DIGITAL MARKETING For Startups @elevarco.

DIGITAL MARKETING For Startups @elevarco

Nothing kills a bad company faster than good marketing
Why are we here?  Nothing kills a bad company faster than good marketing  "Nothing kills a bad product faster/quicker than good advertising” is a popular advertising adage attributed to William (Bill) Bernbach (August 13, 1911, New York City - October 2, 1982, New York City), an American advertising creative director. The adage means that good advertising makes people aware of a product, but if the product isn’t any good, then it will be rejected by consumers. Two fundamental truths exist when marketing a startup. One is that a great product alone is not enough to succeed. The other is that no amount of marketing will make a crap product gain a mass audience. Successful startup marketing requires that you have both a great product and great marketing. For that reason, we will talk about both customer acquisition and improving your product-market fit.

Before we get there My Background My Work My Passion
B.S. Business Admin, UC Berkeley B.A. Mass Communications, UC Berkeley MBA, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth Management Consulting WPP Inc. My Work Digital marketing Innovation Consumer Insights Strategic Planning Market Research Business Development Adjunct Professor My Passion Brand Strategy New Media Communication and Technology Social Systems and Structures Travel Double majored in business and communications at Berkeley, worked in management consulting before going back to get my MBA from Dartmouth with an emphasis in marketing I have spent the majority of my advertising and marketing communications career in digital working for WPP agencies in New York 4-5 years ago I moved back to the west coast and started working with startups on their marketing strategy and I’m currently the marketing director at Elevar I also am an adjunct marketing professor at various Bay Area Universities where I lecture on digital and social media marketing

What we’ll be going over today
Agenda What we’ll be going over today 01 Foundations of Startup Marketing We’ll end with summary, comments and special bonus 02 Paid Media Marketing for Startups 03 Earned Media Marketing for Startups Here is the rough agenda for our discussion this afternoon I want this to be an interactive session so feel free to ask questions at any time 04 Owned Media Marketing for Startups

Foundations of Startup Marketing
Growth hacking – building marketing into your product Conversion rate optimization Customer feedback loops The diffusion of innovation & targeting early adopters Fine-tuning your messaging Differentiation To kick-off, we’re going to look at seven essential aspects of laying the foundations for an aggressive startup marketing strategy. [read bullet points]

#1 Viral Marketing & Growth Hacking: Building Marketing Into Your Product
FRED WILSON, a vocal, active Venture Capitalist (has famously said) “Marketing is for companies with sucky products” I disagree with Fred Wilson’s quote, yet I can’t dispute that the most successful startup marketing strategies are those that embed marketing into their product. Dropbox, Hotmail, Eventbrite, and Snapchat famously acquired millions of users with almost no money spent on marketing. Their secret? Building virality into their product.

A startup’s ability to go viral depends on two variables: time, and the ‘viral coefficient’ i.e. the number of new users each (existing) user generates. Below is a graph to illustrate startup growth at different rates based on varying viral coefficients. Imagine that the Y-axis represents your number of user signups, and the X-axis represents time. If your viral coefficient is 1.0 (each user generates one new user), you will achieve linear growth, assuming you retain your users. If you have a viral coefficient above 1.1, you will achieve exponential growth as illustrated by all of the lines above the lower green line.

How do you embed marketing into your product?
Build a product worth recommending (If every single user recommends two new users, you have exponential growth). Try using the Net Promote Score, a simple test where you ask users “on a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?” (If the aggregate score is above 9.0, your will likely achieve exponential growth) So how do you embed marketing into your product? Every startup is unique, so I won’t discuss tactical methods in great detail. The strategy I suggest is to simply build a product worth RECOMMENDING. If every single user recommends two new users, you have exponential growth. The easiest method of measuring a user’s likelihood to recommend your startup is by using the Net Promoter Score, a simple test where you ask users “on a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?” If the aggregate score is above 9.0, your will likely achieve exponential growth. On a tactical level, I recommend reading several case studies on companies who achieved viral growth through growth hacking. Below are a few I recommend reading. Hotmail Eventbrite Dropbox

#2 Conversion Rate Optimization: Improve Messaging and Value Prop
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the science behind understanding why your visitors are not ‘converting’ into customers, and then improving your messaging or value proposition to increase this rate of conversions. Contrary to popular belief, it does not start with running A/B experiments; it starts with understanding your visitors and their objections.

