GOAL-DRIVEN GROWTHAND GROWTH HACKING

Murat Aktihanoglu ERA

http://eranyc.com murat@eranyc.com

March 9, 2015

Background EE Undergrad

Computer Science Graduate Degree

ERAAccelerator Program: 2 four-month sessions a year, 10 companies per session, 80 companies since 2011

$40,000 initial investment with potential follow-on investment ($50,000 to $250,000)

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Demo Days in New York and San Francisco with 800+ investors

Strongest post -program support and active alumni network of 80 companies

Today

1. Introduction2. Goal-Driven Growth3. Terminology4. Overview of getting visitors, activating and retaining them5. Methodology6. A note on growth hacking7. How to get visitors8. How to turn visitors into customers9. How to retain customers

How is your startup doing?

How is your startup doing?Typical answers:

Great

Good

Pretty good

Very good

We are about to release a beta in 2 weeks

We are looking for investors, do you know any?

How is your startup doing?Some other answers:

Monthly Active Users is growing 20% month over month

Engagement is up 30% week over week

Revenue is up 15% month over month

Our LTV is now 1.8x our CAC, 15% improvement over the last 2 months

We are looking for investors, do you know any?

How is your startup doing?Which set of answers is better?

How is your startup doing?If you don’t have a goal and you are not measuring what is going on, how do you know if things are going well or not?

You can’t grow if you do not focus on the right things to work on.

Goal-Driven Growth

1) Determine a single main Key Performance Indicator that shows if the company as a whole is successful and trending positively.

Examples: Revenue, MAU, Engagement, Time spent on site, etc.(There can also be secondary KPI’s depending on the company and product)

2) Set weekly/monthly Goals for this KPI.Examples: MAU 30 days: 1,000 , 60 days: 10,000, 90 days: 25,000

3) Every hour you spend, every decision you make as a company (every employee) is for reaching that goal.

4) At every checkpoint, there is a deep analysis to understand failure points and learning and implement new methods/changes to overcome the failure points for the next cycle.

Goal-Driven Growth

1. Set the next KPI goal

2. Direct all efforts for the goal

3. Measure4. Analyze / Learn

5.Implement new

learnings

0. Pick a KPI

0. Pick a KPIKey Performance Indicator (KPI)

A number that helps you get a quick grasp of how things are going within your company.

A KPI is a number that matters for obvious reasons, and by simply looking at you can get a sense of company trends.

When things go wrong, the KPI value should change in a noticeable way.

When things go right, the KPI value should quickly improve.

0. Pick a KPIPicking the right KPI: Start with Outcomes. Nothing matters more than the end result.

1) Identify the Success Factors2) Develop corresponding KPI

KPI Example: Social Network: 1) Stickiness 2) # of logins/month,# actions/month

Medium.com (Ev Williams) picked Total Time Reading instead of Monthly Unique Visitors.

Bad KPI’s for Ecommerce: # of visits, # of Page Views, Time On Site

Great read on this: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/single-startup-metric/

1. Set goals for the KPI

Leadership picks goals for the KPI for every week or month.

Presents to the whole company to get full buy-in from the team.

The goals should be agreed upon by EVERYONE in the company.

Goals should be ambitious but not crazy/insane (There is a fine line)

One question: IF WE REACH THIS GOAL IN 30 DAYS, DOES IT MEAN WE ARE DOING REALLY WELL?

2. Run for the Goal90% of this presentation is about methods/channels to achieve KPI goals.

Pick traction channels for your goal

Come up with expected outcomes (to measure against later, don’t fly blind)

Implement methods for that channel

Evaluate results

Learn

Optimize

Tweak

Try again

3. Measure/Track

* Have an automated email send out KPI data every day, week, and month.

* Have a dashboard that has KPI data displayed in such a way that you can see trends based on past performance. It’s helpful to see if a KPI is going up or down in general.

* Allow everyone in your company to access KPI data. This will inform people about which metrics matter to the company, thereby influencing their decisions.

4. Analyze / Learn

The key part of Goal-Driven Growth.

If you do not learn from what just happened, you can never fix it.

Dig deep to learn from the failure points and how they can be fixed.

5. Implement Learnings

The key part of Goal-Driven Growth.

Change channels, or optimize the channel further, by using the learnings.

Changing the KPI:

And then before moving on to the next stage, analyze if you should change your mani KPI.

Sometimes, maybe twice or 3 times in the life of your startup, you will need to change your KPI depending on the stage, environment, learnings, pivot, etc.

Benefits of Goal-Driven GrowthBeing able to answer these questions:

Where are you headed? (When do you know you are successful?)

Are you behind? (Need course-correction?)

Which areas do you need help with the most? (Mentoring)

Do your employees know where you are headed? (Can they answer these questions?)

Are your employees making the right decisions for the company? (Every little decision in a startup counts)

How to grow your startup – conversionsAs a startup, your primary goal is to get interest from a large segment of potential customers, convert them into customers and retain them.

