french techhub marketing
TRANSCRIPT
S h i r a A b e l • CEO, Hunter & Bard
– Marketing strategy – Marketing implementation – Full branding & design
• Taught Marketing for Startups at StartHub (Tel Aviv/ Jaffa Academic College)
• Mentor at: Google Campus, Microsoft, Founder Institute, Seedcamp, Trento, & more
• MBA, Kellogg School of Management
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“A true unfair advantage is something that cannot be easily copied or bought.” - Jason Cohen
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Agenda • Strategy
– Concept à Alpha – Launch
• You’ve Hit It – Product Market Fit – Tactics
• Behavioral Engineering – Action Triggers – Small Things Matter
• Sales
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Marketing for Concept Phase
What does your brand stand for? Visually and in messaging
Test assumptions (cost, messaging, bundle mix, etc.). Mobile ads à app/ Ads à landing page
Get to know influencers & media people on Twitter. Give a lot. Don’t ask for anything.
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How to Test Your Idea - Web • Create a Minimal Viable Product MVP
– This’ll be ugly and basic – Take people through the motions
• Ads to landing pages to test messages – see what people click on
• https://spaces.pe ß test willingness to buy & price elasticity
• Can build an entire product & take’m down to BUY • Once product/market fit has been reached à do a
Big Launch
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How to Test Your Idea - Mobile • Create a rough app & have friends & family test via
Testflight (very beginning) • Make a MVP and launch in the app store of a
smaller country only • Create a Minimal Viable Brand
– Purpose – Why do we exist – Positioning – Where do we fit in the market – Personality – How do we tell that story*
• Once product/market fit had been reached, build the main app and do a Big Launch
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Alpha Phase • Start the blog with newsletter sign up (think
Danielle Morrill & Mattermark) • Landing pages à more sign ups • A/B test messaging & optimization using
unbounce.com or launchrock.com (more sign ups)
• Social outreach starts to the media The point is to begin building an interest and an audience through good content before launch
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Launch • Ask the media people and influencers who now
know you if they would be willing to check out your product & give feedback
• PR on a slow news day (avoid days where Apple announces anything, election days, CES, DLD, etc…)
• Send an announcement to the list you’ve been growing through the blog, ads, and social
• Attempt an act of virality (I say attempt, because nothing is guaranteed)
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Example @shiraabel
Business Objective
Improve Financial Performance!Business Metric
Reduce Long-Term Dependence on Ads & Lower
Overall Costs!
Marketing Metric!Increase Relationship / Content Marketing – Raise percentage of traffic from blog versus
ads!
Marketing Strategies for B2B • Become known as a
industry leader in a chosen niche (think about crossing the chasm – Outbrain does this well)
• Connect with those who use your product where they live online (Objet has a FB page for that reason)
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• Let the end-user (who may not be the client) know about your work (i.e. Intel inside)
• Increase customer lifetime by giving information that the customer values (creates loyalty / increases switching cost)
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Marketing Strategies for Web
• Become known as a product leader in a chosen niche (think Martha Stewart – home, or Buffer – social media management)
• Increase average purchase rate (in-store recommendations are great for this)
• Create evangelists who will bring in a wider client base
• Increase customer lifetime value by giving information that the customer values (creates loyalty / increases switching cost – think Kissmetrics blog)
Marketing Strategies for Apps
• Create several free apps that have in-app advertisements directing to your paid app
• Have your free app represent a much larger service (store, blog, service, company ß this is where the monetization is)
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• Have in-app rev-share advertising and go for large numbers (Inneractive, Admob, etc.)
• Have a free Lite and a Premium Paid version (Lite having advertising – Premium having none)
Build an App Family
• Send advertising to main app • Do complementary apps – NOT same app with
different names (branded house or a house of brands)
• Lite and paid versions
Main App
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Performance Measurement • Is your objective SMART: specific, measurable, assignable, realistic &
time specific? • What are your strategic initiatives?