How to identify customer objections
The fastest way to understand why potential customers are not converting is to ask them. Install Olark – a live chat plugin that allows you to talk in real time with website visitors. Ask visitors to fill out a survey using Survey Monkey (Usually, you’ll need to incentivize this with some kind of giveaway). Ask for feedback in a forum your customers participate on. Commission some user tests from UserTesting.com. Invite someone you know (a customer) to lunch / Skype. Following this, hopefully you will have a good idea of what is preventing your visitors from converting. The fastest way to understand why potential customers are not converting is to ask them. Below are several tools and techniques that I’d recommend. Install Olark or Intercom, which allows you to talk in real time with website visitors. Ask visitors to fill out a survey using Survey Monkey. Usually, you’ll need to incentivize this with some kind of giveaway. Ask for feedback in a forum your customers participate on. Commission some user tests. Invite someone you know (a customer) to lunch / Skype. Following this, hopefully you will have a good idea of what is preventing your visitors from converting. Now it’s time to make changes to your landing page or website to counter these objections.

Once you have your mockups designed, I recommend using Visual Website Optimizer to test them against your existing landing page. VWO has a great user interface, making it very easy to quickly test variations of your website without needing to make backend coding changes. Now you can start mocking up new designs and running tests/ experiments. Conversion rate optimization is not something you do once. You should strive to constantly tweak and improve your website and landing pages to make incremental improvements.

At the same time, always remember this model/ visual here
At the same time, always remember this model/ visual here. Incremental tweaks will always hit a limit. There’s often far more opportunity in being bold and testing something very different.

#3 Installing a Customer Feedback Loop
For early-stage startups, feedback is more important than customers. The faster you can resolve customer objections, and improve the product to match market demand, the more likely you are to win over the long run. It’s worth reiterating that the most important asset for most startups is to be told what needs improving, and have an agile system for making those improvements. Anyone who’s read Eric Ries’ book The Lean Startup will understand this as the ‘Iteration Cycle’.

A simple ‘give us feedback’ form is not enough
A simple ‘give us feedback’ form is not enough. Most people will not go out of their way to give you feedback. Use incentives, meet your users, and study user behavior data to understand where people fall off in your funnel, and more importantly – why? (do they drop off)

#4 Diffusion of Innovation: Targeting Early Adopters
Many inexperienced marketers make the mistake of targeting the mass market too soon. The reason this rarely works is because the majority of people resist change, and are not receptive to products / services that are not already recommended by early adopters.

If you want to own the majority market share, your initial launch strategy and messaging must appeal to innovators and early adopters. Once you have a number of case studies, testimonials, and respected innovators as customers and singing your praises, then it’s time to approach the majority. The laggards will follow.

#5 Why, What, How: Fine-Tuning Your Messaging for Conversion
If you haven’t read Simon Sinek’s book ‘Start With Why’, I’d strongly recommend putting it on order. The gist of the book is that, if you want to inspire someone to take action, you must begin by explaining why you do what you do. Not what or how.

People don’t buy what you do
They buy WHY you do it Inside out – Inspired Communication Everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We happen to make great computers, want to buy one? Outside in – Typical Noise We make great computers, they are beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one? Apple is a great example of a company that sells “why”. Apple challenges the status quo with everything they do – MacBooks, iTunes and iPads are just how they do that. Their competitors don’t have a why – they just sell reasonably good computers. While Apple talks about pushing humanity forward and challenging the status quo, others talk about the size of their processors and memory or RAM. Is it any wonder why people queue for hours to get the latest product, while Lenovo, HP, Samsung receive nowhere near the level of advocacy, despite their products being very similar? Does your messaging communicate why your startup exists? Do you know your why? If not, this is an important step that I would not advise skipping over.

#6 Differentiation in your marketing
Various studies predict we see between 1,000 – 5,000 advertisements per day depending on where we live. How do you compete and stand out with your marketing in such a saturated space?

The answer is by being the shepherd, not a sheep. [animation]
Our brain categorizes similar pieces of information together, a process known as Gestalt. Because of this, the more of a similar thing we see, the less impact each additional thing has. When Lady Gaga wore a dress made of meat it made headlines all over the World. When others copied her quirkiness, hardly anyone talked. This pattern has repeated itself millions of times over. This is not about first-mover advantage; this is about observing what everyone else is, and being the opposite or different. Apply this from the most macro aspect of your strategy down to the micro, and you’ll be amazed at how significant this is.

Paid Media Marketing for Startups
Display Search Video Now that we’ve covered off the foundations of messaging and preparing your product for a successful marketing strategy, let’s move on to customer acquisition. {CLICK} I’ve split the section on customer acquisition into three chapters, paid media, earned media, and owned media. There’s a school of thought that says startups should spend as little as possible on marketing. I would argue that Startups should spend wisely. I believe that marketing should focus on positive ROI (return on investment). If a paid media channel can profitably drive qualified users for your startup, it’d be foolish to refuse it on the basis that it’s paid for. Another reason for using paid media is to establish a cost-per-acquisition basis, as this will act as a benchmark to compare all other marketing activity. Below are some of the main online channels I’d recommend looking into, along with some tips on each.

