15 August 2012Michael White

Digital Marketing for Startups

How to use Digital Marketing to Generate Leads and Acquire New Customers

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Outcomes from today’s seminar

1. What – what are you selling?

2. Who – who are you selling to?

3. How – how do you promote yourself?

Digital marketing is essential to promote your business…

3.1 Website

3.1 Google ads

3.1 Social media

3.1 Email marketing

3.1 Search Engine Optimization

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Outcomes from today’s seminar

1. Why Digital Marketing is important for startups

2. How you can get started

3. A structure you can use – start, middle, end

4. How to prioritize what you should do first

5. Practical examples – Google ads, blog email, Facebook etc.

6. Where to look for help

At the end of today you should know …

About Us

Generate more leads at the top of the sales funnel using online marketing – email, Google pay-per-

click, social media and PR

Use simple techniques to filter and process these

leads more effectively so you generate more sales

About Us

Michael White

• Co-founder and Director of DohertyWhite since 2010• Enterprise Ireland mentor to 25+ early stage firms• Ex Head of Marketing at Singularity – helped double revenue in 2 years, won the Irish

Software Association Sales Achievement award 2008, ex-member of Forrester Research Technology Marketing Executive Council

• We’re also a startup - building our own software system – Enterprise Ireland client, Propel program

• Senior Product Manager at Siemens (electronic security products) 2001 to 2005• Also Senior Business Analyst with Elavon, Management Consultant with Deloitte &

Touche, Product Manager with Marrakech, Implementation Manager with Misys Corporation (Kindle Banking Systems), software developer with AIB Bank

• Trinity Computer Science graduate (1990), Post-Grad Dip. Computing (2004)

About Us

Online Marketing Strategies for Customer Acquisition1

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups

1. Confirm someone will buy your product / service

2. Build the first version of the product (prototype)

3. Get your first customer

Your priorities as a startup

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups

How to generate leads, drive sales and increase revenue using Online Marketing

Today when people want to buy something the first place they look is the web, whether they’re looking for shoes, a car or a house or a technology product

You need to make sure they find you when they come looking for your type of product

You need to make sure that when they find you they take an action that’s useful e.g. subscribe, buy, register ...

We’re going to look at the overall approach and the tools you use

Product?

Me

My potential customers

?

• 1. Make sure your product meets the needs of your target customers

• 2. Promote that product effectively to those customers

Make something people want, then sell it to them

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups

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In a survey of 4000 B2B buyers in the US, 80% of those

buyers said they found the vendor, not the other way

round.

Source: MarketingSherpa – “B2B Technology Marketing

Benchmark Survey 2008”

Because this is the way businesses buy today

• Buyers are doing most of their initial research online before initiating conversations with vendors and are better informed at an earlier stage.

• This means that by the time your sales people are aware of a prospect they will already have visited your website, downloaded your product information, looked at competing websites and checked out the product category on blogs and social networks

• We're moving from a focus on traditional techniques like press advertising, mail shots and cold calling, to techniques based on websites, online ‘pay-per-click’ advertising and ‘content-based’ marketing.

Why is Digital Marketing important?

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Because your website is the top source of leads outside of personal connections

Source: DemandBase and Focus.com

2011 Survey of B2B IT and marketing professionals

Why is Digital Marketing important?

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Because your website is the top source of leads outside of personal connections

Why is Digital Marketing important?

Source: BuyerSphere Report 2011 (survey of B2B

buyers in Europe)

• This is true for technology buyers in particular – they search online both at the research phase and during vendor selection

• Will they find you, and will they find you compelling when they do? How will you compare with the other firms they find?

Sources of information used by US engineers for a specific

recent purchase

Source: MarketingSherpa – “B2B Technology Marketing Benchmark Survey 2008”

Why focus on Digital Marketing?

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Because this is a natural progression of how sales work

Why focus on Digital Marketing?

