This is the talk we give to new batches to establish basic principles and a framework for marketing. It helps analyze what assets a startup has to share, how channels are a function of their business model, and basics about acquisition costs and AARRR funnels. We end looking at landing pages, as a basic marketing tool that can put this all together.

1. Startup Marketing

2. Agenda
Marketing
● Startup Marketing
● Marketing Basics
● Messaging and Content
● Channels and Tactics
○ Landing Pages
○ Other Channels

3. Before even looking at tactics...
● Must have a clear idea of your goals
● Must know what is necessary to deliver / dist your value
● Set up channels with clear calls-to-action (CTAs) for people to
take actions and express interest
● Know your customer / business
○ What is the job to be done?
○ How often (frequency) does this job need to be done?
○ What volume do you need now? To breakeven? To justify investment?
○ How is this process going to work offline and online?
○ What messages are important for them?

4. Big Changes in Starting Companies
Remember the context you compete in...
● It’s cheaper to start and market a company
○ more competition for your clients / users
● Potential market is bigger
○ “Software is eating the world”
○ More long tail opportunities (for niche business models)
● New companies all face the same challenge: communicating
with users
○ Rise of Online Marketing as a standard
Marketing is still just as daunting, intimidating...

5. Market Market Market Market Market Market
Market Market Market Market Market Market
New
Product

6. Offline Marketing
● Ads - Print & Exterior
● Branding
● Events & Expos
● PR
● TeleMarketing
+ High volume
- Push
- Price
- Very little data
Market Market Market Market Market Market
Market Market Market Market Market Market
New
Product

7. Offline Marketing
● Ads - Print & Exterior
● Branding
● Events & Expos
● PR
● TeleMarketing
+ High volume
- Push
- Price
- Very little data
Market Market Market Market Market Market
Market Market Market Market Market Market
New
Product
Online Marketing
● Search
● Social
● Content
● Email
● Location Based
+ Intent (Pull)
+ Very cheap
+ Realtime
- A ton of data

8. WE THINK:
An overwhelming amount of
marketing channels and possible
actions
REALITY:
Marketing channels are a function of
our business model

9. Is there a scalable business model?
● Hustling
Things your competition won’t
do, what is necessary
● Search Optimization
Find you through search*
● Content Marketing
Blogs, videos, social media,
infographics, influencers, etc.
(feed SEO)
● Email Marketing
Direct access to people’s inbox
● Online Advertising
○ Search
○ Social Media
○ Banner / Display
○ Affiliate
● Mobile Downloads
Mobile specific networks
● Branding
Large Ads, Sponsorships
If No, then... If Yes, then...
Credit for model - https://youtu.be/MKxRs2vpsog

10. “OK, but that doesn’t apply to me”
Justification to spend money (and dangers):
● “Early stage, trying to grow fast”
○ Danger - is your product validated, does it have a fit?
● “Figuring out which marketing channels work”
○ Danger - is your messaging and UX good?
● “Figuring out how to price”
● “I don’t know how to do marketing”
○ Danger - Expensive / Generates dependencies
Reality:
A mixed model is ALWAYS short term

11. Marketing Basics

12. Why? The economics just don’t work

13. Why? The economics just don’t work
This has a cost
Getting customers takes
time and money

14. Why? The economics just don’t work
This has a cost
Getting customers takes
time and money
This is where we get
money
These guys are supposed to
pay us

15. How are your business economics?
Total Marketing
Costs
Total Customers
÷ Customer
Acquisition Cost=
$1000 100 $10
Total Revenue Total Customers
÷ “Lifetime”
Customer Value=
$900 100 $9
CAC
LTV

16. Cost of Acquiring Customer (CAC) vs.
Lifetime Value of Customer (LTV)
CAC > LTV
CAC = LTV
CAC < LTV Great Business
Bad Business
Bad Business
$10 $1
$10 $10
$10 $11