#7 Facebook Advertising
While it’s possible to do a session on Facebook Ads alone, I’ll quickly summarize some of my recommendations based on a number of Facebook Ad campaigns that I’ve worked on.

Acquiring users Use page promoted posts targeting people in the news feed. Test as many advert variations as possible. Use conversion tracking. Don’t create ads using the Facebook Ad Manager (it’s awful). Use fine segmentation. Use page promoted posts targeting people in the news feed. These ads have the highest click-through and engagement rates. Test as many advert variations as possible. The weirder, brighter, and more unique your ad is, the better. DIFFERENTIATE remember? When everyone else zigs, zag. Use conversion tracking – (by installing the conversion pixel you enable oCPM for conversion bidding). This basically means that Facebook will algorithmically optimize your budget for more conversions. IF POSSIBLE Don’t create ads using the Facebook Ad Manager (it’s awful). Either use the power editor, or a dedicated tool like Qwaya. This will make segmentation much easier. Use fine segmentation – If you do use Qwaya service, you can split your ad campaign into tens or hundreds of individual ads each targeting a specific segment of your audience. This enables you to quickly see which ad segments perform well and which don’t, so you can move your budget to the segments that are most profitable.

Finding your perfect audience using segmentation
One of the best customer research tools we have available to us. There is no limit to how finely you can segment a Facebook advert. Using conversion tracking, you can see which demographics and psychographics then have the highest conversion rate on your service. Speaking of segmenting…Most people think of Facebook Ads as an acquisition channel for driving signups. The truth is that it’s also one of the best customer research tools we have available to us. Let me explain. There is no limit to how finely you can segment a Facebook advert. If you wanted, you could run an identical adverts to 500 different demographic and psychographic audience segments. Using conversion tracking, you can see which demographics and psychographics then have the highest conversion rate on your service. Facebook Ads are, in my opinion, the best way to quickly and affordably verify who your audience are, and what your cost-per-acquisition is for different demographic groups.

#8 Google Adwords (Search)
If your product solves an issue that people search for, there’s a high likelihood that Google AdWords will be a great acquisition channel for you.

And seeing as how Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second on average (visualize them here), which translates to over 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide, chances are – people are searching for you or a problem you have solution for

The strength of search marketing is that, if you have a product that people are looking for, your site can appear at the perfect moment – when they’re searching for it. It also drives most of traffic in terms of results – grey shaded area is SEM, where paid ads show up and blue area is where organic or natural rankings show up… and yes Even though the paid ads get the prime real estate at top of page, most people are more trusting of organic results so lion’s share of clicks and attention and traffic go there…. BUT SEM can help you build your presence while you’re waiting for your SEO to kick in (we’ll come back to that). Search advertising differs to Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube advertising, where you’re relying on distraction to pull people away from what they were doing to visit your website. With Google, you’re helping them find what they were looking for in the first place.

#9 Display (Google & others)
Similarly to above, Google enable you to purchase banner adverts through their display network. You can specify which websites your banner ad appears on, or bid to appear on websites related to certain keywords.

An example of Nikon/ Airbnb/ Lincoln using Google Display Network to run adverts on Billboard.com. [animation] Especially when done in a creative way that grabs attention (and avoids/ prevents banner blindness), online display advertising can be a good option. Display ads allow for more creativity and if you’re a startup with lots of visual content and branding, this might be a good option for you.

#10 Twitter Advertising Twitter Ads can be very effective, but the reason I don’t always recommended them is due to the budget limitations. When I last spoke with them, the suggested minimum budget for a Twitter Ad campaign is 5,000/month, which is outside of most startup’s budget.

If you do have this sort of budget to invest, then Twitter Ads do tend to be pretty effective when done right. ALTHOUGH they offer significantly less targeting capabilities than Facebook. Promoted Accounts allows you to promote your account as one to follow. Promoted Tweets allows you to highlight a particular status update to get more exposure for it. Promoted Trends are topics and hashtags that are moved to the top of the Trending Topics list. My advice would be to promote an amazing piece of content rather than directly promoting your services. View Twitter as a 1:many platform where, if you run your ads correctly, you can launch your content to a large audience who will introduce your content to an even larger audience. If your campaign dies after being promoted to the initial audience, start again.

#11 LinkedIn Advertising
While I have not had much personal experience with LinkedIn advertising, I must mention it as I know of a few startups (particularly in the financial services industry) that have achieved great results by running targeted ads to people by their job title and sector.

