quality traffic and lower-quality leads have a better understanding of their needs in terms of cost per acquisition as well as their overall demographic, traffic, and quality needs.

Although a refined and more innovative approach to marketing is sure to improve Miami startups as they attempt to scale up, it’s worth noting that improved access to talent and capital can be achieved in any number of ways. How well the Miami region’s newly created businesses find new strategies for attracting both talent and capital will surely have an impact on the area’s future appeal among entrepreneurs.