Visitors

Customers

Retained Customers

Retained Customers

The Growth Hacker Funnel

http://www.totango.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-SaaS-Conversions-Benchmark2.pdf

Overview: How to Get Visitors1. Viral Marketing2. Public Relations3. Unconventional PR4. Search Engine Marketing5. Display Ads6. Social Ads7. Native Ads8. Offline Ads9. Search Engine Optimization10. Content Marketing11. Email Marketing

12. Engineering as Marketing13. Targeting Blogs14. Business Development15. Sales16. Affiliate Programs17. App Stores18. Browser Add-ons and Extensions19. Social Platforms20. Trade Shows21. Offline Events22. Speaking Engagements23. Community Building

Overview: How to Turn Visitors into Customers1) Landing Pages2) Copywriting3) Calls to Action4) Onboarding5) Progress, Awards, Leaderboards6) Pricing Strategies7) Free Trials8) Hello Bar9) Easy signup – API integrations

Overview: How to Retain Customers and Get Referrals1) Staged Traffic2) Speed to the “Aha Moment”3) Using Email4) Alerts and notifications5) Exit Interviews6) The Red Carpet7) Increase Value8) Good UI9) Community Building

TerminologyRevenue Run Rate

Current month’s revenue x 12

Monthly Revenue Growth

( (Current month’s revenue - Last month’s revenue) / Last month’s revenue )x100

Good target to raise Series A: 15-20%

RunwayCash in the bank/Burn Rate

Just after a raise: 12 to 18 months

TerminologyCustomer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Total spend on marketing/Number of acquired customers

CAC should be recovered from the customer in less than 12 months

Lifetime Value of a Customer

LTV > 3 x CAC

Salesforce, ConstantContact – 5 x CAC

Terminology

Churn Rate

(Number of customers that quit/Total number of customers) x 100

Acceptable: 5-7% annually (or 0.42 – 0.58% monthly churn)

Viral coefficient ( K-Value )

Average number of invitations sent per customer * Conversion rate of these invitations

>0.5 – 1.0 for viral growth

TerminologyCohorts

A cohort is a portion of your users based on when they signed up for your product.

Segments

Like cohorts but grouping users depending on other factors.

Needs-based and Profitability-based segmentation are typical examples.

Small Business, Mid-Market, and Enterprise are Needs-based segments used by many SaaS startups.

Segments should be measurable, addressable, stable and consistent.

TerminologyMultivariate Testing (A/B testing)

When you make product changes that are only seen by some of your users to see which version of your products performs better.

Sample size matters. 100-200 data points do not matter. Use this tool to get insights on what your sample size should be:http://www.experimentcalculator.com/

Note: Bandit testing is a continuous form of A/B testing that always send people toward the best performing options.

TerminologyNet Promoter Score: %Promoters - %Detractors

Every company’s customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors.

Question: How likely is it that you would recommend [company] to a friend or colleague?

Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

Tools: Qualaroo or Promoter.io

TerminologyProduct-Market Fit

If at least 40% of your existing users would be very disappointed if your product disappeared, then you have Product-Market Fit.

Without Product-Market Fit, nothing matters, don’t try to get traction.

Means, you are solving enough of a pain.

If you do not have PMF, focus mainly on Product, not exclusively on Growth.

You need users to test for PMF. So put some effort into getting an adequate user base for testing for PMF.

Process: How to get visitors1. Evaluate every potential traction channel

How probable, expected cost of user acquisition, expected volume, timeframe for testing the channel

2. Pick 3 channels that are the most promising

3. TestNot trying to get a lot of traction, just testing to see if this channel might work

4. Focus on one channel

“At any stage in a startup’s lifecycle, one traction channel dominates in terms of customer acquisition.”

5. When the channel is saturated, go back to 1 with the learnings to pick another channel

Case study: MintPicked the “Targeting blogs, PR, Search Engine Marketing” channels for testing

Ran cheap tests. Sponsored a small newsletter, reached out to financial celebrities, placed some Google ads

Focused on “Targeting blogs”Sponsored mid-level bloggers in the financial niche and guest postedAcquired first 40,000 customers

When this channel maxed out, they focused on “Public Relations”Reached 1 Million users within 6 months of launching

Optimizing a ChannelFocusing on a traction channel means becoming an expert on it by continually testing new tactics to get the most traction possible.

Research how past and present companies in your space and adjacent spaces succeeded or failed at getting traction. The easiest way to do this is to go talk to startup founders who previously failed at what you’re trying to do.

Compile your brainstorming ideas for each traction channel in a spreadsheet with educated guesses that you can confirm through testing.

Each channel will eventually flatten (The Law of Diminishing Click-Throughs)

Constantly keep testing new channels

Making A/B testing a habit (even if you just run 1 test a week) will improve your efficiency in a traction channel by 2–3x.Tools: Optimizely, Visual Website Optimizer, and Unbounce.

Product Dev & Traction at the same timeSpend 50% of your time on product and 50% on traction

1. Better product because you can incorporate knowledge from your traction efforts.

Dropbox: During product development, SEM $230/user while LTV was $99. Focused on Viral Marketing with a built-in referral program.

2. You get to experiment and test different traction channels before you launch anything.

Marketo (IPO’ed in 2013): SEO was in place even before product development and a blog. Focused on “Content Marketing” and got 14,000 interested buyers before product was ready.

Different stages, different channelsFocus on marketing activities that result in a measurable, significant impact

on your company for the given stage.

