1. Bootstrap Marketing – Is there any other kind?
Sherri Leopard
CEO, Leopard
October, 2003

2. Say What?!?!?
“The average pre-revenue company… commonly hired too many people too early and allocated too much money to branding and marketing instead of to understanding the market and their customer base.”
—Major local venture capitalist

3. The Marketing Budget Death Spiral
Marketing budgets are minimal
No measurable ROI
Marketing reduced to marcom
Money is spent on tactics

4. Bootstrapping it Right—Practical Steps
Take a strategic approach
Become the voice of the customer
Build the Brand
Don’t bother if you don’t integrate
Think in terms of results

5. Take a Strategic Approach
MARCOM TACTICS
MARCOM OBJECTIVES
MARKETING OBJECTIVES
BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
MARKETING OBJECTIVES
MARCOM OBJECTIVES
MARCOM TACTICS
Make them measurable
“500 qualified leads in 90 days” is measurable
“Increased awareness” is not

6. Tying Business and Marketing Together
Business objective: Create a company based on an innovative new product/service
Primary marketing objective:
To lay a solid foundation?
To generate qualified leads?
To look bigger than you are?

7. Fluid Forms: Sell a Better Kneepad

8. Become the Voice of the Customer
Understand their world and the unmet needs within it
Ask open-ended questions
Listen, then listen some more
Learn to speak their language
Dispense with the jargon
Avoid the “inside-out” trap
Translate features into benefits
Nobody really cares how your product works
They just want to know what it does—for them

9. Become the Voice of the Customer

10. Build the Brand
“Now more than ever, companies see the power of a strong brand. At a time when battered investors, customers and employees are questioning whom they can trust, the ability of a familiar brand to deliver proven value flows straight to the bottom line.”
“ … a strong brand, even in bad times, can allow companies to command premium prices.”
“ … a strong brand also can open the door when growth depends on breaking into new markets.”
—“The Best Global Brands,” Business Week, August 5, 2002

11. The Most Misunderstood Word
“Brand” is misused to mean many things
A “brand” is not:
A name, logo, tagline
Advertising and marcom
Banner ads
Publicity
Being customer-focused
A “brand” is a promise of value that lives in the mind of your customer

12. The Brand Paradox You don’t own it … your customers do
Yet you need to build it and protect it
It’s a tangible asset
It provides a platform for growth

13. Positioning Statement--Patella T
Patella T orthopedic knee protection disperses pressure away from the patella bone so you forget the pains involved with kneeling
Product Name: Patella T
What it is: orthopedic knee protection
What is does: disperses pressure
Aha: no more sore knees
The creative expression: Tired of sore knees?

14. Patella-T

15. Don’t Bother if you Don’t Integrate
Say it over and over and over again
Leadership
Marketing
Sales
Same thing on the Web
In any marketing materials you create
You’ll tire of it long before your customers and prospects do

16. Patella-T

17. Think in Terms of Results
“Technology firms, which suffered through a tough year of contracting IT spending in 2002, are downplaying brand marketing in favor of sales-focused initiatives, according to a survey of marketing executives.”
“When asked to name the most important ways to measure the performance of their organizations, marketing executives put leads generated at the top of the list, while branding finished No. 4, behind press and analyst influence and sales closed.”
—Brian Morrisey
Internetnews.com 2/03

18. Main Purpose of Companies’ Investment in Marketing
Generating Leads
Building the brand
Supporting the sales force with materials
Creating positive public relations
Understanding needs and wants of potential customers
Recruiting and activating channel partners
71%
68%
55%
49%
28%
16%
Patrick Marketing Group 2003 survey

19. The Fluid Forms Results
Fluid Forms is over $1MM in revenue
Customers include American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Boeing, General Motors, Amazon.com and more
Thousands of customer letters
Successfully created a new market for $70.00 orthopedic kneepads
Expanding into multiple new products
Along the way, learned how to to use --and not use--the WWW an integral part in solidifying and expanding our market niche (SAY THIS LINE VERSUS HAVE IT ON THE SLIDE???)

20. eSoft Case Study

21. Start with Strategy: eSoft
Business objective
Aggressively grow revenue and leads
Marketing objective
Successfully reposition offerings (differentiated and compelling)
Marcom objectives
Support repositioning with aggressive awareness campaigns
Generate 1,000 leads in 3 months with limited spend

22. The Voice of the Customer: eSoft
Customer pains
Overwhelmed; working overtime; understaffed; backlogs
Service disruptions; being hacked; dealing with a virus
Limited budget
Not enough in-house expertise in security
Positioning/Differentiation
Focus on technology that is streamlined and simple
Easiest to use
One-click installation, centralized management; automatic updates
Integrated/interoperable on a common platform
Security extensions are pre-configured to talk to each other
Run everything on one platform, don’t need multiple servers, etc.
Most flexible
Common platform with lots of options
Lower total cost of ownership due to solution architecture

23. The Voice of the Customer: eSoft
The aha! statement
“eSoft is Network security simplified”
Key messages
Implementing effective Internet security is usually complex, time-consuming and expensive.
eSoft was designed from the ground up to reduce the complexity of network security while still providing best-of-breed security.
eSoft provides a complete line of modular Internet security applications designed to work together.
eSoft’s architecture allows easy implementation of a custom-tailored solution without additional hardware or software.
eSoft is easy to use, saves time, reduces the demand on IT staff, and lowers total cost of ownership.

24. Build the Brand: eSoft Creative strategy Mandatories
Tout simplicity (elegant design, convenience, etc.) without sacrificing sophistication
Mandatories
Distinguish eSoft from competitors
Say “simple” without saying “elementary”
Redefine simplicity to elevate eSoft and its offerings
Simplicity positioning should include, but not be limited to, ease of use
Campaign needs to appeal to decision-makers (IT professionals)
Meet timelines and budgets

25. Build the Brand: eSoft Creative platform
Concept: Simplicity as a restorer of sanity and balance
Manageable security solutions are a means to an end: free time and breathing room on the job
Headline: “Network security solutions that give you a break”
Image: Photos showing typical IT guys taking a breather from the day-to-day onslaught—having lunch, stretching their legs

26. Build the Brand: eSoft

27. Integrated Lead Generation: eSoft
Online campaign: The Plan
Three concepts
Four calls-to-action
Multiple media types (banner ads, online newsletter ads, opt-in )
Multiple properties and lists
Results for each concept, media type, etc., tracked and measured separately
Placement and vehicle dynamically updated throughout campaign to focus on those with greatest pull
Online campaign: The budget
$60,000
Online campaign: The time frame
90 days

28. Build the Brand: eSoft
Banner and opt-in ads

29. Results: eSoft Online campaign – 4Q 2002 440,000 impressions served
3,000 visits to eSoft campaign landing pages
1,200 completed lead forms!
Click-through rates for overall campaign at % of industry averages
8.3% click-through on 10,000 Baseline s (vs. industry average of ~1.5%)
TechTarget campaign at 300% of averages for other advertisers
White paper #1 download on Bitpipe Network
Leads included Lockheed Martin, Morgan Stanley, Motorola, KPMG, US Army, Honeywell, etc.

30. Take a strategic approach Become the voice of the customer
Outcome Trumps Output
Take a strategic approach
Become the voice of the customer
Build the Brand
Don’t bother if you don’t integrate
Think in terms of results