Targeting ads to specific by job levels or functions Gets attention with a timely topic your target audience is thinking about. Targeting verticals with industry specific ads Allows you to be more focused in your content and create copy that resonates with your target buyer. In my opinion, the problem with LinkedIn Ads is banner blindness. The adverts don’t stand out, and appear in the same spot on every page, causing users to become ‘blind’ to them.

#11 Reddit Advertising Reddit is often overlooked as a paid marketing channel. I have to admit, the results I’ve seen in the past are extremely varied, but it’s very cheap and always worth testing.

Reddit advertising works by running ads at the top of any subreddit of your choice. (For example, for a music client, we may advertise in the subreddits ‘WeAretheMusicMakers’, ‘Music’, and ‘Guitar’.) Each subreddit has a very distinct community, so it pays to get involved in each one for a bit of time first before running ads. One specific reason why I’m a fan of Reddit Advertising is because Reddit seems to attract the early adopter types… important for startups since this is likely where your audience and community may be. It’s a great place for getting honest feedback and targeting people who are likely to be receptive regardless of what stage your product’s at.

#13 Google Remarketing Google Remarketing goes one step beyond the standard display advertising mentioned previously.

Essentially, when someone visits your website a cookie is dropped on their computer. When they visit other websites, an ad will appear encouraging them to come back to your website. You can get very smart with this by running different remarketing ads for different stages of your signup funnel. For example, if they visited the signup page but didn’t complete the form, you could run an ad with an incentive to finish signing up. Google Remarketing is generally very effective as the people you’re advertising to are qualified and already aware of your product. The trick is to get the frequency right and not be overly annoying or creepy!

#14 Facebook Exchange Facebook Exchange works in a very similar to Google Remarketing, but using Facebook Ads instead.

In other words, someone visits your website and bounces
In other words, someone visits your website and bounces. When they go to Facebook they’ll find your ads encouraging them to come back. To use Facebook Exchange you’ll need to use one of their partners. I’ve tested a handful of them and recommend AdRoll. real time bidding platform which show FB ads based on users online browsing history ads shown based on user browsing history advertisers bid for the right to re message target group when users return to facebook after browsing the web

#15 Content Discovery Platforms
There are a number of content discovery platforms that promote your content alongside articles on major news sites such as the New York Times and The Guardian.

There are handful of these vendors out there, including Outbrain, Zemanta, nRelate and Taboola. For driving backlinks and launching content they’re a powerful tool, although they can get quite expensive depending on the quality of your content.

#16 Video Pre-Roll Advertising
If your startup has produced a compelling promo video, pre-roll advertising could be a powerful paid marketing channel for you. (Using TubeMogul, you can pay for your video to appear as an advert before video content on major video networks, such as 4od, and YouTube)

One interesting ‘trick’ with pre-roll advertising is that you do not pay if your ad is skipped within the first five seconds (which most people do skip). The trick, then, is to go down one of two routes. The first route is to get the message out about your service within the first five seconds of the video hoping that people skip so that you can expose your message to a huge number of people without paying too much. The second option is to make the first five seconds ambiguous and weird enough to intrigue people to watch the rest of the video. Burger King Creates Pre-Roll Ads That Share Your Hatred of Pre-Roll Ads: Each clip was customized to the video it was delaying Everyone who's ever tried to watch a video on the Internet knows that pre-roll ads are generally annoying. The Burger King marketing team also knows this. But marketers always want to have their cake and eat it, too. So New Zealand agency Colenso BBDO created dozens of variations on a pre-roll ad featuring a couple of bros making fun of pre-roll ads. Each spot is themed to match the video that viewers are attempting to watch, and the actors groan in sympathy about having to endure yet another pre-roll ad. So, they consist, more or less, of a couple of guys saying "Oh, sorry guy, were you trying to watch that? Burgers!" The case study video fulfills its reason for being by exaggerating the effects of the campaign, saying the ads turned "the worst thing on the internet" into "lolz." Credit to BK and the Auckland agency for making the best of a bad thing. It's clever, and viewers will probably find it worthy of a chuckle the first time around. That said, acknowledging you're an interloper doesn't really excuse it.

Earned Media Marketing for Startups
Earned media can be thought of as any form of publicity generated by your advocates Earned media is the most valuable, cost-effective, credible, and sustainable form of online marketing (It’s also the hardest to create and measure) Earned media can be thought of as any form of publicity generated by your advocates (customers, fans, partners). In my opinion, earned media is the most valuable, cost-effective, credible, and sustainable form of online and digital marketing. It’s also the hardest to create and measure.