DuckDuckGo initially focused on SEO, later the volume of this channel became insignificant.

Initially, do things that do not scale.

After your growth curve flattens, what worked before usually will not get you to the next level.

A Note on Growth HackingGrowth Hacking is the science of achieving incredible growth with non-traditional strategies.

“A Growth Hacker is a person whose true north is growth” Sean Ellis – 2010

A growth hacker is not a marketer. The absolute focus on growth has given rise to a number of methods, tools, and best practices, that simply didn’t exist in the traditional marketing repertoire, and as time passes the chasm between the two discipline deepens.

Growth Hacking combines: Technology, Marketing and Sales, Design, Customer/User Experience(UX)

Internet products are inherently different than traditional products. They can spread themselves (Dropbox referral program, AirBNB craigslist hack, etc.)

Growth Hacking Example: AirBNBEnabled people posting on AirBNB to also post to Craigslist through a hack.

Eventually Craigslist blocked the hack but they got big traction through this.

•A traditional marketer couldn’t have thought or executed this

• AirBNB used their product as the primary means of distributing their product

•AirBNB realized their userbase was somewhere else originally and used that distribution platform to get to them

Growth HackersTry to get all users that sign up for your service to the Must-Have-Experience (MHX)

Growth hackers should be creative and curious

What would happen if we made our entire product invite only, and not just for the beta period?

What would happen if we made our users do something every week to keep their account from being deactivated forever?

What if we let our customer’s pick their own price, including free?

Growth hackers are obsessive about growth

It’s probably the 213th tactic that will work, not the 7th

The Growth Hacking Process1) Define actionable goals

Focus on a narrow, actionable goalIf you can assign specific tasks to a goal, it’s narrow enoughExample:

Increase DAU->Increase Retention->Increase content creation:

Tasks: Educate members about content creation by email, Add ‘what’s new’ on homepage for highlighting content creationSend notifications when there is a new comment

2) Implement analytics to track your goalsWithout analytics, goals are emptyTrack every relevant metric for your goal

3) Leverage your existing strengthsPrioritize your steps depending on your strengths and leverages

The Growth Hacking Process4) Execute the experiment

Before you run the experiment, write down your best guess on what will happen

Hypothesis keep you honest. And forces you to find real causes of results.

5) Optimize the experiment

Tweak, repeat, optimize the experiments. Don’t move on.

Have a control group when you can.

Utilize A/B testing

Only give up when you feel much more resources to get better results or your hypothesis and supposed leverages were off-base.

6) Repeat

Traction Channels for Getting Visitors1. Viral Marketing2. Public Relations3. Unconventional PR4. Search Engine Marketing5. Display Ads6. Social Ads7. Native Ads8. Offline Ads9. Search Engine

Optimization10. Content Marketing11. Email Marketing

12. Engineering as Marketing13. Targeting Blogs14. Business Development15. Sales16. Affiliate Programs17. App Stores18. Browser Add-ons and Extensions19. Social Platforms20. Trade Shows21. Offline Events22. Speaking Engagements23. Community Building

1. Viral MarketingThe Viral Coefficient (K) = invites per user * conversion percentageNumber of additional users you can get for each user you bring in.Any viral coefficient over 0.5 helps your efforts to grow considerably.

Viral cycle time: A measure of how long it takes a user to go through your viral loop.Shortening your viral cycle time drastically increases the rate at which you go viral, and is one of the first things you should focus on improving if using this channel.

Design the viral loop, minimize steps, seed with new usersOptimize invitationsOptimize conversion pages

2. Public RelationsInitially:

Have something interesting (usage numbers, launch, funding event, etc.)Shoot for coverage in smaller blogs and/or Help a Reporter Out (HARO)Follow influencers in your industry and reach out to the blogs they often link toSubmit your stories to Reddit, Hacker News, Product Hunt, etc., share on social media, email it to influencers for comment, ping blogs

Much later:Engage with a PR firm/consultant (But can be expensive and ineffective if not the

right firm for your company)Bring it in-house to own and build messaging

3. Unconventional PR1. Publicity stunts - anything that is engineered to get media coverage.

Renaming Halfway, Oregon to Half.com, Oregon for a yearWePay placing a block of ice at PayPal conference

2. Viral Videos - Blendtec, Dollar Shave Club, Dropbox

3. Customer appreciation – small scalable actionsGifts: Hipmunk sent luggage tags to initial customersContests and Giveaways: Shopify annual “Build a Business” competition, Dropbox’s DropQuest competition, Hipmunk’s Mother’s Day GiveawayCustomer support: Zappos will do anything to make you happy, no limits

4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)Demand Harvesting

Placing advertisements for keyword searches on search engines like Google AdWords

Pay-Per-Click: You only pay when a user clicks on an ad

Click-Through Rate (CTR) – the percentage of ad impressions that result in clicks to your site.

Cost per Click (CPC) – the amount it costs to buy a click on an advertisement.

Cost per Acquisition (CPA) – CPA is a measure of how much it costs you to acquire a

customer , not just a click.

