reach hacking: strategic marketing for startups
TRANSCRIPT
August 13, 2013
Reach Hacking: Strategic Marketing for Startups
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Blake Robinson - @blake
Dir, Social Strategy & Development, @Annalect
Israel Mirsky - @israelmirsky
Global Managing Dir, Social & Performance, @Annalect
Margaret Francis - @margaretfrancis
VP, Social Products, @SalesForce
Marshall Kirkpatrick - @marshallk
CEO, @GetLittleBird
GET READY.
WHAT IS MARKETING?
Marketing
mar·ket·ing [mahr-ki-ting]
Noun
Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling the product or service. It is a critical business function for attracting customers.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?Scrappy startups vs. Big budget Marketing
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
Startups measure in silos.
Agencies analyze relationships cross platform and cross channel.
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
Startups have one or two people working on marketing.
Agencies manage experts executing coordinated marketing initiatives on a international scale – and establish consensus among the many global clients who must weigh in
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
Startups will need to focus on optimizing one or two things against a small number of metrics.
Agencies optimize entire portfolios.
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
Startups will be identifying swings in online conversion metrics.
Agencies optimize metrics across both online and offline initiatives.
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
Startups deal with marketing budgets in the tens to hundreds of thousands.
Agencies deal in the millions and the problems are different, growing exponentially as higher numbers of products, competitors, etc., are added
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
Agencies are working toward predictive measurement and analytics using all of these factors.
Startups utilize reactive analytics… but that’s OK.
BE PROMOTION WORTHY
Promotion
pro·mo·tion /prəˈmōSHən/
Noun
Activity that supports the furtherance of a cause, venture, or aim.
The publicization of a product, organization, or venture to increase sales or public awareness.
Synonyms
advancement - preferment - rise
BE PROFESSIONAL
Worst.Website.Ever.
Unless you founded Blogger and/or Twitter.
BE SUCCINCT
Be upfront with your value proposition
Product name and explanation
Learn more about the product and/or signup right from the front page
Three step explanation of functionality. Got it.
YOUR ADDRESS MATTERS
Mogulus! What does it mean?!
MOST POWERFUL ON THE INTERNET!
Oh.Mogulus is now Livestream? That makes more sense.
YOUR SOCIAL ADDRESSES MATTER
The startup says exactly what it does.
Its social presences are clearly named.
COLLECT CONTACTABLE ADDRESSES
BE CONTACTABLE
TOOLS: Putting contacts to use
Nimble
Contactually
Email Tagging: Tout
DESIGN MATTERS
A design lesson from Little Bird
Before
After
Contactable
Descriptive
Succinct
SOLID SOLUTIONSDesign on the cheap
99designs
dribbble
GET SET…
IF YOU BUILD IT… THEY STILL MIGHT NOT COME
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
Don’t sell what you can make.Make what you can sell.
PLANNING FOR SUCCESS
Start with your Business Model
http://businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas
CHOOSING YOUR OBJECTIVES
Set a goal
• Find users / customers: Get 100 legitimate prospects in your email list
• Prepare to raise money: Target 10 firms and their principals/ analysts/ associates
• Connect with influencers: Get 10 relevant people following you
• Network with peers: Connect with 10 people in your field. Establish a relationship
ANALYZING YOUR OBJECTIVES
http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsgreg/446061432/
Analytics are the measurement of movement toward your business goals.
A good metric is
Clear, comparable ratios
Tied to your business model
Actionable, not vain
Correlated or causal
Leading or Lagging
Comparable ratios: think about a car
• Clear: You know 60MPH is twice as fast as 30MPH– In a country, speed limits and mileage are well
understood– Kilometers are conveniently decimal; miles map to
hours
• Rates: Miles travelled is good; miles per hour is better; accelerating or decelerating changes your gas pedal
• Business model: You can measure “MPH divided by speeding tickets” as a metric of “driving fast without losing my license”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/roryfinneren/65729247
A few words on causality.
http://www.rvca.com/anp/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/57226_07+proof+1a+hb+beach+day.jpg
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3768753408/tt0073195
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25159787@N07/3766111564
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheressteve/3284532080
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wtlphotos/1086968783
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuttermonkey/57096884
http://www.flickr.com/photos/germanuncut77/3785152581
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fasteddie42/2421039207
Correlated CausalTwo variables that change in similar ways, perhaps because they’re linked to something else.
An independent factor that directly impacts a dependent one.
Summer
Ice creamconsumption
DrowningCorrelated
Causa
l Causal
Leading LaggingNumber today that shows metric tomorrow—makes the news.
Historical metric that shows how youre doing—reports the news.
If it can’t changeyour behavior, thenit’s a…
badmetric.ht
tp://
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w.fl
ickr
.com
/pho
tos/
circ
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sy/7
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IF YOU CAN ONLY MEASURE A FEW THINGS
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
In a startup, the purpose of analytics is to iterate to a product/market fit before the money runs out.
Hotmailwas a database company
Flickrwas going to be an MMO
Twitterwas a podcasting company
Autodeskmade desktop automation
Paypalfirst built for Palmpilots
Freshbookswas invoicing for a web design firm
Wikipediawas to be written by experts only
Mitelwas a lawnmower company
Most startups don’t know what they’ll be when they grow up.
IF YOU CAN ONLY MEASURE A FEW THINGS
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
• As a startup, you must measure growth• A growth rate of 5% per week is good,
7% is very good, more than 7% is excellent.