The reason earned media is so effective is because people trust their friend’s recommendations. Conversely, our trust in virtually all other forms of paid media advertising is declining. So how can you leverage this shift in trust to drive more sales / signups?

#17 Do Something Remarkable
The secret sauce of the PR industry is that remarkable things get remarked upon. If you want to earn word of mouth and have the press, your customers, and whoever else talking about your startup, you must give them something remarkable. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to build a full-scale dragon skeleton on a beach somewhere, or fly jetpacks around New York City, but if you want to cause a ripple, you’ll need to do something beyond the norm. Perhaps your startup is remarkable in itself? As much as I’d love to say “do X”, there is no simple answer here, because quite often it’s the things that haven’t been done before that are work the best. My best advice is to read Edward De Bono’s book on Lateral Thinking (he pioneered the word ‘lateral thinking’), get some post-it notes and blast out as many ideas as you can conjure up. Then go for the idea that’s most promising.

Seth Godin video clip

#18 Build Exceptional Resources
Create tools, resources, widgets, apps that your customers and audience find useful.

Always be thinking about the value exchange between the brand and consumer. What do they need/ want? What tools set you about from competitors? What indispensable resource can you provide that’s on-brand and will drive engagement and loyalty? Moz.com’s weather report tool is an incredibly useful resource for the SEO industry and generates enormous amounts of publicity for Moz. For Galvanize, one of the most viewed pages on the website is the event/ conference calendar. Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel – you just need to ask yourself “what would our customers find useful?” and build something exceptional.

#19 Meet Your Influencers
How valuable would it be to your startup if you met Robert Scoble, Jack Dorsey, or some TechCrunch journalist? A large aspect of your success in PR and marketing does revolve around who you know, so it’s important to learn what affects the size and quality of your personal network. Meeting anyone starts with being in the same space as them, either geographically or virtually. In many instances, it was incredibly predictable and well publicized that certain people would be at XYZ on the specified dates – all you have to do was show up. The hardest part in meeting the people you need to meet is booking the ticket and BE PRESENT. As Woody Allen says, “80% of success is showing up” – so network network network

[Quote slide] [click] In today’s online web 2.0 world, SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS AREN’T THE ALTERNATIVES TO CELEBRITIES, THEY ARE THE NEW CELEBRITIES. Social media influencers have demonstrated time and again their unique ability to connect with an organic, engaged audience. Social Media Influencers can be found across all passions and interests…And Across All Platforms and Channels [click] CONSUMERS DO NOT EQUATE SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS WITH MARKETING. THEY SIMPLY SEE THEM AS COOL, INTERESTING, INSPIRATIONAL, FUNNY, FASHIONABLE, TALENTED, ETC. When Social Media Influencers Speak…Their fans listen, take action, and share their posts across platforms. MORE IMPORTANTLY THEIR FANS TRUST WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY.

#20 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Remember when I said there over 3B searches every day? Yah, let’s come back to that… Over 500 million people search in Google every day. Regardless of what some people may proclaim, SEO is not something you should ignore.

This chart is distribution of CTR in organic results – this is the way it shapes down: number 1 result gets a little over 18% of clicks, number 2 hit gets approx. 10% and it falls precipitously from there until number 10 or last link on page 1 gets only 1% of clicks.. So you can only imagine how worse performance gets after this page… basically no one even clicks on second page. No matter how you cut it… Or what approach… First place wins in SEO…

Some tips Don’t think you’re saving money by hiring a cheap SEO.
Focus on what’s best for the users. Nothing is guaranteed. It takes time. Organic search marketing is a broad field in itself, so I won’t go into much depth at all here. However, I will impart a few pieces of advice from my experience working with SEO agencies for several years, and overseeing lots of campaigns. Don’t think you’re saving money by hiring a cheap SEO. Rankings go both ways, and if you get someone crap, they’ll cost you a lot more than you think. Be prepared to pay a decent price for good SEO services. Focus on what’s best for the users – when in doubt, ask yourself “is this best for our users?” – if the answer is yes, there’s a very good chance that it’s also best for search engines. Nothing is guaranteed. Anyone who guarantees results is most likely selling snake oil. It takes time. I advise most of our clients not to expect any increase in SEO traffic for at least 3 months. Of course, sometimes we see increases in as little as a week, but SEO typically takes a long time to grow.