Google AdWords

Microsoft AdCenter (Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo)

4. SEM Conversion Rates

4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)1. Find high-potential keywords: Google’s Keyword Planner, KeywordSpy, SEMrush, SpyFu

2. Group them into ad groups

3. Test different ad copy and landing pages within each ad group

4. As data flows in, you remove underperforming ads and landing pages and make tweaks to better performing ads and landing pages to keep improving results.

Also, early on, run tests with place-holder landing pages, to test product direction.

4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)A campaign is a collection of ads designed to achieve one high-level goal, like selling jewelry. You first create different ad groups. For example, if you’re an ecommerce store, you might create an ad group for each product type (e.g. diamonds rings, gold bracelets, etc.). You then select keywords you want your ad groups to appear for (e.g. “Diamond engagement rings” for diamond rings).

Then create your first ad using catchy, memorable copy with a call-to-action.

Use the Google Analytics URL Builder tool to create unique URLs (web addresses) that point to your landing pages. These URLs will enable you to track which ads are converting, not just the ones that are receiving the most clicks.

Someone just starting out in this channel should begin testing just four ads.

4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)Quality Score: a measure of how well customers are responding to your ads.

A high quality score can get you better ad placements and better ad pricing.

Click-through rate has the biggest influence on quality score by a wide margin.

Average CTR for an AdWords campaign is around 2.0% and Google assigns a low quality score to ads with CTRs below 1.5%.

4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)Content Network

When you set up a campaign, you can choose to advertise on the Google search network (traditional paid SEM), the Google content network (ads on non-Google sites), or both.

Initially stick with only search.

Retargeting

Consider luring people back to your site by retargeting through Google AdWords, or

other sites like AdRoll or Perfect Audience.

Conversion Optimizer

To optimize a long-running campaign you’ve been running for a while, the Conversion Optimizer is a great way to adjust your ads to perform better.

4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)Negative Keywords

You can use negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing for certain keywords.

Scripting

One more advanced tactic is using programming scripts to automatically manage your ads.

5. Display AdsDemand Generation: Banner ads

Largest Ad Networks: Google Display network (4B daily page views, 700M monthly visitors), Advertising.com(AOL), TribalFusion, ValueClick and AdBlade.

Niche Ad Networks: The Deck (for creative), BuySell Ads (self-service to buy ads from publishers)

Direct Ads: Go directly to site owners and ask to place an ad on their site

To pick the right demographics and sites for your ads:MixRank and Adbeat: Shows you ads your competitors are running and on which sitesAlexa and Quantcast: Shows the demographics of these sites

5. Display Ads: Viewability56.1% of all display ad impressions never appear on a screen

Vertical Ads are more viewableAds that were 160×600 pixels and 120×600 pixels were viewable around 53% of the time, for example, whereas 300×250 ads were viewable just 41% of the time, on average.

Target sites with more engaging and captivating content to achieve higher viewabilityrates.

Most “viewable” ads were not placed at the top of publisher pages, but at the bottom of the visible part of a webpage immediately after it loaded.

http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/12/03/5-viewability-findings-from-google/

6. Social AdsDemand Generation and audience building: indirect response

Facebook: >1B users, very granular targeting

Twitter: >250M users, sponsored tweets and cards

LinkedIn : >250M users, targeting by job title, company, industry

StumbleUpon: >25M users, users land on an ad-page

Tumblr : >100M users, also sponsored posts that can be reblogged

Reddit: >2B monthly page views, sponsored links on top or sponsored ads on is

Youtube: >1B monthly unique visitors, pre-roll, sponsored videos, banner ads

Others: BuzzFeed, Scribd, SlideShare, Pinterest

7. Native AdsNative ad platforms make your content look like any other piece of (native) content on the target site.

TripleLift (ERA), Outbrain, Sharethrough distribute your content to hundreds of partner sites like Forbes, Vice, Gothamist, etc.

Since these sites have large audiences, using a native ad platform to target them can drive lots of engagement in just a short period of time.

7. Native Ads on MobileTraditional banners don’t work on mobile – 80% users find it unacceptable.

85% of mobile users are visually engaged with native ads presented in the stream of the content.

Native Mobile Ads deliver 6X higher conversions for brands vs. traditional banner ads.

Consumers pay attention to in-feed native ads more than banners.

Tips:

1) Use products in real environments vs. products pictured alone

2) Use real life people in natural environments vs models in posed, studio env.

3) Keep the headline under 150 characters and caption under 300 characters.

http://www.slideshare.net/TripleLift/2015-state-of-native-advertising

8. Offline AdsTV, radio, magazines, newspapers, yellow pages, billboards and direct mail

Factors to consider: DemographicsCost: Remnant advertising can be cheap (Manhattan Media or Novus Media)Tracking: Specific URLs, coupon codes

Print AdvertisingMagazines: 7,000 magazines in the US. Consumer, Trade and Local publicationsNewspapersDirect MailLocal Print Ads

8. Offline AdsBillboard Advertising

Every billboard has an advertising score, known as a GRP score (Gross Ratings Points)Lamar, Clear Channel, or CBS Outdoor

Transit AdvertisingBuses, taxis, benches, and bus sheltersBlue Line Media

Radio AdvertisingPriced on a Cost-per-Point basis (CPP), where each point represents what it will cost to reach 1% of the radio station’s listeners. This also depends on which market you’re advertising in and when your commercials run.Example: An ad running on a station for a week is often $500–1,500 in a local market, and up to $4,000–8,000 in a larger market like ChicagoSatellite Radio (SiriusXM) also an option

8. Offline AdsTV Advertising:

For branding 1,300+ TV stations in the USCosts can start at $200K for production and $350K for national airtimeBuying TV ads involves negotiation (no rate cards)

InfomercialsLong-form TV advertisements

9. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Improving your ranking in search engines in order to get more people to your site.

