Start-Up Marketing School: Class 3- Packaging and Distributing Your Story
What are the right tools and avenues to get your message into the marketplace? Hear two talks on the value of advertising, PR, case studies, customer testimonials and the creation of social media advocates to enhance the impact of your story.
Talk 1: Building a plan with multiple options and channels
Heather Freeland - VP Brand Marketing at Gilt Groupe
Talk 2: A discussion of online/offline media options, including email, ad networks, SEO/SEM
Jaime Romero - Vice President of Marketing at AxialMarket
if you’re not measuring, you’re not marketing
Talk 1- Heather
- startups forced to be smart, efficient, scrappy
marketing is about storytelling
- defining your story
- writing your story
- telling your story
- measuring your effectiveness
brand- one of the most important things- need to bring it to life
vision- needs to be able to push/ challenge your team
- should also provide guidance. vision should be the north star of your company
mission- clear, to the point, everyone in the company should know what it is
values- long term, stick by these
positioning- how are you different from your competitors
brand is all about consistency
chose your ghost writer:
1. agency vs. 2. internal vs. 3. freelancers
- agency- really hard relationship between start-ups and agency (corporate culture)
- internal- you need to have enough work to keep someone busy full-time or maybe you get a generalist but not a specialist
- freelancers- often you have short term needs or very specific needs or revamping. freelancers can be a great way to dial up that expertise
find your voice- what’s your plotline?
talking to customers, and finding key customers can help define you
define your core message- single most important thing you want people to remember
- define in one sentence or less and be consistent
- don’t separate visuals from message
always have a clear call to action
- what should the customers do immediately?
what are you trying to accomplish
- balance between awareness and action- can’t always separate the two
who are you trying to reach?
- need to know who are your customers and first influencers right now
- find them, pinpoint the customers mindset, and what you want them to do
how do you wrap your message around that
consumers need a reason to believe in your company
a good marketing plan doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does have to be efficient (and smart and engaging)
channels
awareness -> social -> action
- advertising community search
- events engagement advertising
- influencer, content distribution, direct marketing
content, offers, and promotions can create embassadors
- more awareness leads to lower cost of acquisition
PR is key- as important for investors as it is for your customers
- want to attract good talent and good investors
enlist influential people to speak on your behalf
don’t spend entire budget on advertising
action- know customer economies
- what do you want to spend; whats your payback tolerance at the present moment, because it will change
testing is mandatory and you need it to learn lessons that you will keep
make sure people can find you when they search for you
acquisition is a science- need to become an engineer of optimization
- don’t be afraid of new technologies
social marketing
- “you can’t order social like a deli sandwich”
- it’s not about picking and choosing
social is a catch all group
need to know what you are trying to accomplish
people will not share something unless they perceive that its worth sharing
social and viral doesn’t always mean fate- need to invest in it
employ your advocates
- reward your members
- appreciate and engage them
- reward them at different steps along the way
creativity is key- easy to forget to be creative
measuring- remember to think about it first
need to get your product in the hands of the influencers
measurement and strategy go hand in hand
need to trust your gut
need to make more informed leaps
- if it works, do more of it
even if it works now, its going to keep changing, so keep testing constantly and always build upon what you learn
Talk 2- Jaime
create buyer personas
website optimization- free leads
- focusing on website is very important and testing website is very important
- optimize.ly, google analytics, crazy egg, chart beat
trade shows need to be engaging and ultra professional
- set up appointments and always follow up
- but trade shows can be expensive
email marketing
- build an opt-in list and house file
- create one to one communication
- very cheap but has spam, questions
- content vs. direct sale
remember to have constant contact
SEO is like building a house, need to start with the foundation
- keyword optimization, link-building
20% of SEO is foundation- what you control
80% of SEO you don’t control
key to SEO- content- create consistent/ sharable content and keep putting it out there
- Pros- SEO is essentially free
- Cons- very hard and takes a long time
title page properly
links- how many people are linked to your website
Digital Advertising
- more like traditional advertising
- its completely measurable
CPC for Google- ads on right hand side
- Google ad sense
intent- right message at the right time
different pricing models- display interruption based
Social Media
- clear voice and good content but you can’t say everything
- there’s so much, where do you start?
- fish where the fishes are
- really about reach and frequency
there’s really no print in star-ups because there’s no money
Marketing Automation
- automate drip campaigns
- lead scoring
- giving them more value
your brand should be a beacon
60-90% of people do research online first
check out TweetDeck, Marketo, Pardot, Hubspot, content.ly
LinkedIn is a good place for B2B markets
Ad networks
- sense of targeting
- get more efficiency but costs going up
