how to get creative with marketing when paid channels are too expensive or customers aren’t...

H O W T O G E T C R E AT I V E W I T H M A R K E T I N G W H E N PA I D C H A N N E L S A R E T O O E X P E N S I V E O R C U S T O M E R S A R E N ’ T L O O K I N G F O R Y O U ?

G R O W T H H A C K I N G M I N I - C O N F E R E N C E - 2 2 N O V 2 0 1 3

Alexander Jarvis 50 Folds

A L E X A N D E R J A R V I S

• Build and advise startups- 2 launching

• Lazada

• Delivery Hero

• Groupon

• Bootstrapped other companies

• Mergers and acquisitions at Lazard

@ADJBlog !Starting to blog: www.alexanderjarvis.com

A G E N D A1. Some advice

2. Latent markets

3. Viral videos

4. Leverage users

5. Leverage suppliers

6. Leverage networks

7. Pre-launch strategies

8. Social media and stuff

• Acquire

• Activate

• Retain

• Refer

• Revenue

MAINLY

A BIT

Read: http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/09/startup-metrics.html

W E A R E G O I N G T O G O FA S T !

• Only 30 minutes, can only cover a little

• Goal: Inspiration and comprehend what is possible

• Write down questions

• Google what you don’t get

• Wrote with intention you read after

• Posted on my blog

• Listen! Teach you some secrets you CAN’T google!

S O M E A D V I C E

K E Y T O K N O W• Focus on stuff that scales

• Don’t be deluded

• Effort doesn’t always mean results

• E.g Flyering- feel like you busy but crap conversion (Hot girls help!)

• Test/measure everything

• know what works, focus on that

• Go where users are - find them, use them

• You won’t get sued if you are small

• Don’t get stressed out by legal letters

N O A M O U N T O F M A R K E T I N G C A N S AV E Y O U I F …

• You aren’t solving a real problem

• Aspirin vs. vitamin

• People must be hurting

• Your product sucks

• Users must pay for it!

B E S T M A R K E T I N G C H A N N E L I S N O T N E E D I N G A N Y

• Zendesk got first 10k users from word of mouth

• VC funding and users found them

• Because portfolio companies used them!

• Marketing spend ACCELERATED them, not made them

Read: http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/16/from-its-beginnings-in-a-denmark-loft-zendesks-steady-rise-to-the-top-of-the-helpdesk-heap/

B U T E V E N W I T H A D E C E N T P R O D U C T , Y O U C A N ' T N E G L E C T M A R K E T I N G

• Everpix failed in part as focused too much on perfect product, not marketing

• “While the team obsessed about perfecting the service, the founders paid less attention to the subject investors care about most: growth.”

Read: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/5/5039216/everpix-life-and-death-inside-the-worlds-best-photo-startup

S O … N O PA I D C H A N N E L S

• Often competition makes CAC unworkable

• LTV needs to be >3x CAC

• CPC/CPM cheaper in Asia, there are still opportunities here…

• But, assume:

1. You don’t have much cash (Need some!)

2. People aren’t looking for you

L AT E N T M A R K E T S ( A K A Y O U D O W H AT ? )

B I R C H B O X /G L O S S Y B O X

• ‘5 deluxe size beauty product in a box, delivered every month on a subscription basis’

• Marketing people pay for!

• Girls weren’t looking for this, they never heard of it before

• How do you buy keywords for that?!

EXA

MPLE

A I R B N B / W I M D U

• Rent your house to randoms?

• Drove supply by completely abusing Craigslist, gumtree etc

• Drove demand by

• completely abusing Craigslist, gumtree etc

• Creating community

• and… poaching clients

EXA

MPLE

F I N D U S E R S W H E R E T H E Y L I V E

• You don’t go hunting for polar bears in Africa

• Understand your customers

• Where do they spend time?

• What do they like to do?

• Best to be a customer yourself

• Paul Graham invests in first time founders as they fixate on a problem they have

Read: http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

B L O G G E R S

• Bloggers blog - they ‘want it’ ;)

• NB: Make sure they write about what you sell or waste your time

• Compile a TARGETED list of bloggers

• Read articles and reference them

• Be polite with targeted message

• Give a free trial or hold events

• Don’t pressure or bribe (unless they ask…) but persist

• Same for journalists (PR)!

Y O U T U B E

• Termed ‘unboxing’

• Some Youtube channels have a big reach

• Same process for reaching out to bloggers

V I R A L V I D E O S ( H A R D )

P E R S O N A L LY I G N O R E - T O O H A R D

• Make an engaging video that people share because…x y z

• Like finding unicorns

• I am not creative enough, maybe you are

• Some videos on Youtube get paid promotes to help go viral

• Making them can be good team building

D O L L A R S H AV E C L U B

• Spent $4,500, founder made

• 12,000 sign-ups 48 hours after posting

• 12m+ views on main channel

• Worked as was good, duh!