Fat-head strategy: Trying to rank for search terms that directly describe your company.

Long-tail strategy: trying to rank for more specific terms with lower

search volumes.

Only about ten percent of clicks occur beyond the first ten links (first page).

Your ability to rank on the first page should be a deciding factor in deciding whether to

pursue a particular SEO strategy at all.

9. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Fat-head SEO Tactics:

To pick keywords with search volume: Google AdWords Keyword Planner and check competitors’ websites

Test conversion on these keywords using Google AdWords

Check Google Trends

Open Site Explorer: to determine the number of links competitors have for a given term.

One you have the keywords: 1. Place them include that phrase in your page titles and main site2. Get links to your site from other sites that link through these terms

9. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Long-tail SEO Tactics:

Use Google Keyword Planner

Google Analytics and Clicky to find search terms people are using to get to your site right now

Check competitors’ landing pages, keywords etc. (Search site:domain.com)

Long-tail SEO boils down to producing a lot of quality content for long-tail keywords to link to.

Either pay content-creators or use AutomationGet people to link to it – PR / Quality Content / Widgets

Never ever buy links or try to trick search engines (you will be penalized heavily)

10. Content MarketingMoz, Unbounce or OkCupid: their blogs were their largest source of customer acquisition during an extended period of growth.

10. Content MarketingCreate strong content

Write about the problems facing your target customers.Mini-courses, ebooks, and infographicsInfographics are shared about twenty times more often than a typical blog post

Growing your blog’s audienceIt may take a long timeEngage in online forumsGuest posting

Content Marketing positively impacts: SEO, PR, email marketing, targeting blogs, community building, offline events, existing platforms and business development.

11. Email MarketingEmail is still the most effective way to universally reach people who have expressed interest in your product or site.

Email Marketing for Finding CustomersDo not buy low-quality email lists (spam), build your own list organically

Lifecycle Emails Phase 1: Email Marketing for Activating Customers:Use targeted emails to reach specific customers who haven’t activated.Determine the steps absolutely necessary to get value from your product. Then, create lifecycle emails to make sure users complete those steps.Tools: Vero and Customer.io

11. Email MarketingLifecycle Emails Phase 2: Email Marketing for Retaining Customers

Reminder emails, summary of activity, important news, new features that can benefit the user

Lifecycle Emails Phase 3: Email Marketing for RevenueUpselling customers: Coming up with the right offers, targeting and timing requires experimentation. Explain premium features, sell a higher plan, etc.Email retargeting: Abandoned shopping cart user gets email a day later with a special offer to complete the purchase

Lifecyle Emails Phase 4: Email Marketing for ReferralsDue to the personal nature of email, it is excellent for generating customer

referrals

11. Email MarketingDeliverability is a key factor in email. Use an email marketing tool like DirectIQ, Mandrill(Transctional Emails), Customer.io, SendGrid, SailThru, MailChimp or ContantContact.

Effective email campaigns A/B test every aspect: subjects, formats, images, timing and more: Campaign Monitor, MailChimp, Active Campaign

Do not send email from a “Noreply” email address to improve engagement.

Great email copy is a must. Resource: CopyHackers.com

12. Engineering as MarketingBuilding tools and resources that reach more people.

These tools are marketing assets with ongoing returns, rather than ads that result in a one-time boost.

HubSpot: One key to their success is a free marketing review tool they created called Marketing Grader to create quality leads.

Moz: Their free SEO tools Followerwonk and Open Site Explorer drive lots of leads

Annual promotion products, microsites, widgets

13. Targeting BlogsOne of the most effective ways to get your first wave of customers.

But difficult to scale in phase II and III due to the limited number of relevant high-traffic blogs.

Finding Blogs to Target:Search Engines, YouTube, Delicious, Twitter, Social Mention, Talk to People

Offer Early/VIP Access in return for being promoted on the blogSponsor BlogsContent partnerships with larger sitesUtilize Link-Sharing Communities: Reddit, Hacker News, Product Hunt, Inbound.org

14. Business DevelopmentPrimarily focused on exchanging value through partnerships.

Standard Partnerships: Two companies work together to make one or both of their products better by leveraging the unique capabilities of the other. (Apple/Nike –Nike+ shoes that talk to your iPhone)

Joint Ventures: Two companies work together to create an entirely new product offering. (Starbucks/Pepsi – Starbucks Frapuccino)

Licensing: One company has a strong brand that an upstart wants to use in a new product or service. (Upstart ice cream manufacturer licensed Starbucks brand)

14. Business DevelopmentDistribution Deals: One party provides a product or service to the other in return for access to potential customers. (Kayak powered AOL’s travel search engine)

Supply Partners: These types of partnerships help you secure key inputs which are essential for certain products. (Half.com formed several to secure books)

Good BD deals should align with your company and product strategy and are focused on critical product and distribution milestones. These deals should help you hit your key metrics, whether growth, revenue, or product-related.