17. You are a No, until you are a Yes
● Hustling
Things your competition won’t
do, what is necessary
● Search Optimization
Find you through search*
● Content Marketing
Blogs, videos, social media,
infographics, influencers, etc.
(feed SEO)
● Email Marketing
Direct access to people’s inbox
● Online Advertising
○ Search
○ Social Media
○ Banner / Display
○ Affiliate
● Mobile Downloads
Mobile specific networks
● Branding
Large Ads, Sponsorships
If No, then... If Yes, then...
Credit for model - https://youtu.be/MKxRs2vpsog

18. Rule #1 - Start Hustling
“Do things that don’t scale”
- Paul Graham
● Paganza - taking stacks of invoices to pay centers
● QuieroInfo - client Qs → Small Business Owners
● Airbnb - door to door, founders taking pictures
● Stripe - “instant” merchant accounts manually
● Buffer - handwritten letters to early users

19. Getting first users → Whatever it takes
● There are NO QUICK WINS, best option is to start yourself
○ Going to be expensive (time and money) at first
○ Gain more exposure, knowledge from users → easier/cheaper to acquire later
● Cannot be lazy or have any fear
● The “Big Launch” does not exist
○ Can you remember any big startup launch?!?!
“A person’s success can usually be measured by the number
of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”
- Tim Ferris

20. “ You Make What You Measure”

21. If you measure your weight everyday...
… it might affect your eating
decisions
… you might be able to
correlate cause and effect
… if you make a goal, you
might better understand how
to reach it

22. The Funnel (AARRR Framework)
Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue
https://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version

23. The Funnel (AARRR Framework)
https://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version
Visit to Site Signed Up
Download
Multiple Visits
MAU / DAU
Told Someone Paid
MRR
Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue

24. The AARRR Funnel Visualized

25. Marketing ↺ Metrics
● Acquiring clients can be constant drain of time and money
○ But, if there is no growth, there is no business
● You need to find which actions and channels are working
○ Which are creating the most volume? ⭐
○ Which are creating the most impact?
○ Which are using the most resources?
● Marketing has iteration cycles - how long to test? KPIs?
● Then, which messages work best with each channels...

26. For Example - Looking at our Marketing
Volume Impact Resources
Pitch Night ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Noche de Miercoles ⭐
Prensa ⭐⭐
Contenido ⭐⭐
Canales Online ⭐⭐
Comunidad ⭐⭐⭐
Channel
We can start to make decisions based on estimates of volume, impact and
resources. Later we can use analytics platforms to optimize.

27. Messaging and
Content

28. ● Get out of your head → a founder’s mind is already corrupted
● Remember that messaging and copy is for your audience
○ And remember their “job to be done”
● Discern Features vs Benefits
Best Practices
● Active Voice > Passive Voice
● Make it skimmable (get the impact at top / headings)
● Play with scarcity / urgency
● Always give them a clear call to action
Messaging
More - http://theheureka.com/marketing-copy-startup / https://blog.kissmetrics.com/75-copywriting-resources/

29. "Here's what our product can do" and "Here's what you can do
with our product" sound similar, but they are completely
diferent approaches."
Jason Fried

30. Remember what clients are interested in...
● Product / Service - What is it, actually?
● Benefits - Faster? Cheaper? More Money?
● Incentives - Do they know what’s most important to me? Do
they know I don’t care about that?
● Process - Do they know who would be using this and what the
process is?
● Confidence - Is this too risky for me right now? Who else is
taking that risk?
● Team - Do I want to work with this team? Can they do what
they say they can do?
● Price - How much does this cost - money / time?