EXA

MPLE

Read: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224282

L E V E R A G E U S E R S ( B E T T E R )

C H E A P E S T WAY T O M A K E M O R E M O N E Y

• Make more from existing users

• Love them so they increase your:

• LTV

• ARPU

• You want evangelists

• Cheapest user is the one you don't buy (Referral)

S E N D H A N D -W R I T T E N N O T E S

• My team and I wrote hand written notes to our first 1,000 users

• Designed own paper which turned into a paper aeroplane (Instructions to fold on the back)

E M A I L U S E R S F R O M T H E C E O

• I used to email each and every single customer to thank them

• Eventually we created a ‘CEO’ email account and I delegated the task

• We asked for how we could love them more

• Also got leads for new suppliers they wanted to shop from

G I V E U S E R S S WA G

• Give users free stuff which promotes your brand • Can incentivise if they get x ‘karma’

• Users need to want the stuff though, or you waste cash

• T-shirts make customers walking billboards • Choose good cotton or they won’t

wear • We made shopping bags

• Some countries you have to pay for them

H O T M A I L• Email footer:

• “I love you, get your free Hotmail email”

• 6 months 1m users • 5 weeks later, 2m users • 18 months sold to Microsoft

with 12m users • 70m internet users back then

• Sent email to India • 3 weeks = 300k users

EXA

MPLE

Read: http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-free-email-at-hotmail/

D R O P B O X

• Incentivise users with additional free space

• Both you and your friend get 300mb

• Referrals increased Dropbox signups by 60%

• Worth $4bn, that’s a B

EXA

MPLE

Read all: http://www.quora.com/search?q=dropbox+viral

L E V E R A G E S U P P L I E R S ( A N D E V E R Y O N E E L S E )

S U P P L I E R M A R K E T I N G

• If you work with suppliers, they can help

• Figure out any cost centres or pain points

• You MUST understand how they operate and if customers will see/benefit

• Storage space in offices

• Delivery schedules

• Their own cost points (if sell)

G I V E T H E M S T U F F

• Brand physical things they need (cost them) and sell/give to suppliers: • Pizzaboxes • Bags • Chopsticks • Napkins • Bar mats

• They do marketing for you • We gave them ‘welcome packs’ • They even will deliver to your

competitors ;)

S T I C K E R S A N D P O S T E R S• Put up posters and stickers

in windows of shops

• Don’t just send stuff!

• If you are nice and just do it they won’t stop you!

• Person doing it has to be right- some people can’t!

• Apparently miinto.com gets major traffic from stickers in fashion boutiques

G I V E AWA R D S

• People love awards

• Make up some kind of award which is HEAVILY branded

• Send it to supplier

• They will love you

• They put that up where customers can see!

C R E AT E W E B S I T E S

• Seriously, so many people don’t have sites

• Huge opportunity in Malaysia

• Make them, brand and backlink, give them

• Negotiate more margin

• Tie in suppliers

S TA F F H A C K S

• Everyone wears company t-shirt

• Staff are billboards

• Give staff general business cards to hand out to everyone

• Make sure they carry at all times

• Email signatures promoting your business (add referral links)

• Get them to spam all their Facebook friends and regularly post

S T R E E T C H A L K• Buy plastic, custom

stencil

• Can spray paint

• Lasts longer but could get fined…

• Spray chalk

• Lasts week + depending on weather

• Bus stops good place

• Do at night, otherwise:

• Staff get nervous

• People stare

L E V E R A G E N E T W O R K S

F I N D T H E N E X T N E W N E T W O R K• Abuse networks • New networks haven't been

gamed yet and there are people there! • Snapchat?

A I R B N B

• Auto-post to Craiglist

• To book you had to go to Airbnb

• Hack got found, no longer possible

EXA

MPLE

Read: http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/27/how-to-be-a-growth-hacker-an-airbnbcraigslist-case-study/

O T H E R SEX

AM

PLE

+

+

+

S E O H A C K S

• Scraped the data off companies’ help pages to generate content and focused on keywords to rank higher than official forums

• Embed an image on your home page to improve your free use plan

• Embed their brand on your homepage as part of use

• Every embed has a backlink

• Created massively engagement blog content

EXA

MPLE

P R E - L A U N C H S T R AT E G I E S

D O N ’ T WA I T T I L L Y O U A R E L I V E

• Get traction pre-launch • Also useful to validate idea

• To do: • Get landing page

• www.launchrock.com • www.kickofflabs.com • Drive users to it with

gamification • Activate them when live

• www.Mailchimp.com

M A I L B O X

• Pre-launch was 6 months long

• 380k users pre-launch

• Queue motivated sign-up

• Got famous people to help though…

EXA

MPLE

Read: http://www.quora.com/Mailbox-app-1/How-did-Mailbox-app-gain-so-much-pre-launch-exposure-buzz

FA B

• 200k users pre-launch

• Great “game mechanics”

• Understood psychology

• Status vs free stuff

EXA

MPLE

Read: http://www.quora.com/Fab-com/As-of-Dec-2012-what-did-Fab-com-do-to-become-one-of-the-fastest-growing-e-commerce-websites

S O C I A L M E D I A A N D S T U F F

FA C E B O O K PA G E S

• To do

• List Facebook pages with lots of likes and reach out to owner

• Offer some value

• Think about them not you

• Competitions and promos

• Can also hijack…

• Secret

• You can buy pages and migrate users

• You can buy likes to seed your page

• Helps convert real, new users

• allthehits.com (Shut down..)

C L A I M G O O G L E M A P S

• You can claim Places on Google Maps

• Have to figure out the authorisation process ;)

• Hint: Coordinate with the actual owner, just don’t say too much to confuse them Couldn't find a real example…

C R E AT E C O N T E N T• ‘Spam’ sites

• “We are three girls looking to meet guys but no dudes signed up!”

• Make presentations on slideshare

• Leave responses on popular, targeted youtube videos

• Manually reach out to Facebook fans and twitter followers from competitors

• Sharable tools of ‘self-expression’

• Create infographics/memes

• Answer questions on Quora

• BUT! Make sure you promote and share the stuff

• Tree falls in the woods…

C L O S I N G P O I N T S

• What worked for others probably won’t work for you

• First to do Parallax scrolling… now in Bootstrap

• Understand what worked and WHY (Read Quora)

• Then DO something!

• Key is to come up with ideas, test, then double-down or kill iteratively

• Be creative

• Be pragmatic

• Occam’s razor

O K ! Q U E S T I O N S