Sales teams find and persuade the buyers

Buyers start to search online, find product information from multiple vendors

Buyers confer with each other via online networks

Sales now use online tools to prospect, generate and qualify leads Marketing Automation

1997

2006

2009

1950s to

1990s

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Digital Marketing for B2B is Different from B2C

• The difference isn’t always clear cut• But generally these differences are true

B2B

Higher value e.g. > €10k

High consideration - more evaluation required

Perceived risk – so reducing this risk is important for buyers

Complexity of product is greater e.g. large software system, machinery – so need to educate buyers on features, differentiators

Longer, multi-phase sales cycle – can be up to 18 months

Multiple participants on buyer side (e.g. financial manager, users, IT dept)

Executive involvement – may require sign-off from senior staff or head office

Branding / emotional appeal less important

B2C

Lower value e.g. < 1k

Lower consideration – evaluation is faster

Low risk

Generally less complex – clothes, food, tickets (but exceptions e.g. cars, laptops, some software products)

Immediate – transaction occurs quickly (e.g. purchasing consumer goods, books)

One buyer

Buyer decides for themselves

Branding / emotional appeal very important

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But for both B2B and B2C, buyers find you online …

• In B2C, you use online marketing to bring someone to your site so they will purchase something directly, right now Buy Now

• In B2B, you use online marketing to bring someone to your site so they will register for something (a white paper, free trial ...).

• Once you have their contact details, you set up a regular communication with them to build up their interest, qualify them as sales opportunities and persuade them to buy later

Download

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The overall approach

Understand who you are targeting (your buyers) – what are their roles, which companies do they work for, where are they, what is important to them, how do you connect with them?

What are you selling – what does your product and service do for them, what is your value proposition for these buyers?

Generate ‘content’ – based on your understanding of the buyers, create information that your target buyers will find useful e.g. Case studies, white papers, research surveys, how to guides ...

Drive traffic to that content using PPC, email, SEO, PR, social media

B2B - Capture contact details in exchange for your content

Build a relationship with those people over time via your content, website, social media and email so they learn and understand your proposition, answer their concerns and select you as their best choice

??How do you compare with competitors – which ones are worth focusing on, how do you differentiate from them?

B2C – Sell your product(s) now

http://

• Siemens project – acquire customers for a new consulting service• Value proposition – reduced capital costs, reduced operational costs, ease of access to IT systems• Buyers – CIOs, Directors of IT at top 500 companies in Ireland with more than 300 staff• Content – created a white paper called “Migrating to Microsoft in the Cloud”• Drive traffic – used targeted email offering the white paper, plus Google ads and PR• Capture details – 265 contacts with targeted profile after 4 weeks, 25 leads, 10 prospects

Email and google ads Website registration page

Visitor gets white paper

Siemens gets contact details of visitor

The overall approach

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Outcomes from today’s seminar

Web traffic

+ Content

= Customers

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2. Your Value Proposition

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Three steps to acquire customers

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Three steps to acquire customers

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What is Your Value Proposition

If you can’t demonstrate superior value then customers will choose based on price

A value proposition is a clear statement of the tangible results a customer gets from using your products or services. It’s outcome focussed and stresses the business value of what you have to offer

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What is Your Value Proposition

Why should I buy something from you?

What value does your product provide to me?

How much is that worth to me – money, time saved, other benefits?

How quickly can I see the value your system delivers?

Why is your product better than other similar products?

Why is your product better than what I do at the moment?

Can you show me examples of your system delivering value?

Focus on the results you produce rather than what you do

Answer these questions

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Value Proposition

1. Why should I buy something from you? 2. “What do you want to be famous for?” 3. How do people describe you when you’re not in the room?

Who is this for? What is the need it addresses? How do you solve that need / problem? Is this unique to you? (This isn’t a deal breaker) Your unique capability produces what result for me? What impact will it have ? (Money, time saved ...) Can you give me an example (I want evidence)? How long will it take? What about the obvious alternative? (Do nothing, manual, competitor) Is this value proposition sustainable (i.e. will it still be true next year?)

“What results you produce for me” rather than “What you do “ Can you describe this in a few sentences on a web-page or when talking to a

prospect? E.g. Motorway billboard (= your website)

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Value Proposition

1. Talking about your company and its capabilities rather than focusing on the customer

2. Talking about features instead of the value provided by those features

3. Using marketing waffle like ‘leading global provider of X’

4. Highlighting benefits that your customers don’t care about

5. Lack of a single definition within a company – if you ask two different sales people you get two different answers as to what they do and why they’re the best.

