Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Startup Marketing
Startup Marketing
Startup
Marketing
Friday, December 20, 13
Table of Contents
Foundation
Social Media
Startup PR
Choosing a market
Dening success
Dening keywords
Setting up a blog
Slides 17-19
Slides 20-23
Best Practices
Guest blogging
Slides 1-6
Slides 7-11
Slides 12-16
Setting a budget
Content creation
Capturing emails
Slides 24-27
Startup Marketing
is a Whole
Dierent Science
Build it and they will come doesnt work
Those overnight success stories are often the result of years of hard work.
Startup marketing is challenging because of limited resources (Time,
money, or talent.)
Every eort, no matter how small, must be awlessly executed.
Traditional strategies dont always work.
The secret is combining the right channels: Content marketing and PR.
Foundation
Before you start laying bricks you need a solid
foundation. Learn how to choose a market, dene
keywords, dene success and set a budget.
Choosing a Market
Only a small portion of the population is
interested in your product.
You
cant
be
everything
to
everyone
Market Size - Who are you targeting and how many potential
customers are there?
2.
3.
4.
Dening Success
Success is dierent for every startup.
Dene your idea of success early and
rigidly.
Make sure your team and partners
understand your denition of success.
Stay consistent each month. Pick a
denition and commit to it.
Success
may
be
500
new
signups
for
Startup
A
while
Startup
B
thinks
success
is
$50,000
monthly
revenue.
Vanity
metrics
are
appealing
to
your
ego,
but
they
are
useless!
They
are
not
tied
to
real
growth
so
you
wont
know
how
your
startup
is
doing
until
its
too
late.
Let
me
explain...
Setting a Budget
Inbound
marketing
leads
cost
less
than
outbound
marketing
leads,
but
dont
kid
yourself:
they
are
not
free.
Set a budget early in the game and accept that limit.
Carefully plan how you intend to divide that budget.
If your blog has been your most powerful lead generator, consider
investing upwards of 50% of the budget there. If not, try a new
eBook, guide, webinar or whitepaper.
Social Media
Social media is one of the most popular ways to promote
content and reach inuencers.
(That can mean potential customers visiting your website and
thousands of new leads.)
Social media is invaluable to startups. Here are a few tricks to
get the most out of it.
Twitter:
Facebook:
- 5 p.m. EST is the best time to get a retweet. - Saturdays are best.
78%
of
social
media
users
said
blog
posts
by
brands
influenced
their
purchase
behavior
moderately
or
highly.
Setting Up a Blog
Choose the right platform for your needs. Is it Wordpress, Blogger or
Tumblr?
Install necessary plugins to help with the workow (We like SEOYoast,
Calendar, and Akismet.
How does your design look? Does it
appeal to your target demographic? Is it
professional looking?
Your blog is about publishing great content
at the right time to the right people. Design
should simply enhance that.
Friday, December 20, 13
Startup PR
PR remains a mystery in many startup circles.
Whens the right time to tell people about your startup?
Is early coverage in industry blogs valuable? What
message resonates with writers? How can you translate
press coverage to sales? Should you hire a PR rm?
Craft Meaningful
Positioning Statements
A series of engaging positioning statements is vital.
Think of your product as the solution to a common
problem.
What is your product?
How will it aect others?
Who will care?
Say what the product is capable of, but also clearly
describe its value proposition and the problem it
solves.
It
all
boils
down
to:
-
What
to
say.
-
When
to
say
it.
-
Who
to
say
it
to.
Dene Your
Startup Sensitivities
Keep your friends close and your enemies
closer.
Identify your competitors strengths and weaknesses to understand how
to market your product better.
Gather all information available on competitors. If they have an edge,
then look at an angle where theyre lacking.
Youve only got a short time to engage writers before pitching them.
Focus on the one or two strongest aspects of your value proposition and
use those to gauge media interest.
Build
your
network
before
you
need
them.
-
Jeremiah
Owyang,
Partner
and
Industry
Analyst
at
Altimeter
Group
Media Advisory
Include how the product is changing the world. The pitch should be included in the
headline or rst paragraph of the release. Write it and direct it towards someone who
will care.
Include this information on the company and
its founders:
Company Name
Website
Twitter Handle(s)
Launch Date
Fees
Content Creation
Its time to kick content creation into high gear.
Managing a blog and other forms of content can seem
daunting though.
Fortunately, four little steps is all you need to get started.
When
starting
out
with
blogging,
aim
to
contribute
70%
of
the
content
you
create
to
other
blogs
to
help
establish
yourself
as
an
expert
in
the
space.
Webinars
Hearing your voice and engaging with you
live gives customers a sense of familiarity.
Use webinars to help establish yourself as an expert in the space, establish
rapport with prospects, as a lead generating engine or to explain a complex
idea or product to an audience.
Have someone on your team live tweet your webinar using a custom
#hashtag(s). Make sure you are providing great nuggets of wisdom,
something easily re-tweetable.
Make sure to post your contact information or a call to action. Cross-promote
your webinar on your blog.
Newsletters
Email marketing is far from dead.
In fact, 56% of businesses said
they planned to increase their
use of email marketing in 2013.*
Make subscribing to your newsletter quick and
straightforward. The setup is so easy a monkey could do it.
But ... dont go overboard with email blasts. Once you overuse
the connection, youll lose it. Dont be an annoying friend.
* ExactTarget: http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/50-email-marketing-tips-and-stats-for-2014/
Videos
If a picture is worth a
thousand words, imagine
what a video is worth.
Keep it simple by creating an explainer video or an
introduction video.
Put the video on your startups website or blog.
Statistics show most people would rather watch than read.
Theyre also more likely to buy after watching a video...
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is an incredible way to build your inuence and
establish expertise in your eld.
Start by making a list of 20-30 blogs / publications that interest you
and compliment your industry. Look for contributing guidelines and
follow the process. If there are none, reach out (via email or Social
Media) to the editor to ask if you can contribute some content.
The content you contribute should always by 100% authentic and
original.
Once youve built a reputation, create your own writers page and
link to the content you have published.
Capturing Emails
Capturing emails can be divided into three
categories: email submits, newsletter subscriptions,
and blog subscriptions.
Email marketing is best managed by a tool like
MailChimp, which allows you to send custom emails.
You can setup email campaigns based on your RSS
feed, which means subscribers will receive an email
whenever new content is published.
Measuring Against
Benchmarks
Measure week over week and
month over month. Compare your
core metrics to the previous period.
Look for consistent growth.
Attribute signicant growth or
decline to an event (e.g. a viral
tweet or a disastrous newsletter).
Isolate and then either replicate it
or avoid it.
If
you
cant
measure
it,
you
cant
manage
it.
-
Peter
Drucker,
Management
Consultant
Brainstorming
Creative New Ideas
Dont only iterate and optimize
what youve already been doing.
Always try creative new things.
Some of your new and innovative
ideas will fail, but the few that
succeed will be well worth it.
Never get complacent!
Best Practices
What are the industry experts saying? What are the top startups
doing? Here are three startup marketing best practices.
1. Sell the solution. Touch upon, but dont dwell on the problem.
Quickly get to the point: how your solution is the ultimate x.
2. Have a compelling story. Use your story to dierentiate yourself
from the competition. Having a relatable story is a fast-track to
establishing authentic relationships.
3. Use all of your resources. Dont overlook any marketing idea - big
or small. Get your team excited to tell your startups story. Write a
blog post on a trending topic. Run a contest to drum up some hype.
Conclusion
Startup marketing is a blend of complex
science AND art.
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