– Build awareness – Expand distribution (i.e. increase downloads) – Build penetration – Build buying rate – Increase loyalty
• Funnel ß e.g. when purchases through the app – Where do you want people to go? – What action do you want people to take? – Track the movement – Conversion rate / A/B Testing – Test & iterate
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The Holy Trinity of Marketing Online
GREAT PRODUCT
Earned Media / PR
Relationship Marketing
SEO / Ads / Affiliate
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The Holy Trinity of Mobile Marketing
GREAT PRODUCT
Earned Media / PR
Mobile Ads Seamless Social sharing
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Sample Tactics (not in order) • Online Ads (FB, Google & more) • PR (Media Kit recommended) • Facebook • Pinterest • YouTube • Twitter • Quora • LinkedIn • Blogging • Seeding posts • Google+ • Blog commenting • Games • Infographics
• White papers / Case studies • Peer review • Newsletter / Email (highest ROI of
all digital media) • Forums • E-book • Webinars • Community • Guest blogging • Podcast • Teleseminar • Affiliate Marketing • Game elements (e.g. leader
board, 80% signed up) • SEO / SEM
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Why Earned Media & PR • Exposes you to big numbers all at once • Gives a spike of traffic • May be strategic instead of pure growth
(e.g. much of the time TechCrunch isn’t the target market, but it’s what VCs read & gives social proof)
• Has a strong trust rate
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What is Earned Media & PR • Blog posts that you write and submit for
publishing (how-to’s are great for this) • Coverage from any media (radio
interview, blog post, news article, etc) • Mentions from others that you didn’t
pitch • Evangelists who are well known (imagine
Oprah mentioning you to her minions)
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How to Do Earned Media & PR • Get to know media & bloggers on Twitter long before
launch • Give • 2 weeks before launch ask if they would be willing to
check out your product (consider an embargo) • I’ve heard of success from mass emails (luckiest woman
I’ve ever met – only case of success I know) • KEEP YOUR ASK SHORT
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Keep in Touch – Email • Think about your demographic (every person with
responsibility uses email) • Keep it short • A/B test several subject lines • Action-trigger emails have a higher opening rate • Keep it relevant • Appropriate landing page à funnel them in • Let people choose what they want to be notified
for • DON’T BUY LISTS OR SPAM
Keep in Touch – Notifications • iOS 108 characters max • Android – recommended 50 characters max (1-line
on the notification bar) * ht/ Danya Schwartz Bar-El • Localize sending so user receives notification
between 9-11am or 2-5pm (but test first) • A/B test messaging for a couple of days then blast
everybody else with the winner • In-app landing page – like all landing pages - fitted
to the message and the push campaign
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Thought Leadership is Critical • Blogging and guest blogging is one of the
best ways to do this • Webinars / Presentations that give helpful
industry related information (think Crunched and its Growth Hacker series)
• White papers (sign up to our newsletter and get this white paper for free!)
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Content Marketing • Takes time • Builds the brand • Costs (yes, time is money) • Builds a relationship • Increases referral rate • One key point – social needs to be built
into the product
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What Do You Read? • No one cares about your company • People are busy • They care about what they need for
work or life • Don’t waste their time • Speak to your customer with respect
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Affiliate, SEO & Media Buy (Ads) • Immediate • Targeted • Mobile has a stronger conversion than web • Strongest conversion is mobile FB • Costs (which is fine if you charge, could be a dilemma if
you’re free) • Doesn’t build a relationship • Has the lowest trust rate • Affiliate needs to be well vetted in order to not destroy
the brand
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ACTION TRIGGERS
You can’t force anyone to do something they don’t want to, but if they do want to – this will help you get them there
T-Shirt Economy • Reputation based
– Incentives are about doing something for the love of it NOT financial reward
– Easier to get someone to do something for free than for less money (e.g. lawyers would rather do pro bono than get paid less per hour for the same work)
– Changes the way we perceive the work we do – When we already have our basic needs met, we’re more
likely to do something for our own joy • This is where the evangelists should be – that’s why
not paying them is a good thing
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Financial Economy • People judge if something is “worth” their time • Become less enthusiastic if the work is not paid
according to expectations • Make sure incentives are aligned with goals • Proven to be a bad way to build incentives to get
people to work harder – Studies have shown that for cognitive work, a larger reward
results in worse results – Loss aversion, however, brings better results
• This will affect the affiliates the most
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Reward Status Achievement Self Expression Competition Altruism
Points
Levels
Challenges
Virtual Goods
Leaderboards
Gifting & Charity
Watch the Funnel Acquisition –
Learns About Product Conversion –
Signs Up Retention –
Uses Product
WOM (Sharing)
Buys
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Engineering the Path to OK The user must do a set
of actions, before permission is requested.
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Engineering the Path to OK
Marking optional fields only encourages
‘voluntary over-disclosure’
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How You Say Things Matters Researchers found that placing the following statement at the end of an ad… caused their trust scores to jump as much as 33 percent!’
“You can trust us to do the job for you.”
