Startup MarketingMarketing & PR tips for early stage Internet startups

By Frederik HermannAt Upwest Labs - May 28th, 2013

Focus

Photo credit: James Walsh / jcbwalsh @ Flickr

Set your goals

With limited resources you need to focus your efforts on a fewmain goals, include realistic numbers you can achieve

Your marketing & PR should now work towards

achieving these goals If the efforts are not contributing towards achieving the goals, don’t do it

Start with the homework

Photo credit: rokley @ Flickr

One-linerElevator Pitch

ProblemSolution

Big IdeaVision

ProductDescription

PositioningWhy*

Mission

This will help you tell your story

- Identity, branding, positioning ✓- Build virality into product ✓- Search engine optimization (SEO) ✓- Communications (PR, social media, events)

- Email Marketing / Re-targeting

- Partnerships + third-party validation/trust

How to get heard

1. Build relationships

2. Provide larger story/context

3. Provide comment

4. Create your own content

5. Be part of the community/conversation

6. Maintain momentum

1. Building relationships

With journalists, bloggers, influencers, analysts...

1. Identify journalists, bloggers, influencers in media outlets that your potential customers read/are exposed tovia search, getlittlebird.com, twitaholic.com, etc

2. Build your own list (a Google spreadsheet works fine)

3. Start the conversation (IN ADVANCE)most journalists actually honor embargoes

4. Maintain the relationship (be a great contact)

Always put yourself into the position of the receiving end of your message.

Know who you are talking to, introduce yourself, provide context, be polite, personalize your story

“

2. What’s news?

What do journalists/bloggers usually care about hearing

- Are you part of a trend?

- Can you provide insight or comment ona larger industry story that you fit into?

- Are you disrupting an industry?

- Evolution of something big/important

- Great success, traction, numbers

3. Provide comment

This falls into the category of “thought leadership” and being recognizedas somebody knowledgable and insightful in your industry

- Sign up on HARO and provide a comment to a story relevant to your industry

- Write an interesting/helpful/insightful guest post and reach out to media

- Professionally comment on articles about your industry on other blogs/media

- Engage in conversations on social media

4. Create your own content

Commonly referred to as “content marketing”, can be very powerfulbut also requires significant resources to create great content

1. Create interesting content on your blogsome of it you can cross-post to Google+, LinkedIn, Quora,Medium, and share through your own social media channels

2. Presentations (post them to Slideshare)

3. Case studies4. Videos5. Whitepapers6. Infographics

5. Conversations

Maintain professional presencesand be part of the conversation:

- Through your blog, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Quora, etc

- Have a maintained profile on LinkedIn, AngelList, CrunchBase and later Wikipedia

- Always professional, don’t diss your competition, never get angry

6. Momentum

Plan a series of talking points, feature launches, and initiatives a few months in advance to keep the conversation going.

Make it easyto talk about you

- Good media kit page (different length descriptions, team...)

- Have a good one-pager (example http://swp.it/XMAahp)

- Have a more detailed presentation (on Slideshare)

- Have art assets to share (graphics, screenshots, photos)

- Have a video to integrate

- Share/follow links/buttons (eg. http://swp.it/175h655)

Some other tips

- Optimize for organic search (SEO)

- Have a decent mobile experience

- Test email marketing (Marketo, Hubspot, Pardot, ...)

- Test online advertising (Facebook, Twitter, AdWords, ...)

- Startup/networking events & conferences

- Thought leadership, speaking engagements

Investor pitch

MarketLandscape

TractionValidation

BusinessModel

Team FutureInvestment

Usage

Details at http://www.slideshare.net/ryanspoon/how-to-create-an-early-stage-pitch-deck

Swipp captures, aggregates, and reports real time sentiment data via consumer and commercial applications.

www.swipp.com

Questions? Connect.

Frederik Hermannfrederik.hermann@gmail.comtwitter.com/netzkoboldwww.frederikhermann.comlinkedin.com/in/frederikhermann/

Swipp Inc.2513 Charleston Rd, # 102Mountain View, CA 94043

twitter.com/getswippwww.swipp.com