Typical problems

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Value Proposition

List out what you think you can do that makes you unique

Then go ask your existing customers what they think is the unique value you provide

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Are you selling the right product for the market, sectors and buyers you are targeting?

Are you monitoring the environment in which you operate and the impact this may have on your product, your customers and your to-to-market approach?

E.g. Increased use of iPads/smartphones, SaaS, regulatory changes, competitor acquisitions, new standards

Value Proposition and The Market

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Value Proposition and “The Whole Product”

Are you selling the “whole product”

This is the “stuff” that surrounds your technology such as training, videos, online help, good support, partner technologies, integrations

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Value Proposition – NOSE framework

Tom Sant’s NOSE framework is a structure you can use to help sell your Value Proposition

Describe your value proposition using this 4 step format Need - what is the need the customer is experiencing

today? Outcome – what could tomorrow look like if things could be

improved, what great results could be achieved? Solution – what is your solution? Evidence – can you show evidence of where you’ve done

this before? Search for ‘Tom Sant’ on Google to get other presentations and

resources on value propositions, effective sales communication and writing proposals.

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Understand Your Buyers

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Understand your buyers

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Why can’t I market to everybody?

The problem

• People are tempted to try to market to all potential users

• You worry that if you focus on one group or one geography you will exclude the others

• This is wrong for a couple of reasons:

– Limited promotional budget – you have a fixed amount of money to spend on

promotion. Concentrating that spend on a clearly defined target group will

produce better results than spreading it thinly across multiple potential target

groups

– Trying to be all things to all people generally doesn’t work when launching a

new product. If you designed a car that tried to appeal to young families, men in

their 20s and elderly women, you would end up with a mishmash that appeals

to no-one. The same is usually true with technology products. You should focus

your product and promotion on one or two sectors for your launch.

Understand your buyers

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Define who you are targeting

The problemUnderstand your buyers

Use some logic when picking your first target customers

Use “Personas” as a tool to understand them

Talk directly to customers to find out what they need

Don’t make assumptions without verifying them

Don’t be smarter than your customers

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“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service

fits him and sells itself”

Peter Drucker

The problemUnderstand your buyers

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Who Are Your Target Buyers?

Where are they (countries, languages)

What industry sectors?

What types of organisation? Size, location ...

Any specific target companies?

What are their typical roles or titles?

How does your system relate to their job?

What are their key concerns/drivers/goals?

What are their demographics?

Where do they hang out online?

What sources of information do they use?

Who are your buyers?

• Who you are targeting – what kinds of organisations?

• Who are your favourite customers?

• Answer these questions and develop an “ideal customer profile”

• Understand the buyers within those organisations - “Buyer Persona Analysis”.

• A description of a ‘typical’ person in that role at your major customer e.g. Finance manager, sales director, MD ...

Understand your buyers

Ideal customer profile – current customersThink of one of your favourite customers•Why are they ideal? - Size, revenue, long-term relationship, good interaction, they value your product and service ....•Sector, Organisation size, Location•Top 5 roles e.g. Who is usually your champion/ economic buyer / technical evaluator / purchasing / users

•Budget

•Why do they buy from you?•What objections do they bring up?•Why do your customers stay with you?•When do they buy from you – “Trigger events” – e.g. new senior manager appointed, new product announced ...

Understand your buyers

• A way to ‘step into the shoes’ of your prospective buyers• Similar to “design personas” used by web designers, and aligns with Agile approach

to user centred product design• ‘Personas’ are aggregate descriptions of 4 to 5 typical buyers you are going to meet

on a regular basis – your ‘imaginary friends’ • Some common ‘types’ e.g. General managers, sales managers, day-to-day users• Interview sample buyers in each sector you target e.g. Compliance Manager, Sales

Manager, HR Manager ...• What are their key concerns and drivers? How do they describe their job?• Where do you fit into their overall picture? Are you a big part of their typical day?• What is their “compelling reason to buy” your products and services? • What would stop them from buying your services?• What do they read, where do they gather information, who influences them?