31. What assets do we have?
Elements of our pitch
WHY - Show the user that we understand
their context and know their incentives
HOW - One Liner, Explainer video, etc.
Product or Prototype
WHY - To let the user see the potential
benefits, how easy it is, etc. Not to show our
impressive it is on the tech side
HOW - Screenshots, Demos, Video
Walkthroughs, “How it Works”
Traction
WHY - Show them that we are already doing
it, that others are trusting us, and that there
is value in paying for it
HOW - Numbers, Client List, Case Studies
Press Mentions
WHY - Show more “social proof” and what
others are saying about us
HOW - Links to articles, Interviews
Team
WHY - Raise confidence, put faces on
project, more expectations about service
HOW - Team section, introductions, culture

32. What assets do we have?
Testimonials
WHY - Let the user see their potential
outcome and feeling when the job is done
HOW - Quotes from happy users (with
photos), videos
Partners / Integrations
WHY - To meet their requirements (if an
integration), to let them know they can get
started, to build confidence
HOW - List of available partners and
integrations
Support
WHY - To give them answers to extra
details and doubts, to set expectations about
customer service
HOW - FAQ, Chat, Knowledge Base, Phone
Number
Pricing
WHY - To establish a value, to create
scarcity and urgency, to guide a user to pick
a certain offer
HOW - Pricing pages, comparisons,
discounts, billing options

33. What assets do we have?
Unique Content
What stories, experiences and immediate
value can we share with our users / sector that
others don’t have access to?
WHY
● Let people see if they want to get
involved in your story
● Give the audience an exclusive reason to
be here
● Establish your brand and team as a
“thought leader”
● Extend reach for SEO
HOW - Blogs, live demos, e-books and reports,
simulators, infographics, transparency in
offers, etc.
Community
WHY - To centralize the mechanics of an
entire community, to foster peer to peer
sharing and feedback, to give a sense of
“belonging”
HOW - Slack Channels, Github, Facebook
Pages, Twitter Lists, Spotify Playlists
Content Marketing Examples:
Zillow - How much is my home worth?
Hubspot - Inbound Marketing Blog
Jason Lemkin (Investor) - Saastr / Blog
Intercom - Product Management Blog
CityCop - Statistics

34. Channels and Tactics

35. Why? The economics just don’t work

36. Value Proposition Online
How far can you go?
Mobile App
Website / Platform
E-Commerce
Consumer Goods
Offline
Customer Segments
Hardware Installation
Digital Services /
Goods
Offline Services
Generating
Leads
Sales & Full
Delivery Online

37. Questions for every marketing channel
● Do we need to have this?
○ How deep into my value proposition can clients get?
○ Is this easily replaceable by another channel?
● Who is my primary audience for this?
● What are core messages / “jobs to be done”?
● What do we want visitors to do on our this?
● What does success look like?
● If successful, how can I take more advantage of this?

38. Landing Pages

39. What assets do we have?
What do we need to have?

40. Make Sure You...
● Get the most important stuff above the fold
○ Clear messages
○ Calls to Action (CTAs)
● Make them skimmable, easy to digest, and naturally flowing
● Get necessary confidence builders and social proof in there
● Set user / client expectations on next steps
● Don’t use one landing page for every campaign
○ Must match messages with campaigns (bad expectations, lazy marketing)
● Have an idea of your market baseline
● Start with just good enough, then iterate to optimize
https://blog.optimizely.com/2015/12/21/landing-page-best-practices-debunked/

41. Analyze your competition
● See how they prioritize their content / assets
● What are they showing above the fold?
○ Ask yourself why? Does that mean it’s important for their clients?
● What are their calls-to-action?
● Core messages?
● What are they showing that you aren’t?

42. Examples
Good References
● Wistia / Sign Up
● Slack / Why Slack
● Airbnb / Host Sign Up
● Transferwise
● Robinhood
● Intercom / Early Stage Company
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/landing-page-examples-list
https://medium.com/early-stage-startup-validation/how-to-setup-a-landing-page-for-validating-a-business-or-product-i
dea-d72c35fc012c
https://wistia.com/library/video-inspiration/demonstrating-the-perfect-landing-page
https://www.useronboard.com/onboarding-teardowns/
More Local UY references (mixed)
● CityCop
● Hipotecalo / Landbay
● Sagal / Producteca
● Grial Kit
● Quiena
● PetHelp

43. More Channels and
Metrics Coming Up...

44. Thanks
@rilinho