Instoried Research Labs Pvt. Ltd: Predicting the Performance of your Content before Publishing
Sharmin Ali: CEO and Director
For increasing the value of your brand, Content Marketing has a pivotal role to play. Synchronizing with the latest technology and understanding the dynamics of the market, a plethora of content marketers design creative content for getting the paramount attention of the audience to increase the market value of your products and services.
The content marketing lifecycle comprises five stages which are conducting research, building a content strategy, creating content with editing, publishing across platforms and finally measuring content performance. There is a multitude of tools available that give the content performance post publishing, and the most over-emphasized of all is Google Analytics. GA gives a quantitative summary of how the content has performed. However, it does not tell why the content performed badly if it did so, even after spending so much on Google ads and SEOs. This can be quite disheartening for content marketers globally, spending millions of dollars on marketing their products. So, we at Instoried thought, what if there were a way to predict content performance even before publishing it. As we know that people make decisions based on how they feel and not based on what they should do. If a content marketer could gauge the emotional composition of his content while writing it and also dynamically get smart recommendations on what words they should use to improve this emotional composition, then this would be of great help to a content marketer. At Instoried, they have designed a pioneering tool to help content marketers to predict and improve the emotional intelligence of their content to emotionally target their consumers.
HOW DID IT START?
Switching from a technical background to a creative one, Sharmin Ali explored all the dimensions of content creation. She has pioneered the domain with great expertise and flair. She shares her impeccable and astounding venture of entrepreneurship. On the same notion, she says, “After completing my engineering degree, I worked in the analytics/consulting space for 4 years across verticals: Technology, Pharmaceuticals, BFSI, and Retail. After working for almost 16 hours a day, even on weekends, I realized that I was just helping the rich get richer and not adding any value to my own life. So I decided to quit. I was always very enthused by art and literature. So, I joined a theatre company and traveled to 19 states in India doing theatre. Post that I started my own theatre company and ran that for 3.5 years. I exited from the theatre in 2017 December. In the meantime, I was also working very closely with CXOs globally, helping them build their content strategy. I always knew about the importance of content and the problems content marketers face globally. Hence, I decided to start Instoried to help content marketers create great content.”
BEATING THE COMPETITION
It is indispensable to be unique and different from others in the world of business so that you can empower the market and deliver the best.
Technology is not the central differentiator that gives you an edge over other players in the industry. At Instoried Research Labs, they deal with the marketing sector and work with content marketers. Marketing is that sector within a company that is pivotal as it’s imperative to promote products to consumers. With significant marketing budgets, large companies always need to strike a great rapport with their consumers, hence making it a very lucrative industry for them as great content directly impacts ROI.
STORY OF STRUGGLE
It’s not easy to embark on the entrepreneurial journey without going through a set of challenges and obstacles in the trajectory. You ought to be thick-skinned while facing them and experience your share of obstacles. On the same notion, they at Instoried Research Labs Pvt. Ltd. experienced a tough time. Lack of funds is the biggest roadblock as they were bootstrapped. Sharmin broke her PPF and put all her savings into the Company to ensure that they could sail through it. Secondly, hiring a great team was a bit difficult and thirdly, raising funds. However, sheer hard work and discipline helped them to raise investment and also hire a stellar team.
HOW CAN YOU OVERCOME YOUR STRUGGLES?
Facing your struggles can help you discover more about yourself and open the gateway of several opportunities that can shape your entrepreneurial excursion. Sharmin Ali says, “Learn to save money as much as possible as a founder of a startup. The biggest risk any founder takes is to start a venture. Post this, a founder needs to take calculated risks and difficult decisions to ensure the company stays afloat and can face all challenges. Having said this, I feel, a founder (especially the CEO) should always know that no money is ever enough and that they need to continuously keep raising.”
The CEO has an essential message to provide to the readers in these crucial times of pandemic.
SHARMIN SAYS, “During this COVID-19 crisis, the first message that I want to give to other startups is to cut down costs, save money and not think much about valuation at this point. If you are in dire need of cash, raise some quickly and prepare for the worst. Secondly, your team is always your asset, so do not just let them dangling in mid-air during this crisis, be there and support them. Even if you have to cut salaries, ensure that you are the strength to your team at this difficult hour.”
ABOUT THE DISTINGUISHED FACETS
Sharmin Ali is the Founder and CEO at Instoried. She has a huge experience of working with fortune companies in the US. An engineer by profession, she has also written and published two books and Instoried is her second company. Sharmin is a travel enthusiast and has spoken at various events globally. She has also won several awards for her theatre and writing backgrounds.
Sutanshu Raj is the CTO at Instoried. After pursuing his engineering in Computer Science, Sutanshu did his masters in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning from Finland. She has also worked with Microsoft and the Public Health Foundation of India. He was CTO at a Berlin-based startup before this, which got acquired, and then she joined Instoried full-time.