Understand your buyers

Examples: IMEC customer driven by EPA breaches, Mergon customer focused on med device certification, Rocudo and Facebook usage

Understand your buyers

• Take the Buyer Personas

• Based on real conversations with customers and prospects, walk each ‘Persona’ through an example sales process

• Plot out the interactions, the points where the persona is likely to ask for assistance or information, and who/where they get that assistance from

• Document the kind of information they need at each point

• Identify who they interact with during the decision process

• Identify what 3rd party sources they consider important e.g. Forrester, Gartner

Understand your buyers

Buyer Process Scenarios

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What content will interest your Buyers? “Bait”

Digital Marketing is like fishing – you need the correct bait to attract your fish Different buyers have different information needs at each stage of the buying process So, if you identify 3 to 4 typical buyers – General Manager, Sales & Marketing Director,

Head of Compliance ... Develop content that meets the information needs of these buyers at different stages

of their buying cycle This will be used as online “bait” to bring them to your website

Types of content•Case studies•Research•Education e.g. slides and tutorials•Tours and overviews•How to tips•News•Thought leadership

Content Strategy

Understand your buyers

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Your Website – The Foundation for Customer Acquisition

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Bring people (traffic) to

your website

Persuade them to sign-up for a Free Trial or download

content

Persuade them to pay for your

service

Convince them to renew each year –

retain your customers

Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention

Your Website

Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention

Your web-site The most important marketing tool you have Your best sales-person 24/7/365 A sales lead generation machine Drive visitors to your site Get them to take “Most wanted action”

Your Website

“Outside In” – make sure your website reflects your target customers Design for Search – Mobile – Social Value Proposition is clear Easy to find information Clear “Calls to Action” - CTAs Trust – make it clear you are trustworthy Evidence – proof that you can do what you say you do Measure and analyse traffic and visitor behaviour Competitor analysis – look at their websites, keywords, messaging, value proposition

Checklist

Your Website

1. The Website

Have you adequately provided this information on the site? Have you described what you do, who you target, case studies, about us biographies ...

What to include on your site

Your Website

Have plenty of “bait” on your site B2B - Documents, presentations, content that people will want to download Ask for their email address and name in return for downloads B2C - special offers, buy now (if B2C online sales) In both cases, product videos are a great promotional tools

Your Website

Define what you want to achieve by the redesign Measure current figures for visitors, sales, leads Audit your site – list all existing pages, incoming links to your pages, documents ... http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ will list the pages on your site http://www.seoprofiler.com/analyze/yoursite.com and www.seomoz.org/linkscape to

check how many sites link to you Make sure none of these pages and links are lost when you move to the new site Use “301 redirects” to ensure links to old pages are redirected to the corresponding new page

e.g. www.mysite.com/oldpage -> www.mysite.com/newpage Measure the performance of the new site e.g. using Google Analytics Test different versions of a page – what’s known as A/B testing – to see which one works

better with your visitors

Redesigning an existing site

Your Website

Redesigning an existing site

Your Website

Wireframe

Your Website

Graphics

Your Website

Keep graphics down to less than 3rd of home page – see heatmaps

Use images of real people, avoid clichéd stock images

Make the entire graphic clickable

Make sure graphic is ‘tagged’ so you turn up on image searches

Use Clicktale or similar tool to check how visitors move around your pages

Example sites – software ‘buy now’ site

Your Website

Reflect your buyer in the web-page design (‘outside in, not inside out’) – use “Buyer Personas”

Make it easy for visitors to accomplish goals e.g. find information, contact you (put your number on the home page), get you to contact them (call back button), search

Think about your “Most Wanted Actions” – what do you want them to do?

If you want them to do something (go to a section of the site, download content, buy something) then make it obvious and easy

Keep your website design and structure simple and easy to navigate

Use conventions where possible e.g. ‘home’ at the top left and on company logo

Provide ‘bait’ on each page – downloadable content

If you are doing a redesign, make sure to carry over your existing “web assets” – pages and links

Monitor your site with Google analytics or similar system

1. The Website

Website recap

Your Website

“Don’t make me think” by Steve Krug

HubSpot (www.hubspot.com) – search for “Science of website redesign” and “Website Design Tips and Tricks 2010”

Jakob Nielsen, Usability Bulletin www.use-it.com

Personas – “About Face: the essentials of interaction design” by Alan Cooper et al

MarketingExperiments.com – provide regular statistics on website tests

“The Art of SEO” by Eric Enge, Rand Fishkin et al – advice on good website design for search engine optimization

