This is an updated, shortened & interactive version of a lecture I presented one year earlier. The audience was startup company founders participating in TheHive@Gvahim, an incubator in Tel Aviv, Israel. The companies' marketing targets are a very broad range, including B2B enterprise, B2C, SaaS and social enterprises. The lecture included mini-assignments for participants to do for a few minutes between lecture segments.
4. What we’ll discuss today
Getting to know your customers
Segmenting your market
Increasing your influence
Calls to action
Promotion
Identifying what’s working (calculating ROI)
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5. Your Solutions Solves A PAIN.
Who Suffers from this pain?
Getting to Know your (potential) Customers
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7. How to get to know your customer
Old days
Focus Groups
Phone surveys
Analyst Reports
Trade Shows
Today
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8. Market Surveys
Use surveys to
test product ideas
confirm your instincts
refine your message
discover new potential customers
Google docs - its completely free
Can be edited collaboratively (whoever you allow)
Lots of available designs, or embed in your own web page or blog
LinkedIn Polls
Survey your own network for free
Survey specific demographics for a fee (~$1/response)
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13. Identify key people in your industry
Search Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook for relevant people, groups,
comments, companies
Follow, read their tweets, check their blogs
Retweet relevant content – people appreciate it and it builds
your credibility
Tweet your own thoughts – be authentic
Join relevant groups on LinkedIn, Facebook
“Lurk” for a while before you jump in – think cocktail party
Then, start discussions (LinkedIn)
Correspond with people who enter the discussion
DM influencers (Twitter)
Reach out to people – they are people, and most want to help
13 Become part of the conversation
14. Trade Shows – a concentrated learning
tool
If you attend, do your homework
Check on twitter what people are saying about the event, tweetups
planned
Review all the exhibitors and speakers – who do you want to talk to?
Do you want to meet the exhibitors or the attendees?
Most of the people in the booths are sales reps – is that who will be
most useful for you? Some companies also send executives, but they
don’t hang around waiting for visitors; you need to book an
appointment
The Press are also there. Don’t bother with them unless you already
have a customer they can talk to
Look up the people you want to meet on LinkedIn and memorize what
they look like – you just might run into them in a hotel lobby
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17. Identify your ideal customer(s)
Build marketing personas
Customer company size / end-user demographic
Vertical industry – finance, medical, retail,
automotive, etc.
Geographic location
Who is my potential buyer? What is his/her job title?
Who are my influencers? What are their job titles?
What is the total addressable market?
Who competes in this market already?
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18. Segmenting the market
Different segments will require different marketing
strategies
May require slightly different product features
Try to limit yourself to the quickest acting segment at
first – for first customers
Later, focus on the most profitable segment
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19. Think of three ways you could
potentially segment your target market
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21. Why you need a blog (or FB Page, or
Vlog, or Tumblr, or Twitter feed, or…)
It’s the second thing people will look at when they want to
understand you and your company
(the first is your LinkedIn profile)
Great for SEO
It becomes your own media channel - who needs
ComputerWorld anymore?
Gives you more credibility with the mainstream media –
you can become a source for them
Gives you something to tweet, for people to retweet, and
for them to comment on – gets you into the conversation
Of course, you need to have something to say
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22. Start your blog (or X…)
Blog can be your own personal blog, that is, if you have enough to say
on your own
If you open a company blog, you will have more options for
contributors
Facebook pages have lots of blog-ish options; main drawback: not
searchable
Be authentic
Talk about issues in the industry
Comment on newsworthy items
Offer advice
Blog at least 2 months before you want to publicize it
This ensures you know what you’re getting into and can maintain it
You will have archived content from day 1
If you’re vlogging, include keyword-heavy descriptions for each video
Include CALLS TO ACTION in your blog or near your posts
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23. Think of 5 ideas you can
blog/vlog/tweet about
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25. Calls To Action
Sign up for our newsletter
Visit our web site
Download this white paper
Enter this contest
Meet us at this event
What do you think about X? Tell us in the comments
Register for our free version
View this webinar
Answer our survey
Call our hotline… operators standing by
……
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BUY!!!