First Choice Brand Effect
“…when the favorite brand was included… the choice was made instantly… this… occurs only for the respondent’s number one brand…”
*Decoded, by Phil Barden
Get Emotional 1. Fear – Insurance 2. Guilt – Mother’s Day 3. Trust – Financial
institutions 4. Value – Matching
prices 5. Belonging – Part of our
community 6. Competition – Doing
better than the Jones’s
7. Instant Gratification – I want it now
8. Leadership – Early adopter & evangelist
9. Trendsetting – What are the leaders doing?
10. Time – Save time
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Cognitive Resources • Behavior depends on time of day – we’re more likely to have
no patience at the end of the day, when we’re hungry or tired • Place – if we’re being interrupted every 30 seconds, our
cognitive resources will be spent – decision making goes down • How much we’ve had to concentrate – again, using up
cognitive resources – We can’t decipher truth from fiction when we’re cognitively spent – Our mood can change simply by putting a pencil between our teeth
and forcing ourselves to smile
Point being – When is your customer using your product? What’s their cognitive level?
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International Markets • Americans spell correctly. However, the British
disagree. There are more Americans than British J (localize your English – even when it’s for Australians)
• Spelling and grammar count – mistakes lower trust levels in all languages and cultures
• Find someone from the culture you’re aiming to sell to, who knows marketing – to do your marketing. OR – go there & live for a bit. Understanding culture is critical.
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Sales Tools • Case studies show your ideal customer and how things
go when everything is perfect • Connecting with individuals on social builds the
relationship, e.g. – Object can showcase customers design work on its FB page – LinkedIn group about industry – lead generation – Social CRM on Twitter
• Email marketing reminds companies that you exist & what you can do for them
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Sales Research • What is the title of the person in the organization that
typically makes the decisions? – Rapportive – LinkedIn
• Who are the media people who cover your industry? – Twitter – FB – Quora – LinkedIn
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App Sales • Salesforce & other sales platforms have app stores
– Users on these app stores are already in the frame of mind to buy
• Business app stores have less competition • Selling through a website means less expensive marketing • SaaS if you can – don’t make people pay for the app itself
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Rapportive
Find the email of the person you want to connect to by checking names through the Rapportive plugin.
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Choose who you want to connect to: What groups is the person in? If you know the title but not the whole name – do a search in Google of the partial name and title & you’ll get the whole name.
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Connect!• @shiraabel • h2p://www.linkedin.com/in/shiraabel • h2p://www.facebook.com/shiraabel • h2ps://plus.google.com/u/0/+ShiraAbel/posts • h2p://www.instagram.com/shiraabel • h2p://www.pinterest.com/shira_abel
References & Reads • All of the stock photos are taken from http://thestocks.im/ • THANK YOU’S: Dan-‐ya Shwartz Bar-‐El & Ze'ev Rosenstein • http://uxmovement.com/forms/why-users-fill-out-less-if-you-mark-required-fields/ • http://dancounsell.com/articles/prompting-for-app-reviews • http://agevik.se/post/72876032312/20-lessons-about-making-viral-apps-i-learned-the-hard • http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/09/web-content-conversions/ • http://www.slideshare.net/startuplessonslearned/eric-ries-the-lean-startup-google-tech-talk • http://www.slideshare.net/gzicherm/nir-eyal-hookedatgsummit • http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas • http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/socialization-of-your-personal-brand_28/ • http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2004/03/its_a_small_wor.html • http://www.quora.com/Udemy/How-did-Udemy-get-11-000-courses-online-so-quickly • http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Three-Wolf-Short-Sleeve/product-reviews/B002HJ377A • http://www.amazon.com/BIC-Cristal-1-0mm-Black-MSLP16-Blk/dp/B004F9QBE6 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI • http://www.macadamia-apps.com/app-launch-7-mistakes-to-learn-from/ • http://flowingdata.com/2011/09/18/yoda-pie-chart/ • http://blog.bitly.com/post/9887686919/you-just-shared-a-link-how-long-will-people-pay • http://www.briansolis.com/2011/09/whats-the-r-o-i-a-framework-for-social-analytics/ • http://www.slideshare.net/setlinger/altimeter-social-analytics081011final • Breakthrough Marketing Plans • http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-the-roi-of-social-media • http://ideas.deloitte.ca/blog/2011/09/social-media-going-beyond-roi/ • http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/20/the-10-key-mistakes-many-bloggers-and-writers-make/ • http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/03/01/the-10-best-facebook-campaigns/ • http://www.facebook-studio.com/ • http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-the-roi-of-social-media • http://marketingfortomorrow.com/tag/marketing-tone/
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