1. The Website

Website resources

Your Website

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Google Ads

1. The WebsiteGoogle Ads

1 Keyword analysis

2 Ad text

3 Landing page

Campaign set-up – budget, geography Keyword analysis – what are people searching for Ad text – variants Bids and cost-per-click Bid management Broadmatch, exact match, negative keywords Keyword insertion

Your ad textWhy we’re greatCall us now!www.mywebsite.com

NameEmail

Download

Google Ads

Think about how visitors search for your product or service

Thousands of ways people search for things, but usually fall into a category :

The actual question they have e.g. “how do I fix a broken pipe”

The answer to the question e.g. “plumbers in Galway”

A description of the problem e.g. “broken water pipe in kitchen”

A symptom of the problem e.g. “flooded kitchen”

A description of the cause e.g. “frozen pipes”

Producer parts or brand names e.g. Bosch, Philips

For each product, think how people might search for it, using the above as a guide

Use Google’s free Keyword Tool to help generate more keywords

Sort by “volume of searches” and “level of competition”

Break them into groups of 20 to 30 keywords and put them in Ad Groups

Google Ads

Keyword selection

To get started, search for your targeted terms and monitor what ads are displayed

Draft 4 to 5 versions of the ad to begin with

Run multiple versions of your ads, monitoring which ones work the best

Google Ads

Writing your ad

2. Landing page design

Rule #1: Avoid unnecessary distractions – push visitor to your “Most Wanted Action”

Be consistent with the ad or email that brought your visitor here, including keywords, logos and other images

Spell out your Value Proposition and the benefits of this particular offer and have a clear call to action

Remove any unnecessary navigation

Try to keep registration fields to a minimum e.g. Name and email

“A/B” test 2 versions of landing page to see which works best

Use Google analytics to monitor conversions

Google Ads

Convert your visitors! – Landing Pages

2. Landing page designGoogle Ads

Monitor and improve your adsClick through rate

Average cost per click

2. Landing page designGoogle Ads

General approach

Choose your topic “themes” - the main things you want to get found for e.g. Web Design, Digital Marketing, Compliance, Video Learning

Generate keywords under each theme – the more the better – using Google keyword tool

Structure your keywords into “Ad Groups” of 30 to 40

Create multiple text ads per ad group

Monitor

“impressions” per keyword i.e. How many times the ad is shown

Clicks per keyword

Clicks per ad

Cost per click

Clickthrough Rate (CTR) per ad

2. Landing page designGoogle Ads

Google ad resources

“Advanced Google AdWords” by Brad Geddes

“Optimizing landing pages for lead generation” – HubSpot

Unbounce.com – landing page optimization tool

Google WebSite Optimizer

WiderFunnel.com

WhichTestWon.com

ConversionScientist.com

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Social Media

Social Media

• Why will people share your status updates?• What do you want to happen when they do?

Social Media – Blog

Blogs• What? Basically like a website that you can easily edit and update• Why? Draws more traffic to your web-site, leads, sales• Can form the basis for your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter marketing• Allows readers to provide feedback• Can paste in YouTube videos, SlideShare slides

Social Media – Blog

Why start a blog?

Social Media – Blog

How do you start a blog?

• Check out Blogger and Wordpress – both are free

• Now also have Tumblr• Keep posts short – 200 to 300 words• Write about how you do your job, how to

use a product, trends in your sector, “top 10 tips”

• Long enough to cover everything important, short enough to keep people wanting to see more

• Put in images and videos, otherwise visually boring

• Have a “Call to action” at the end – offer people something, get them to do something

Social Media – Facebook

Why should you care about Facebook?

Facebook users by age

Social Media – Facebook

• Over 1.5 million active users in Ireland• Lots of your customers• 2nd most trafficked website• Get found, promote your stuff, connect with

others• Get started: Set up a personal page first• Connect with friends, join groups• Set up a business page second• Put links to your Facebook pages on emails,

web-site, ….• Encourage people to “Like” your page• Set up and promote events• Test Facebook ads

Social Media – Facebook

1. Set up and fill-in your Personal Profile

2. Set up Facebook Business Page (not Group and not Personal page)

3. Put links on your website, email signature, press ads

4. Encourage people to ‘Like’ you

5. Find other pages that have high numbers of your target customers, “Like” them and post to their wall

6. Post videos, make offers, upload photos – keep up a steady stream of content on a frequent schedule e.g. aim for every 2nd or 3rd day

Social Media – Facebook

Make sure you have the “follow” and “like” buttons on your site and blog comments – and “like” is more important

Social Media – Facebook

Who are you targeting?

