systems thinking in marketing

September 27, 2012

Marketing Advice for Startups

About Me

Connector

…Understanding the new social customer

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Unraveling their lifestyle, pains,

passions

Identifying their media

consumption choices

Identifying and connecting with

those who influence them

Connecting the dots between

brands and their customer with/ social content

What the heck is marketing?

(Scratch) Marketing

A marketer’s only permanent alliance is with the audience.

Erin Kissane (adapted)

Our responsibility is to:• Understand the user’s mental model before

designing products, websites or creating copy• Validate assumptions about the audience• Tune the communications to suit that audience

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The Evolution of Marketing• Up to 1980’s: Marketing the past

• Telemarketing, Radio, billboards, posters, print media• 1980-1990’s: Marketing the present

• Database marketing, relationship marketing, e-commerce, spam, guerilla marketing, CRM gains dominance in strategy

• 2000+: Marketing the (social) future• Social media, an ongoing effort, creative exploration in developing technology and platforms

Marketing of the Future• Products/services are never finished• Products/services never stand alone

Evolving Marketing

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Sooo 1980’s…

Sooo cool…

2000’s: What People Buy

• Promise that the brand will continue to deliver now and in the future

• Trust = the belief that a brand is capable of delivering now and in the future

You want to be a great marketer?You need to understand two things

Human Behavior

Source: Human 1.0

Understanding Human Behavior

How we get persuaded

Source: Robert Cialdini, Influence

We are wired for reciprocity

Source: Human 1.0

Why we go out of our way to punish others

Source: Human 1.0

How we make decisions…

Source: Human 1.0

Systems Thinking

Startup Marketing: You Have Been Warned

17Source: @MikeTrap

Startup Marketing: The Reality

• Used a video of a non-existent product to gather feedback

• Formulated hypotheses about features and tested them rapidly

• Changed marketing approach and feature set when hypotheses were disconfirmed by market feedback

• Started as a platform for gathering support using “tipping points”

• Customers told them that the idea was too abstract and unfocused

• The company almost ran out of money

• Found that only one aspect was working, group deals

Startup Marketing: The Reality

Payment system for PDAs

Massive multi-player game

Video-dating site

Automated email recommendation service

Podcasting (as Odeo)

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Systems Thinking

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Feedback and Loops

• Validate needs• Collect customer

feedback, have the mechanisms to adjust

• Perpetual listening and integration of data for meaningful feedback

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Marketing Disruptive Products

In High Tech, Marketing is More About Opps than Current Market

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Current Market Demand OpportunityCurrent products meet current customers

Novel products, often targeting non-users

Needs well understood and stable Needs not well-defined, likely to change

Substitutes for existing products within category

Creates new categories of demand

Selection, resulting in market share

Rate of adoption and penetration

Size of market, ease of addressing Potential benefits vs. behavioral change

Source: Michael Davies, Endeavour Partners

Novel, Innovative Tech Products: Difficult to Adopt• Most people, most of the time loathe change

• Investment in time and effort• Uncertainty, anxiety

• Not familiar with novel products and their potential

• Novel products always require trade-offs• Evaluation based on perceived value, relative to products in use• Sensitive to loss aversion

• Companies underestimate the switching costs, overestimate the potential benefits

24Source: Michael Davies, Endeavour Partners

The Gap b/n Eager Sellers and Stony Buyers

25Source: Michael Davies, Endeavour Partners

What Can You to Do to Drive Rapid Adoption?• Accept resistance

• Anticipate long adoption• Manage accordingly

• Strive for >10x gain:• Make relative benefits so great they overcome customers’

overweighting of potential losses• Minimize resistance:

• Target non-users – don’t use product now, no change needed or the unendowed

• Target segments of customers who don’t give up as much• Make behaviorally compatible products

26Source: Michael Davies, Endeavour Partners

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Go-to-Market Perspectives

Go-to-Market Plan Inputs

• Customer understanding: pains and passions• Business plan and goals• Sales plan and goals• Addressable market and potential entry points• Positioning and segmentation

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Before You Start: Figure Out Unique Shtick

29Source: @MikeTrap

Stance: Finders Keeper

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The New Sales and Marketing Funnel

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Social Media – It’s not about the tools

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PR/ Influencers

• Framework• What are you doing?• Why does it matter?• Why should people care about it now?

• Hire agencies for the right reasons• Don’t ask them if they have a rolodex of media

contacts• Ask them if they will build media relations for you

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Advertising = Influencer Marketing• Push is dead; it is all about the right pull• Decision-making is a complex & strategic

process• Although there is an ultimate decision-maker,

there are numerous others involved to inform, support and validate decisions

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Content Marketing

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9 out of 10 B2B organizations market with content and 60% will increase spend in 2012:

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Measurement

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Customer Metrics: LTV

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Customer Metrics: Net Promoter Score

Source: @MikeTrap

Customer Metrics: Customer Referral Value

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Resources

• Books:• Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows• Momentum: How Companies Become Unstoppable Market

Forces by Ron Ricci and John Volkmann• Influencer Marketing by Duncan Brown and Nick Hayes• Building Strong Brands by David A. Aaker• Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely• The Psychology of Influence by Robert Cialdini• CRM at the Speed of Light by Paul Greenberg

• Marketing Destinations: • Awareness, Inc.• Marketo• HubSpot

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Contact me

• Lora Kratchounova• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ScratchMM• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/scratch• lora@scratchmm.com

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