32. Promotion
Social
Networking
32 MIT Sloane School Marketing Management Course Lecture
33. Value Proposition, Elevator Pitch
The unique value you offer to your customers
Boil it down into a very short, medium and long
statement
Literally try saying it in the elevator – it’s hard
Test it out on others, especially outside your company
Polish this before you start officially
promoting, to maintain consistency
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34. Elevator Pitch Template
From: http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/30/startups-give-us-your-best-one-sentence-pitch/
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35. Public Relations
Keep track of articles that cover your industry – these are
most likely the journalists you will want to contact when
the time comes
Journalists look for newsworthy stories:
Timely
Conflict
Unexpected
Meaningful
Craft your “pitch” based on what you’ve learned about the
journalist – what kinds of stories does s/he write?
Try for the less obvious publications – you may find
coverage easier to achieve
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36. Trade Shows/ Conferences
You don’t necessarily have to exhibit (expensive!!) – try
visiting the first time, and making appointments – great
research tool
Apply for speaking engagements even if you don’t exhibit
Check with the organizers if they have any matching-type
services to bring relevant people to you
Request the press list in advance and reach out to relevant
journalists before you get there
Tweet that you’re going; update your LinkedIn profile;
Facebook
Don’t expect the relevant leads to show up just because
you are there. You need to bring them to your booth
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37. Qualifying Show Visitors
Majority of visitors will be tire-kickers
Come up with 3 questions that immediately lets
you know if the visitor is qualified
Track the answers with the visitor’s business card
(badge scanner or staple the card to a lead sheet
with the 3 questions pre-printed)
Send a follow up email to everyone who attended,
highlighting your key positioning statements
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40. How to Measure What’s Working?
SALES (of course)
What if you’re not selling? Divide your pipeline into specific stages,
and track opportunities as they progress
Traditional Enterprise Product: Social/ SaaS:
1-Qualified suspect – meets our 1-free trial registrant
criteria 2-spent time on site/app
2-Initiated contact 3-populated personal profile
3-Interest expressed – potential 4-asked support question
opportunity identified …
… 8-signed up for 1 month paid
9-Verbal commitment to purchase 9-extended for 1 year paid
Closed Won
Closed Lost
Stalled/Postponed
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41. Sample Pipeline by Lead Source
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12 Trade Show
London
10
Twitter
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6 Google Ads
4
Webinar on
2 Security
0 Articles
Stage Stage Stage Stage Sold
6 7 8 9
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42. Interim Results, Prior to Sales
For each lead source calculate:
adjusted revenue = ∑ (Expected deal size x % likelihood to close)
Temporary ROI (until deal closes)= [(adj. revenue - cost)/cost]*100
For cost, include your time – if you spend 3 days at a trade show
this adds to the cost of the show
Likelihood to close is (typically) based on sales stage – stage 6 =
60%; stage 7 = 70%, etc.
In in long sales cycles, a lead doesn’t even become an
“opportunity” until it hits stage 4
You can start by tracking in a spreadsheet; eventually you’ll need
a CRM system / lead nurturing system
Enterprise sales: each account will have multiple contacts, further
complicating your record keeping
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43. Measuring Conversion Rate
4700
Email blast sent
1175 Invitations Opened 25% open rate
94 Unique page views 2% of invited
41 Respondents 44% page conversion
58 Attendees Attendees > respondents indicates WOM
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44. Iterate, Iterate and Iterate Again
Build in feedback models
A-B testing
Track opens, clicks, event attendance, registrations, etc.
Do it better the next time
Adjust your message
Adjust your demo
Adjust your home page
Adjust your marketing channel
Try to improve the # of leads coming into the funnel
Track and improve your conversion rate at every step in the
funnel
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46. That first (second or third) customer
Revenue is important, but in the early stage these are even
more important:
Feedback that can help improve the product
Testimonial - a customer approves a quote for your web
site or other marketing materials
“This product is great because it solves such & such
problem…”
Case study – customer goes on the record with before/
after data and quotes
Reference – customer agrees to talk to other potential
customers, journalists or analysts about how great you are
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if the product is only sold to you (and people 100% exactly like you) there will be a very small market.
Competes – not going to get into detail – Mei Aden vs. Tami 4 – sometimes your competitor is not who you define it asWhale – there was a company called “SpearHead” which marketed “Air Gap” – in the beginning we focused almost exclusively on them & how they were “copying us.” well – they made all the same mistakes we did. They ended up disappearing. This is an iterative process – you’re not going to necessarily know all this on the first go.