Understanding a partner’s goals is key to creating a mutually beneficial relationship.

Low-touch BD utilizes tools like APIs, feeds, crawling technology and embed codes to reach new distribution channels and grow your influence. These methods allow you to standardize your value proposition and get more deals done.

15. SalesSales is the process of generating leads, qualifying them, and converting them into paying customers for products that require interpersonal interaction (often enterprise and expensive products).

Scaling this channel requires you to design and implement a Repeatable Sales Model.

15. Sales – SPIN Model (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff)Neil Rackham’s approach from his book SPIN Selling:

Situation questions. These questions help you learn about a prospect’s buying situation. Typical questions may include ‘How many employees do you have?’ and ‘How is your organization structured?’ Only ask one or two of these per conversation.

Problem questions. These are questions that clarify the buyer’s pain points. Are you happy with your current solution? What problems do you face with it? Use sparingly.

Implication questions. These questions are meant to make a prospect aware of the implications that stem from the problem they’re facing. Does this problem hurt your productivity? What customer or employee turnover are you experiencing because of this problem?

Need-payoff questions. These questions focus attention on your solution and get buyers to think about the benefits of addressing the problem.

15. Sales – Cold Calling – PNAME methodProcess – How does the company buy solutions like yours?

Need – How badly does this company need a solution like the one you’re offering?

Authority – What individuals have the authority to make the purchase happen?

Money – Do they have the funds to buy what you’re selling? How much does not solving the problem cost them?

Estimated Timing – What are the budget and decision timelines for a purchase?

After a successful first call, send a follow-up email documenting what you talked about including the problems your prospect faces and the next steps. Also close the email with a direct question such as “will you agree to this closing timeline?”

15. Sales – Designing a Sales FunnelGenerating Leads: Drive leads into the top of the funnel using other channels.

Qualifying Leads: Determine how ready a prospect is to buy, and if they’re a prospect in which you should invest additional resources.

Unqualified leads not yet ready for sales should be put into lead nurturing campaigns.

Closing Leads Create a purchase timeline and convert prospects to paying customers by laying out exactly what you are going to do for the customer, setting up the timetable for it, and getting them to commit (with a “yes or no”) to whether or not they will buy.

Design your sales funnel strategy from the Customer’s Point of View with their needs and timeline.

Remove obstacles: No IT installs (SaaS), Free trials, Demo videos, Channel partners, Reference customers, email campaigns, webinars, personal demos, low intro price

16. Affiliate ProgramsAn affiliate program is an arrangement where you pay people or companies for performing certain actions (like making a sale or getting a qualified lead).

Retail Affiliate Programs: Generate more than $2B/year. Amazon (own program, 4-8.5% of each sale), Ebay, Target, WalMart.

Platforms: Commission Junction (CJ), Pepperjam, and Linkshare used by Wal-Mart, Apple, Starbucks, The North Face, Home Depot, Verizon, Best Buy, etc.

Coupon/Deal sites (RetailMeNot, CouponCabin, BradsDeals, Slickdeals), Loyalty programs(Upromise and Ebates offer cash back on purchases), Aggregators( Nextag, PriceGrabber), Email lists, Vertical sites.

Lead Generation A $26 billion dollar industry. Insurance companies, law firms and mortgage brokers all pay hefty commissions to get customer leads.

Affiliate.com, Clickbooth, Neverblue and Adknowledge

16. Affiliate ProgramsYour ability to use affiliate programs effectively depends how much you are willing to pay out to acquire a customer.

Top affiliate networks:

Commission Junction, ClickBank, Affiliate.com, Pepperjam, ShareASale, Adknowledge, Linkshare, MobAff, Neverblue, Clickbooth, WhaleShark Media (RetailMeNot and Deals2Buy.com)

17. App StoresChannels to get into the App Store Top 100 lists:* Buy ads from places like AdMob* Buy installs from companies like Tapjoy* Cross-promote your apps (through cross-promotion networks or other apps you own)* Buy your way to the top of the charts through services like FreeAppADay* App Store Optimization – 63% of apps are discovered through app store searches. Title and keywords copy can be controlled (mobiledevhq.com ), #downloads and reviews cannot.* Drive good reviews and ratings – prompt users at a good time for reviews/ratings (iRate) or do “integrated rating requests” within your content.* Incentivized Installs– other apps and services offer users the chance to install your app as some sort of reward. Large number of install at low cost but very low-quality users with very low retention. FreeMyApps.com* Grassroots Marketing – Product Hunt, Reddit, Hacker News* Be a Featured App - Pitch to Apple at appstorepromotion@apple.com or appstoremarketing@apple.com

17. App StoresOnce you are in an App Store Top 100 List:

1. More people see it

2. It gets more organic downloads

3. Which makes it go a bit higher up in the charts

4. More people like it and start telling their friends to get it too

5. It goes up higher in the charts

18. Browser Add-ons and ExtensionsBrowser extensions (in Chrome) and add-ons (in Firefox) extend Browser functionality.

Easier way for users to engage with your service/app

Sticky

Though harder initial friction for downloading the extension.