Owned Media Marketing for Startups
Owned media relates to any marketing channel owned by your startup. In the online world, this refers to any websites and social media profiles that you operate There’s a great deal of crossover between owned and earned media, and I like to think of owned media being the ‘platform’ for increasing the success of your earned campaigns Owned media relates to any marketing channel owned by your startup. In the online digital world, this refers to any websites and social media profiles that you operate. There’s a great deal of crossover between owned and earned media, and I like to think of owned media being the ‘platform’ for increasing the success of your earned campaigns. Imagine you created a great story on how your startup just broke a World Record. Without a platform to publish the story on, you’re best hope is to send out a press release and cross your fingers that at least one journalist will publish the story. If you have a blog with a steady audience of 5,000 visitors per day or thousands of Twitter followers, you can post your story to that audience, and rest assured that at the very least, 35,000 people will have been exposed to the story by next week. Hopefully, that initial audience will have ‘launched’ your story creating organic growth.

#21 Building a Blog That Converts
Building a blog that converts is hard. Most companies fail because they blog about what they want their customers to read, rather than writing about what their customers want to read. There are a small number of companies who understand this.

(Buffer, for example, are a company that offer social media automation software. Instead of going on about their services, their blog contains insights on everything from happiness to writing tips. They write what their customers want to read.) Think about the blogs you read regularly and WHY. That should be a good start when it comes to creating value exchange – think both in terms of entertainment and utility value. Further, my advice when building a blog is this: if you want to create a truly successful blog, you must be willing to commit at least a couple dozen or ideally 100 great articles. After you’ve written 100 articles you’ll not only have a good understanding of what works, but each article will be driving a little bit of traffic, a few links, and a few signups each day. From there, the results will compound. If you’re not willing to invest a lot of time in building a blog, I wouldn’t advise starting. It’s hard work, but the results will pay-off if you stick with it.

#22 Marketing As a digital marketer, marketing - though long in the tooth - is still one of the most powerful tools you have in your marketing toolbox. It’s efficient, easily measurable, allows you to deliver customized/ personalized content, builds customer loyalty and engagement. There was a recent Harvard Business review article discussing why was the best way to reach even millennials. The ability to send tens of thousands of s in one go is a double-edged sword. Many companies have abused the opportunity to spam their users, whereas others use it as a powerful tool to launch content, push users further through their funnel, and increase the effectiveness of all of their online marketing efforts.

One piece of advice with email marketing is to get the right software
One piece of advice with marketing is to get the right software. Mailchimp is the go-to freemium service cause it’s easy, cheap and cheerful and sufficient for most startups. I also like using Sendy.co, because it costs 10x less than every other solution, and it’s so simple. For more complex marketing, I’d recommend InfusionSoft. The next step is to know what makes a good . This isn’t just about writing clickable subject lines and crafting beautiful HTML templates, it’s about understanding what your audience wants to receive in their inbox. I can’t tell you the answer here, but I urge that you consider “would I want to receive this ?” Be sure to experiment with different frequencies of ing, days of the week, and types. Comparing the open and click through rates over time is the only sure way to know what works and what doesn’t. Some examples: What goes better with a new prescription than a new pair of glasses? The folks at Warby Parker made that connection very clear in their to my boss. The subject line was: "Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring." What a clever trigger. And you've gotta love 'em for reminding you your prescription needs updating. Speaking of which, check out the clever co-marketing at the bottom of the If you don't know where to go to renew your subscription, the information for an optometrist is right in the . Now there's no excuse not to shop for new glasses! You might think it'd be hard to love an from a company whose product you haven't been using. But Dropbox found a way to make their "come back to us!" cute and funny, thanks to a pair of whimsical cartoons and an emoticon. Plus, they kept the short and sweet to emphasize the message that they don't want to intrude, they just want to remind the recipient that they exist and why they could be helpful. When sending these types of , you might include an incentive for recipients to come back to using your service, like a limited-time coupon.

#23 Video: Leveraging the second largest search engine in the World
We rarely think of YouTube as a search engine, but with over 50,000,000 searches made on YouTube every day, that’s effectively what it is. (Using YouTube Traffic Estimator, we can see exactly how many searches are made for different queries every month.)

This is different than paid video advertising
This is different than paid video advertising. This is about promoting and levering brand video content. Let’s say your startup offers time management solutions. A quick search on YouTube for videos on productivity reveals that many 3-minute videos have over 50,000 views – some have over 1,000,000.

The benefit of incorporating video into your search strategy is that YouTube, and other video hosting sites, are considerably less competitive than Google. Interestingly, Google are also featuring more and more videos in their universal search results, making it a powerful method of ranking in Google in itself and improving SEO.

#24 Content Marketing: Infographics, Videos, Case Studies, White Papers, more
Really everything that we have been talking about can technically be considered content marketing. Let’s instead focus on what makes content exceptional. I think the overlap between creating exceptional content and relationship-based PR will be what the best digital marketers will focus on a few years from now. I won’t focus on the relationship-based part here, as I’ve already covered that in some depth in the section on meeting influencers. Let’s instead focus on what makes content exceptional.

