Audience development includes growth marketing tactics for early stage startups

1. EXTREME PRACTICES FOR BUILDING AN AUDIENCE

2. 2
FIRST RULE OF EXTREME
AUDIENCE BUILDING
EXTREME AUDIENCE

3. 3EXTREME AUDIENCE
DON’T SELL A SHIT PRODUCT

4. EXTREME AUDIENCE
HIRE A CMO

5. EXTREME AUDIENCE
It reminds you of what to focus on when you
wake up every morning.
It forms the basis of your messaging when
you’re sharing your product with your
audience (customers, investors, and press).
It affects what you focus on. It affects how
you carry yourself. And it affects the people
who want to work for you.
START WITH WHY: SET A VISION

6. EXTREME AUDIENCE
VISION STATEMENTS
Vibease wants to
see a world
where women
can have
orgasms as much
as men do.

7. EXTREME AUDIENCE
VISION STATEMENTS
Airbnb aims to
connect millions of
people in real life all
over the world,
through a
community
marketplace– so
that you can Belong
Anywhere.

8. EXTREME AUDIENCE
VISION STATEMENTS
Warby Parker
wants a world
where everyone
can see clearly,
stylishly, and at
affordable
prices.

9. EXTREME AUDIENCE
DATA COLLECTION
‣ L
Do people even want your product?
Use TypeForm
How are they using your product?
Are they referring their friends?
Use MixPanel, Kissmetrics,
Heatmaps, Google
Campaigns + Analytics

10. EXTREME AUDIENCE
DATA COLLECTION
‣ L
How can you incentivize your power users to share
the service?
Email Marketing, Mailchimp, Intercom
How will you communicate with your customers?
Intercom + Social Media (HootSuite,
Edgar, Mention)
Who are your top users? Where do they live? How
many Twitter followers do they have?
Use Social Rank, FollowerWonk, Klout,
Brand42

11. EXTREME AUDIENCE
YOU WILL ONLY GROW WHAT YOU MEASURE
Measure:
New users
User referrals
User retention
User engagement
Tip: Take a sticky note, and write one
audience-related goal on it. Be
specific. Place it on your bathroom
mirror, so that each morning you’re
reminded of your No. 1 growth
priority for audience development.

12. 12EXTREME AUDIENCE
COMMUNITY BUILDING
Start Niche: Target a micro-
universe
Facebook started with Harvard.
Yelp and Uber started with tech-
savvy users in San Francisco.
Foursquare started with late-night
early adopters in New York City.
Quora and LinkedIn's early savvy
users were the VCs and startups of
Silicon Valley.

13. EXTREME AUDIENCE
COMMUNITY BUILDING
Early Adopters / Influencers
Focus on influencers within specific
communities to drive WOM and
evangelism of the product
Promote early adopters and make them
feel special
Engage with early adopters + listen to
their feedback.
Use Twitter, blogs, SocialRank, Get
Satisfaction.

14. EXTREME AUDIENCE
HACK #1: TINDER
Tinder cofounder Whitney Wolfe
ventured to college campuses +
scheduled meetings with sororities.
She’s have all the girls at the meetings
install the app. Then she’d go to the
corresponding brother fraternity —
they’d open the app and see all these
cute girls they knew.

15. EXTREME AUDIENCE
HACK #2: MAILBOX
Mailbox, an email app that
sold to Dropbox for ~ $100
million 37 days after launch
was one of the first apps to
stir up demand by creating a
wait list

16. EXTREME AUDIENCE
HACK #3: GOLDIEBLOX
GoldieBlox created a viral video
to the hit Beastie Boys song
“Girls” about getting young girls
into technology. It got 3 million
views in 2 days and caused a
lawsuit. It kept GoldieBlox, an
interactive game company few
people had heard of, in headlines
for weeks.

17. EXTREME AUDIENCE
GET NOTICED: CONTENT MARKETING
Content marketing is a cost
effective, smart and
scalable way to acquire
customers and establish
credibility
Content should be educational
analytical, + authentic
Content marketing is hard work.
There’s a reason they call it
‘feeding the beast’. And the more
you feed it the hungrier it gets.

