My presentation on Helpful Marketing at Omaha Lean Startup Meetup

1. You have to FIND customers to
develop them
Helpful MarketingTM for Lean
Startups
by Kevin Dewalt

2. Save the date: Justin coming to Lincoln …
Week of June 23rd: Meetups, Workshops for Lean Startup training
Brian Ardinger
Email: brian@nmotion.co
Twitter: @ardinger, @NMotionStartup
Mobile: 402-770-9567

3. Founder
SoHelpful, 3 previous
Angel Investor
Collabspot (JFDI), Power Supply
(500 Startups), Vericant (???)
Mentor/Advisor
1,000s, mostly Lean Startup
Ruby Programmer
Former VC
kevindewalt.com
@kevindewalt
Beijing, China

4. 3rd Major Marketing Shift
Before 1995
Mass Advertising
1995 - 2012
Niche Marketing
Today
Helpful Marketing

5. You ignore 99% of your inbox
and 99.9999% of your ads

6. I hear …
“We can’t FIND customers to DO Customer Development”
“I have paying customers … and they STILL won’t talk to me”
“Nobody reads our blog … or opens our email”
Finding Customers + Winning Trust = EVERYTHING

7. Worse yet … what works in SV doesn’t
work everywhere …

8. Helpful Marketing
A strategy for winning customers by
proving you help them solve problems.

9. Prove you are helpful and customers will …
• Find you
• Trust you
• Buy from you
• Tell everyone about you
And most importantly for Lean Startups …
TELL YOU THEIR PROBLEMS

10. Fail to win trust?
You product or service needs to be transformative

11. About … Help

12. This is what
struggling business do …

14. Case Study # 1 – Customer.io
“The CEO who writes email copy”

17. Case Study # 2 – Klinify
“The CEO who will sort your email”

18. “Do you need help with your email?”

20. Help them through…
Blogging … Speaking … Newsletters …
Face-to-Face … 1-on-1 over Skype or
Hangout … Webinars … Hangouts on
Air … Drip email … ebooks … courses …
workshops … organizing meetups …
hackathons … office hours

21. But … how do I … ?
… identify WHO is my customer?
… know WHAT problems they have?
… know HOW to solve them?
… WRITE something?
… get them to READ it?
… use this trust to SELL to them?
… create EVANGELISTS?
… get customers to CALL ME for help?

22. Let’s Do Helpful Marketing!
1. Create a Target Persona
2. Identify a key problem
3. Write helpful content
4. Get them to find it
5. Develop your 1-on-1 help strategy
6. Get customers to call you for help
7. Take what you learn to develop products
& content that sells

23. Target Personas bring focus
A fictitious caricature of the most important
person your business needs to influence.
(usually the paying customer)

24. My “Dave” Target Persona
Dave is a 35-year-old American who lives
in Wichita, Kansas. He is married, college
educated, and has a daughter. Dave’s life
dream is to become an entrepreneur and
sell web and mobile products online. He
has a full-time job and is willing to work
very hard to make his dream a reality. He
has some technical skills but
unfortunately doesn’t live near a startup
hub - and thus he has a hard time
connecting with entrepreneurs to get
advice when he needs it.

25. Target Persona Tips
• Based on a REAL person
• Have 1 Target – or at most 2
• Don’t sweat details.

26. Let’s hear some of your targets!

27. How to use your target
• Pick “Dave’s” problems
• Offer Dave solutions
• Write/Speak/ TO Dave
Dear Dave …

28. How ‘Help’ impacts Cust Dev
• Gets you Earlyvangelists
• Gets you insight
• Helps validate demand
• Positions you as a trusted source

29. Closing
Why you should be VERY optimistic …

30. I met some of your future customers last week
… in Manila

31. But you need to get above the noise
Few will create “the next Twitter”
But we can all be helpful

32. Helpful Marketing Workshop Omaha

33. By the end of the workshop you will …
Write helpful content that sells Build your evangelists by helping 1-on-1
SoHelpful.me/KevinDewalt

35. Sat Apr 19 8:30-5:00
workshop.sohelpful.me/omaha.html
$249
$99 – use code KD99
@kevindewalt
kevindewalt@gmail.com