The first step in producing exceptional content is to define exceptional. You too should know, with confidence, what works in your niche. On producing content of exceptional quality, my rule of thumb is to spend more than a couple days producing it. Anything that takes less time is easily probably easy to replicate. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create it, it just means it probably won’t generate amazing results. Don’t start your content strategy with what can we create? Start with what would be amazing? You’ll find a way to create it. Further, analogous to previous advice about simply building a product worth RECOMMENDING, the key here is to tell stories people want to SHARE. That’s the trick to getting your content to spread and “go viral”

#25 Building a Presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social networks
Like marketing, social networks provide a great opportunity to launch content and drive potential customers to your service, but there’s far more to it than broadcasting your agenda.

Social networks provide a great opportunity to gather feedback, build relationships, and add credibility to your service. Also social media is a natural fit for startups because of it’s 1 cost (minimal),2 reach (can be significant) and 3 relevance (appropriate for most startup target audiences) While a guide on social media is far beyond the scope of today’s discussion, here are a few important points to consider in your social strategy. [Next slide]

Remember Know why you’re using it. Know what works. Lead with content.
Because of the ever increasing number of social networks, and the endless possibilities of what you can do within social media, it’s important to know why you’re using social media from the outset. You can have multiple reasons. Quantity is not the issue, clarity is. Ultimately, retweets, likes, +1s and shares are meaningless. Your core business goals are what matter: user signups, retention, revenue, customer lifetime value, user satisfaction etc. Social media becomes valuable when you connect the two together. When you use Twitter to leverage PR opportunities, Facebook to increase the quantity of monetisable eyeballs, or Google+ to increase search rankings, that’s when social media has a tangible value. Know what works Spend a lot of time understanding what content is the most shareable. While it’s good to confirm these things with data, often it just takes a few hours of research to understand what people talk about in your niche. So many companies publish crap that no one in their right mind would have a conversation about – don’t fall into that trap. Start by knowing what sparks conversations in your niche. Lead with content I have managed a decent number of social media strategies, and if I can sum up what differentiates the clients who are successful using social media from those who are less so, it’s having a content-centric strategy. What I mean by this is that by having a regular stream of interesting content being created and shared within your social networks, the amount and depth of engagement seems to naturally grow and compound. It stops you from using social media for the sake of using social media, and instead focus on using it as a means to a more valuable end.

#26 Bonus: Getting your first 1K customers
(Incorporate these tips) As a startup, your biggest challenge is to get customers on board and getting the first 1,000 always takes the most work. You’re still learning what works while building up repeatable processes that scale. Getting the first 1,000 customers will not guarantee your success, but it will you give you a chance to get some real-world feedback -- and maybe even pay the rent in the meantime!