19. Social PlatformsFill a gap (though might be too late for this)

Facebook and Twitter enabled the launching of many companies but later shut down these third-party tools. Now it’s too late and lessons should be learned.

YouTube provided embedded videos for MySpace

Bit.ly fulfilled the need to share shortened links on Twitter

Imgur built their image-hosting solution for Reddit.

AirBnB saw much of their early growth come through Craigslist.

In the beginning, PayPal itself purchased goods off of eBay and required that the sellers accept their payment through PayPal.

20. Trade ShowsTrade shows are events for companies to show off their products in person to industry insiders and prospects.

These events are often exclusive to industry insiders, and are designed to foster interactions between vendors and their prospects.

Picking Trade Shows: The best way to decide whether to attend an event is to visit as a guest and do a walkthrough the year before. Or get the opinions of people who have attended previous events – how crowded was it? How high was the quality of attendees? Would you go again?

To prepare, make a list of key attendees you want to meet at the trade show. Then, schedule meetings with them before you attend the event.

Host a dinner party at a desirable venue

Have giveaways

Your marketing materials should always have a Call To Action.

21. Offline EventsSponsoring or running offline events – from small meetups to large conferences –can be a primary way to get traction.

Twilio attracted customers by sponsoring hackathons, conferences, and meetups.

Offline events are particularly effective for startups with long sales cycles, as is often the case with enterprise software.

Conferences, Meetups, Parties.

CardFlight (ERA) and Suitey (ERA) organize their own meetups

22. Speaking EngagementsGreat way to get traction, attention, potential customers.

You have to get the attention of event organizers to land speaking engagements.

If you have a good idea for a talk and see an event that aligns with an area of your expertise, simply pitch your talk to the event organizers.

Organizers consider timing, topic, and credibility when selecting a speaker.

Blogging helps build credibility.Being a good speaker helps, practice by speaking at smaller events, meetups.

Do a good job when you speak at a major event and you will be invited over and over again to more events.

23. Community BuildingCommunity building involves investing in the connections among your users, fostering those relationships and helping them bring more people into your startup’s circle.

Build an Initial Audience

Establish Your Mission

Foster Cross-connections among users through forums, events, user groups, etc. so that they feel more cohesive as a community and can come up with ideas that you may not think of yourself.

Communicate with your Audience

Be Transparent

Ensure Quality

Cultivate and empower evangelists.

Activating VisitorsActivation is the act of getting “visitors” to take an action in your product that you are

guiding them toward.

Some examples:Get their email addressGet them to create an accountGet them to read somethingGet them to comment on somethingGet them to share somethingGet them to buy somethingGet them to watch somethingGet them to interact with someone

How to Activate Visitors into Customers

1) Landing Pages2) Copywriting3) Calls to Action4) Onboarding5) Progress, Awards, Leaderboards6) Pricing Strategies7) Hello Bar8) Easy signup – API integrations

1. Landing PagesA Landing Page is different than your homepage. It’s a page that you can direct visitors from a certain campaign/link. Companies with 10+ Landing Pages get 55% more signups.Should be Minimalist:

Limited NavigationSingle Call to ActionSpecific Language for the Segmented Visitor

Specific for Launch Pages (Coming soon, sign up):Copy, the headline and the subhead, is everythingAsk for sharing the launch page for early accessEffective imagery is a mustDon’t let the list grow coldPost to ProductHunt.com, Betali.st and Erlibird.com

Tools: Unbounce for easily testing many different landing pages. Optimizely if you already have a site.

2. CopywritingFunctional vs Emotional?

As a general rule, shoot for 70% Emotional and 30% Functional

Made to Stick: SUCCESs Model. How to make ideas stick in people’s minds:

Simple — find the core of any idea

Unexpected — grab people's attention by surprising them

Concrete — make sure an idea can be grasped and remembered later

Credible — give an idea believability

Emotional — help people see the importance of an idea

Stories — empower people to use an idea through narrative

“Made to Stick: Why some ideas stick” by Chip and Dan Heath

2. CopywritingThe headline should mention your unique value proposition.

The subhead should further explain your unique value proposition.

Long copywriting is good for expensive items.

Short, precise copywriting is good for less expensive items.

Different audiences will respond to different kinds of words.

Use Customer Development to inform copywriting (Research message boards, surveys)

Social Proof (Testimonials)

http://copyhackers.com

3. Calls to ActionThe best way to get someone to do what you want is by giving them a clear call to action. Tell them where to click and make the button obvious.

4. OnboardingOnboarding can take the form of visual directions placed on top the screen, or a series of pages that lead visitors from one place to another, like a digital tour guide for your product. An explanatory video could even be a part of your onboarding strategy.

And get them to the Must-Have-Experience.

Facebook: Famous “7 friends in 10 days”.

Twitter: They know that an account that doesn’t follow anyone is kind of useless, so Twitter made following others a part of the signup process.

If you want to activate visitors, making them take certain actions, then you must carefully craft your onboarding experience.

http://useronboard.com

5. Progress, Awards, Leaderboards

Progress: Push users to take actions by showing a progress bar

Awards: Push users to take actions by giving them (most of the time pointless and meaningless) awards.

