MARKETING 101FOR STARTUPS

About Me

• Sean Percival• Partner, 500 Startups• Run the Mountain View Accelerator • Based in Silicon Valley• On Twitter @Percival

Previously

• Founder• Vice President Marketing, Myspace• Janitor

Most people suck at marketing.

General Pro Tips

• You’ll might need to try 10 things to get 1 thing that works• 98% of visitors don’t convert so how do you bring them back?• Marketing at it’s core is about moving emotions and feelings like

• Desire• Greed• Nostalgia• FOMO• Etc etc

• Knowing your stuff with regard to marketing (or at least acting like you do) is key to fundraising

• Never say “We did all this with no marketing!” or “We are totally going to go viral!”

Marketing Hiring Tips

• In the early days, the founders need to do everything. Sorry not sorry!

• Post Seed/Series A, make your first senior marketing hire

• At any time bring in a jr analyst and/or media buyer• Avoid the early CMO trap• Consider performance based comp

Reasons Your MarketingHire Will Not Be Successful

They don’t have the budgetthey need to be successful.

Expectations Actual Budget

Actual Budget

Your CTO is kind of a jerk and doesn’t really care about marketing

Or there’s no developer resources available for marketing needs.

Measurable and sustainablegrowth is not encouraged.

"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."

The Lingo

• CAC/ACQ/CPA = Customer acquisition cost, acquisition, cost per acquisition• CPL = Cost per lead• LTV = Life Time Value• LTV net ACQ = Life Time Value net acquisition costs• Funnel = A series of pages/events a user must navigate• CPC = Cost Per Click• CPM = Cost Per 1000 Impressions• CTR = Click through rate• IO = Advertiser Insertion Order• Churn Rate = Loss of users from one cohort to the next• Earned Media = Free(ish) organic traffic usually driven from social• SEM = Search Engine Marketing (paid)• SEO = Search Engine Optimization (Freeish)• SERP = Search Engine results page• Above the fold = Viewable to the user without having to scroll• Back Links = Links from external websites into yours• White Hat/Grey Hat/Black Hat = Legit/Somewhat shady/Way shady• Pagerank = How Google determines authority and rankings of websites in search• Edgerank = Facebook’s version of page rank• Open rate = The rate at which an email campaign emails are opened

Talking To InvestorsAbout Marketing

Investor Pro Tips

• Really know your numbers• Never use ranges with your metrics• If you don’t have the data, get it• Talk about cohorts and how they are

improving over time• Sell your momentum

Acquisition Sources

Email27%

Refer-a-Friend18%

Affiliates12%

Organic13%

Daily Deals10%

Facebook(Paid)

6%

Adwords2%

Retargeting

10%

We have tested XX sources and know what works.

We’re ready to XX our user acquisition efforts.

Top Performing Channels:

• Email

• Facebook (Paid)

• Refer-A-Friend

Worst Performing or

Non-Scalable Channels:

• Daily Deals

• Adwords

• Grandma’s Bingo Team

Recent Month’s Acquisition Sources

Final Pitt falls to avoid

• Doing too much discounting• Acquiring bad customers/users• High overhead low yield partnerships• Pricey PR engagements

Q&A