18. EXTREME AUDIENCE
GET READ: EMAIL MARKETING
How do I grow my mailing list from 0 - 1,000?
Start by scraping you inbox. Your friends will
forgive you + they can always unsubscribe.
Grow your user base through strategic
partnerships, events and sweepstakes!
What kind of content should I send?
Balance content between sell, sell, sell + emails
that are 100% value-add + informational
Balance repurposed content from your blog +
content written exclusively for emails

19. 19EXTREME AUDIENCE
EVENT MARKETING
Pros
Community building
Brand recognition
Networking opportunities
Cons
Expensive without sponsorship
Time-suck
Hard to measure ROI
Tips
Network with superconnectors + influencers
Use PPC Ads to Promote Your App During Events
Have a clear call-to-action

20. EXTREME AUDIENCE
SOCIAL GOOD AS MARKETING

21. EXTREME AUDIENCE
PRODUCT MARKETING
• Airbnb reverse-engineered Craigslist to let users post listings automatically despite no
public Craigslist API.
• Allowing users to embed videos was key to the success of YouTube and Vimeo.
Youtube/Vimeo grows every time a video goes viral because users are personally invested
in marketing it.
• Slideshare included a plain-text link in their embed code, driving traffic back to their
site to get an SEO boost to boot.
• Dropbox incentivized referrals by giving free extra storage space – a strategy they claim
accounted for 60% of their growth.

22. 22EXTREME AUDIENCE
THE INTERNET WAS MADE FOR SHARING
Forget gamification + “viral design”: there
is no bigger incentive for users than the ability to
spread their creations, beliefs + causes in a
manner that wasn't possible before.
Make your platform shareable: ensure that
what gets created on your platform is shareable.
YouTube gained early traction because MySpace
users (musicians) needed a way to share videos
and Youtube offered them a solution while
MySpace did not. Whoops.

23. 23EXTREME AUDIENCE
SUBMIT YOUR APP
Product Hunt
Chrome Web Store
Hacker News
Reddit

24. EXTREME AUDIENCE
USER REFERRAL AND RETENTION: TOP TIPS
Viral Landing Page/Waitlist
Use Social Analytics Tools to Find
Influencers
Curate Deals & Discounts for Your
Email Subscribers
Involve Users in Product
Development
Create Success Milestones for Your
Users
Cause a Problem Intentionally to
Reach Out to Users
Release New Features to Reach Out
to Users

25. EXTREME AUDIENCE
SOCIAL MEDIA BEST PRACTICES
Improve your inbound
Make more original content
ENGAGE!- Like, Share, RT;
Answer questions, tweets,
comments, etc.
Be opinionated
Make your details public + up to
date

26. EXTREME AUDIENCE
PRESS!

27. EXTREME AUDIENCE
WHY DO YOU NEED PRESS?
1. Users
2. SEO
3. Building Credibility + Trust
4. Raising Money
5. Testing Out a New Idea
6. Recruitment

28. EXTREME AUDIENCE
FINDING THE JOURNALIST
Do your homework. Scour
Google News for reporters who
have already covered apps
similar to yours.
STALK or Get an introduction!
Cocktail party rules apply
Give them a scoop!

29. EXTREME AUDIENCE
Courtney B of the deep blue sea,
Would you could you should you if
you please
When you’ve got a moment so free
Let known when you could lend
your ear to me?

30. EXTREME AUDIENCE
PR TIPS FROM A NON-PR
$3K - $30K per month
Try negotiating a "success-based" PR
package that gives you the security of
knowing that you will only pay for PR if
certain pre-determined goals for coverage
are met.
Rotate through PR firms on a 3-6 month
basis to maximize their Rolodex’s

31. EXTREME AUDIENCE
IF ALL ELSE FAILS, GET NAKED

32. EXTREME AUDIENCE
TAKE NOTES FROM

33. EXTREME AUDIENCE
READ: BLOGS + NEWSLETTERS
First Round — firstround.com/review/
Fred Wilson (A VC) — http://avc.com
Chris Dixon — http://cdixon.org
Paul Graham’s Essays — http://
paulgraham.com
Hacker News — http://
news.ycombinator.com
Mattermark
Startup Digest http://startupdigest.com

34. EXTREME MEDIA
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved

35. EXTREME MEDIA
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup
Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and
everyone in between

36. EXTREME MEDIA
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup
Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and
everyone in between
READ

37. EXTREME MEDIA
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup
Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and
everyone in between
READ
Write

38. EXTREME MEDIA
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup
Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and
everyone in between
READ
Write
Be happy. And know it’s OK and normal to be sad, angry,
frustrated, disappointed and insanely crazy too. As a founder, you
will hit your highest highs and lowest lows.