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
But what kind of growth should you be measuring?
Kevin Costner is a lousy entrepreneur.
Startups and smaller initiatives should consider measuring the following:
• Revenue• Conversions• Uniques• Shares of content or product• Engagement with your content or
products
(PRACTICA)
REACH HACKING 101: Owned
Owned
• Research TW & FB hashtags relevant to your company• Create and circulate content using the same hashtags• Cross post: TW, FB, Tumblr• Comment on relevant blogs only where you add to the
conversation– Don’t shill– Add links to other relevant conversations, not just your own site
• Follow everyone back, to start
Twitter now has analytics. Use them to perfect your messaging.
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD CONTENT
Content Marketing
PolerStuff has a YouTube
Channel, a Tumblr blog…
Content Marketing
…and an Instagram feed
REACH HACKING 201:Earned
• Follow everyone back, to start – Use lists to filter noise based on your research
• Go interact with the people most like the ones you want to reach.– Thank them for the follow. DM/ Email/ Comment is fine – Reach out to them, start interacting
Earned
• Attend in person events and carry a card with with all your info on it. Social is not just FB. It’s “network” in all dimensions
• Research all the people who sign up for your list, to follow you, who comment on your FB page or blog or whatever – Run them through LinkedIn & find out who they are – Try Topsy, Little Bird, to see who the influential accounts are
similar to the ones that follow you.
Earned
REACH HACKING 201:Paid
Paid
• Use promoted products from Twitter & Facebook to narrowly target campaigns that are highly, highly relevant – Have a clear call to action– Link back to that site– Few hundred dollars in media spend
• Critical audience and awareness building tool• Look for domains in GA and cultivate contacts at those
companies • Search advertising on category keywords is easy to set
up. Focus on your differentiators
AFFORDABLE TOOLS FOR A COMPETITIVE EDGE
Google Analytics: Learn it well.
Recorded Future: Know your market
Topsy: Know what topics to target.
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Little Bird: Know who to target.
Bitly: Sharing content is just the start. Always be tracking to understand what happens to the content you share.
Simply Measured: To understand your owned properties.
How to get (a lot of) press coverage for your startup, initiative, etc.
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Step 1. Make a list of people you want to cover your launch
• Pick some obvious ones• Pick some non-obvious ones• Think of a couple of people at specific publications• Too many is better than not enough
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Step 2. Prepare your materials
• Company story, value proposition • Founders’ backgrounds• Target market and use cases• Competitive differentiation• Business model• Meaningful words of support from credible people• Graphic assets (logo, screenshots)
Now go rewrite all that stuff as bullet points, in half as many words.
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Step 3. Reach out to your list
• Email them• Ask if they’d like info about your startup under embargo
until 9:00 AM PST Tuesday next week• Tell them only thematic info until they say “Yes, I would
like to learn more about that.”
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Step 4. Brief them
• Tell them: – your background– why you started the company– tell them how you make money– show them a demo, answer their questions– different people like different things
Focus on a bright line to cross, typically moving from private to public
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FAQ
• Do I need to hire a PR agent?• Should I offer exclusives?• Are embargoes respected?
• Will anyone respond to my emails?
Maybe.
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People respond to my emails.
• Why?
• Because I...• * have a history of adding value to their lives• * am likable and interesting • * evidence thus suggests that I will deliver
interesting, likable value next time we talk.
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Be someone who has added value in the past
• Little Bird can help.
• We’ll help you figure out which leaders in your field are people that other leaders pay attention to.
• And we’ll make it easier than ever for you to listen to them too.
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After you listen to them, you can respond.
• Respond intelligently and you’ll become a person who has responded intelligently to them in the past.
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Technology will not get you out of work.
• You can do this with elbow grease, time and smarts. It’s not easy. (Little Bird only makes it easier, you still have to work at it.)
• Or you could be a needy stranger who emails busy people out of the blue. It’s up to you.
Not all press is good press…
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Don’t send 1,000 emails http://gawker.com/5992733/how-to-become-a-teen-millionaire-be-an-insufferable-startup-brat
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Let this not be your TechCrunch debut
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And do not quote your mother.
• “This is the third attempt by the company in the last two weeks to reach out to your U.S. staff and get your attention with an exclusive.
• [XXXX] is a legendary figure in the world of Asian personal computing..He was a pal of Steve Jobs when Jobs was first brooding about touch tech and pad computing…He is now preparing a broader assault on the US apps market in the Fall. You don’t seem to know him. You don’t seem to care.
• Let’s give it one last shot, shall we?
• We are offering you an opportunity to meet them. We are offering you an advance glimpse at what they will do in September. No one is demanding that you love what they might tell you. But we are baffled and bewildered at why you don’t seem to value that!”
http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/18/urgent-for-alexia-and-eldon/
Perfect your presentation
Use an email tracking service like BananaTag to understand what emails work and hone your messaging.
STARTING FROM ZERO WITH MARSHALL K
Step 1: Find good people and websites on the internet
Step 2: Read their content when they publish it
Step 3: Get your house in order
Step 4: Respond to what people post online, focus on adding value
Ways to add value: a. be first b. be best, c. bring resources together d. be funny
Step 5: Create your own original content for others to follow
Wash, rinse, repeat. Hustle harder. Take risks. Meet people and be nice. Get lucky.
GO!
Still have questions?
Reach out to us individually on Twitter or via the #reachhack or #reachhacking hashtags.