Leaderboards: Push users to take actions by showing them their ranking against other users.

6. Pricing StrategiesSome pricing strategies to get a user to make a purchase:

Perfect price discrimination: Creating a pricing structure that charges based on the consumer’s purchasing power.

Multiple TiersMore expensive option makes you feel like you’re not wasting money.Cheaper option makes you feel not cheap.

Suggestive Tier Naming“Starter,” “Professional,” or “Team,” instead of vague: gold, silver and bronze.

Free Trials or Money Back GuaranteeDiscount CodesBundling

7. Hello Bar

8. Easy Signups – API Integrations

Retaining UsersRetention is the act of getting your members to use your product in such a way that it becomes habitual.

Retention is the most important component of the Growth Funnel:* If your retention is low then all of the ingenious growth hacks that you apply to

your product are basically meaningless.* If you cannot retain your ‘activated’ users who showed extreme interest in your product, then something is seriously wrong with the product.* Retention can affect the bottom line more than getting new visitors.* An increase in retention increases the lifetime value of the customer (LTV).* People that have been retained for long periods of time are more likely to evangelize for your product.

How to Retain Customers and Get Referrals1) Staged Traffic2) Speed to the “Aha Moment”3) Using Email4) Alerts and notifications5) Exit Interviews6) The Red Carpet7) Increase Value8) Good UI9) Community Building

1. Staged Traffic

Don’t wait until you have lots of visitors and activated users to test for retention.

Stage some traffic to get visitors and users to test your retention early on.

2. Speed to the “AHA Moment”The moment that a visitor or member actually feels the truth of your promise, and sees the obvious benefit of your product, that’s what we call the “aha moment”.

Do you know what the aha moment for your product is? What are the actions which a member can take on your product which are leading indicators of their retention rate?

If you currently ask visitors to create an account to see the benefit of your product, is there a way to show them a sandboxed version of your product that allows them to have an aha moment before signing up?

Is there an email you can send to a new user which outlines exactly what the aha moment is? Can you give them a clear call to action to have that kind of moment?

3. Using Email

Let people make their own decisions about the email they want or don’t want, and don’t preemptively decide for them, handicapping your product in the process.

Drip CampaignsSend users prewritten emails at preselected intervals.

Event-based Notifications

General Updates / Newsletters

4. Alerts and Notifications

For Mobile Applications, in addition to email, alerts and notifications are a very strong channel to retain users.

Don’t be spammy and make it easy to turn on and off notificationsUse “Local Push” with user’s local timeCurrent location is powerfulCustom push sounds to make your app recognizableExpire pushes that are not consumedUse Badge Counts

5. Exit Interviews

When people cancel your service, or go long periods of time being inactive, or generally show themselves to not be retained:

Learn from them by emailing them and asking them the worst thing about your product that made them cancel or just cut to the chase and ask them what sucks the most.

6. Red Carpet – Extra good customer serviceRed Carpet is about avoiding losing users. Some ideas:

•Send 100 tshirts to your first 100 customers• Give a shout out to your best user in your email newsletter•Retweet your best users•Give your VIP users access to exclusive content•Have a drawing for a free trip to a conference for power users

7. Increase Value for Users

Increasing the value of your product always helps retention.

Add Features: If a majority of the users are pushing for a feature

Remember: Just adding more and more features does not make a product more successful if it already doesn’t have product-market fit

Subtract Features: Remove features that aren’t used so it’s easier to use your product

8. Good UI•Try A One Column Layout instead of multicolumns.•Try Merging Similar Functions instead of fragmenting the UI.•Try Distinct Clickable/Selected Styles instead of blurring them.•Try Undos instead of prompting for confirmation.•Try More Contrast instead of similarity.•Try Fewer Form Fields instead of asking for too many.•Try Exposing Options instead of hiding them.•Try Suggesting Continuity instead of false bottoms.•Try Keeping Focus instead of drowning with links.•Try Fewer Borders instead of wasting attention.•…http://goodui.org

9. Community Building

Good Customer Support – Zappos

Documentation – Friendly and accessible help for users

Social Features – Enable a community for your product through social features

Good read: Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh (Zappos)

Conclusion

1. Pick a KPI for your startup that shows progress or failure2. Set goals for your KPI3. Try to reach your goals by utilizing channels4. Measure/track constantly and also let the team know5. Analyze/Learn at goal checkpoints6. Implement learnings and go back to 1 or 2

Sources:

Feedback and tips from various ERA mentors, founders and friends: http://eranyc.com

And these amazing resources:

Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares

Definitive Guide To Growth Hacking by Neil Patel and Bronson Taylor

David Skok’s (Matrix Partners) blog: http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/

Thomas Tunguz’s (Redpoint Ventures) blog: http://tomtunguz.com/

Ev William’s post on Measurement: https://medium.com/@ev/a-mile-wide-an-inch-deep-48f36e48d4cb

Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday

Growth Hacking for Startups by AvanzaGrowth.co

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath

http://goodui.org/

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

Murat Aktihanoglumurat@eranyc.com

Apply to ERA at http://eranyc.com

Blog: http://muratak.com