Samuel Sundar Singh forgot to book a cooking-gas cylinder for his house, despite his wife’s repeated reminders. That’s when he realised others might need help remembering their many errands too. In December 2009, he founded Reminders, a company that would keep track of your to-dos and “remind” you in time. Priced at 180 for 30 reminders in a month, the Chennai-based firm ensures you don’t forget doctor appointments, interviews, and important birthdays and wedding anniversaries. They send you multiple reminders, through SMSes, e-mails and phone calls. Singh has already put 30 lakhs in the business, and has 850 customers across Bellary and Chennai. He’s been able to recover only 1/6th of his investment, and knows he needs to push subscriptions to 1000 per month “to survive.” But, with his Facebook page failing to create enough ripples, how can Singh reach out?

Pitch no. 1: SMS Advertising

Bindu Rathore, co-founder of Web Total Marketing, a marketing consultancy

There are already so many free reminder services available—on mobile phones, computers or online. I don’t think anybody will want to pay for this. But, if Samuel wants to persist, he needs to change his business model. He should provide free reminder services to his subscribers, and should help facilitate deliveries of flowers, cards and chocolates for reminders like anniversaries and birthdays. For every order booked from his side, he can ask vendors for a revenue share, maybe 15 to 20 per cent. He can also tie up with similar vendors for SMS advertising.  His reminder SMSes can carry an advertisement of his vendor’s brand.

Pitch no. 2: Define Your Target

Akram Quraishi, co-founder of RapidFeeds, RSS feed management service

There are many free desktop, web and mobile application that do this really well. I think his target market are people who are not very tech savvy and don’t own high end mobile gadgets, and aren’t on Facebook or Twitter. He needs to somehow get a list of individuals who often pay their bills late. Getting this list might not be easy but it’ll help him reach people who’ll appreciate this service. Google AdWords is a very good option as a marketing tool, as is advertising on online bill payment sites.

Pitch no. 3: Demonstrate Value

Karthikeyan Vijayakumar, CEO of Twenty19, a college student opportunities website

The key challenge for Reminders is to convince people of their value in the age of Google calendars and in-built phone reminders. They must demonstrate value. For example, they could partner with travel portals and offer trip reminder services to travellers. Once customers see value here, they will stay with the company for other reminders too. They can also partner with event management companies, conference organizers and hospitals to remind participants about an event or appointment. Tying up with time-critical events or activity will help to reach out.

Pitch no. 4: Get B2B Clients

Ranjith Boyanapalli, CEO of buytheprice.com, an online shopping site

Considering the stage of the company and the limited marketing budget, the best way to market would be to piggy back on existing large players like event organisers, ticketing website and wedding planners. Cater to B2B clients, who have a need to remind their subscribers as it’ll help them increase recurring revenues and ensure prompt payment by customers. Recovery agencies and other monthly subscription based service models are good fits.

Pitch no. 5: Offer free trials

Azaz Motiwala, founder of IKON Marketing Consultants, a marketing firm

Singh should focus more on offline rather than online marketing. All online communities are computer and internet savvy. They have many free options such as desktop application and e-mail reminder services. Hence, they won’t prefer such paid services. Singh should focus on busy and self-dependent professionals, businessmen and individuals who don’t spend much time online. He can directly cater to professionals like doctors and advocates to offer them appointment reminder services for their clients. Also, offering free trials of his service, or trials at a nominal cost might be a good promotion strategy to attract customers.