Here are some ideas for how to reach this goal
Set up a waiting list Use your personal network Get bloggers on your side Target online publications Build suspense Work with early adopters Create high-quality content Offer a free product option Incentivize customers to sell your product Speak at conferences Online paid media Affiliate marketing Test, test and test again Here are a few tips on how to reach this goal: 1. Set up a waiting list A waiting list is a great way to build early buzz as people always want to be first in line for a new product. This works extremely well for online services and mobile apps, particularly if you offer incentives for people to sign up, such as a free account for three months. Look at the masterly work of Mailbox, which managed to build up a huge waiting list of over 800,000 people. Their secret? They used a clever user interface to tell people how many others were in front of them and how many were behind them in the line to use the app. This addictive interface gave people a hit of dopamine each time they checked the app and saw they were closer to the front. 2. Use your personal network Traditional word of mouth is still powerful way to get new customers on board. Tell your family, friends and colleagues about your product and ask them to spread the word. Don’t be shy -- there’s nothing wrong with asking for a favor. If you have a consumer-focused product, there is no easier or quicker way to get your first 30 customers than just asking people you know! 4. Get bloggers on your side Bloggers and other online influencers have huge audiences. Even better, their readers trust them. Reach out to bloggers on sites and ask them to review your product. You can drive huge numbers of new prospects this way. Online reviews can often keep on driving sales for years into the future, as people track them down in search results. Even small blogs can often drive hundreds of sales over time, particularly when the review is thoughtful and well written. 3. Target online publications Just like bloggers, online publications can help you reach a huge new audience. Pick one or two relevant publications that make sense for your business. Spend time selling them on your product and offer them something unique, such as exclusive coverage of your product launch. A great tip is to follow journalists on Twitter for a while and get a sense of the type of content they write. Then you’ll find clever ways to connect your product to a theme that interests them. Attentiv did exactly this, and got a great launch story in Fast Company. 5. Build suspense Suspense is an excellent way to build excitement before you launch. Create a drip feed of information about your upcoming product. This will make people curious and want to know more -- particularly if you reveal the details a little bit at a time. The more you give away, the less interesting it becomes. Try to get people excited, but without giving so much context that people are bored and move on. 6. Work with early adopters Your first customers are the most important. They bought your product for a reason, so you can learn a huge amount from them. Create a personal relationship with them and listen to what they say. You’ll get great insights you can use, and they’ll tell other people about your product. Early adopters usually have smart opinions about products and have a good sense of the market, so always be sure to pay careful attention to them. 7. Create high-quality content Content marketing is a great way of acquiring new customers. By creating genuinely useful content and giving it away for free, you can drive visitors to your site and also establish yourself as a thought leader. If you have the budget, hire a good writer. Buffer CEO Leo Widrich managed to get 100,000 customers just from writing guest posts on other people’s sites. Those same articles will still be delivering hundreds, maybe thousands, of new customers each month -- with no additional effort. 8. Offer a free product option Many successful online startups use a “freemium” model to get users on board. This lets people try your product with no risk, which can encourage them to sign up for the paid service or product. However, make sure you strike a balance. Don’t cripple your free option, but keep enough back to make people want to upgrade. Dropbox is one example of a product that gets this right, giving you enough free storage to get you invested in its ecosystem and invite your friends to join and collaborate. Before you know it, your Dropbox is full and you’re handing over your card details. 9. Incentivize customers to sell your product Customers can be your best salespeople – they already know the value of your product. Give them a reason to get other people to sign up, and you can drive impressive growth. You can even make this work with a “freemium” model: offer a free upgrade to your paid service for three months as an incentive. 10. Speak at conferences It may seem a bit old school but speaking at conferences is an excellent way of getting exposure and customers for your new startup. Become an expert on your subject, and then contact event organizers and offer to speak. Just make sure to get in touch early, as conference agendas are usually locked down six to 12 months before the event. Neil Patel spoke at 239 conferences and discovered that the best strategy is to avoid speaking to your peers and speak to potential customers instead. If you’re an SEO, for example, don’t go to an SEO conference where everyone is already an expert in what you do. Instead, go to a gambling event and show them how to get new customers. In the case of Neil, this led to a $100,000-a-month contract. 11. Online advertising Online advertising can be an effective way of driving traffic to your startup’s website. It doesn’t have to be expensive -- $1,000 with Google AdWords can go a long way. If you don’t have experience with this, then hire a pro: keyword selection and ongoing optimization are incredibly important. 13. Affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is where you get other websites to promote your products in return for a commission on sales. This typically works best for information products, such as online courses, because you can offer affiliates high commissions without any product cost. There are sites that make this easy – such as Rakuten Affiliate Network, Commission Junction or ClickBank. 12. Test, test and test again Once you do start to drive significant traffic to your website, then it’s time to focus on converting visitors into customers. Many different factors can affect your conversion rates -- ranging from website design to pricing. Try out different things and see which ones work best. For example, you can use Google Analytics Content Experiments to try out different landing pages.

Why are we here?  In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.  Remember why we are here. Two fundamental truths exist when marketing a startup. One is that a great product alone is not enough to succeed. The other is that no amount of marketing will make a crap product gain a mass audience. Successful startup marketing requires that you have both a great product and great marketing. For that reason, we will talk about both customer acquisition and improving your product-market fit. Quote from David Ogilvy

Why are we here?   You do you. [Conclusion]
I’d like to wrap this presentation up by making the paradoxical point that nothing in these slides is exclusively correct. It’s just one perspective. In many cases, the opposite of what I’ve said is equally correct and I advise experimenting to reach your own conclusions on what works. The reason I’ve been able to reach many of these conclusions is through years of researching best practices, running experiments, testing assumptions… But this is a fast-moving industry where nothing remains static, so we must challenge what we’re told and work out for ourselves how to effectively market our companies. The full phrase this originated from is "do you and I'll do me". Another variation is "do you - cuz I'mma do me". The oldest reference to the phrase that I could find is from the song Do You by Funkmaster Flex (featuring DMX), from the album Volume IV, released on December 5, 2000. This could be a variation of the phrase "do your thing", which has been in use for at least a century.

Joanna Augenbergs jlaugenbergs@gmail.com
QUESTIONS? Let’s keep in touch Joanna Augenbergs

THANK YOU Digital Marketing for Startups

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