What are your goals in using Facebook for your business?• Sales• Conversions• Facebook “Likes”• Traffic to your website / blog• Email subscriptions

Set specific targets• Increase sales by XX%• Grow Facebook likes by YY%

Implement Facebook Marketing Activities• Welcome page• “Like” button on your website and blog

Monitoring• Facebook insights• Google analytics• AllFacebookStats

Social Media – Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/marketing

Facebook Try Facebook ads Can specify targeting criteria Includes location, age, birthday, sex,

workplace, education and interests So, could run ads to women only in 30 to

40 age bracket in your area to test the results

Social Media – Facebook

• Hubspot - “Facebook marketing update Spring 2011”• Hubspot – “Facebook page marketing 2011”• Who’s Blogging What – “The Facebook Page Marketing Guide 2010”• Hubspot – “Small business cases studies – social media”• Larry Chase Web Digest for Marketers – “Social media marketing guide – 12 key tools”

• SimplyZesty – www.simplyzesty.com – excellent source of information on Facebook and other social media marketing

Social Media – Google+

Why should you care about Google+ ?

Why? To draw online traffic, and to sell to people 24 hours a day Video yourself talking about your product or service Relate to your business – e.g. “how we used the product” Video a customer talking about themselves and working with you Home-made is good Sign-up on YouTube (2 minutes and its free) Post it on YouTube, and customize your YouTube page Link to YouTube from your website, blog, Twitter ….

Social Media – YouTube

What?• Professional network• 250,000 users in Ireland• 75 million worldwide

Why? • So people can find you• So you can find prospective customers –

‘prospecting’• So you can promote events

How• Create your personal profile• Connect to people you know • Join Groups• Get staff to create their profiles and connect• Create company profile• Fill out company product and services

Social Media – LinkedIn

Social Media – LinkedIn

Social Media – Twitter

• What: Listen, Tweet, Respond• Why?: Traffic to your website, inbound links, leads, sales• How: 140 character “tweets”• E.g. press release headline• Can also insert links to stuff you like/find interesting• Follow others e.g. customers, influencers• Make your tweets useful e.g. links to web-site, video, news item• Tweet about good stuff your business is doing• Customer service

Social Media – Twitter

• Create your personal account• Look for people to “follow” e.g. someone in the same business, a supplier, commentator,

partner• Tweet about special offers, news, discounts• Link to your blog – tweet all your posts• Link to press releases – tweet all your releases• Link to your Facebook and LinkedIn Accounts• Put “Follow us” buttons on your email, website, blog• Check out what happens on Google analytics – e.g. can see people clicking on Tweet,

coming to blog, then coming to your website• Use Hootsuite or other tools to manage Twitter• Can use Hootsuite to track competitor feeds or monitor for particular phrases e.g. “help

with CRM wanted”

What• Free storage area to put up slide presentations, word documents, PDF documents• Really useful for anyone involved in professional services• Can collect leads from people who download your content• Can place stuff here and link to it from your blog• Can also record voice over on your slides then post it here, then link to your blog or website –

good for recording a sales pitch or product demo

Social Media – Slideshare

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Email Marketing

Email marketing

Download Download Inbound Inbound

Marketing Marketing Guide NOW!Guide NOW!

Reply Visit to your website

Email

Email marketing

Email System (e.g. Constant Contact or Vertical Response)

sends personalized email to each recipient and records who opens,

deletes, opts outUser writes the email text and uploads list of recipients to email system

1 2

3

Email marketing

Email marketing

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SEO

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Why SEO is important:•Business buyers as well as consumers search online

when looking for products and services

•85% of those buyers find what they want via search engines

• If they can’t find you, they will find a competitor

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search (ads) are the two main tools to ensure you are found

• You should understand the basics of how search engines prioritize search results

• Then you can decide what to do about it – do nothing, do it yourself or hire someone to help

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Why is Search Engine Optimization important?

Because most people (75%) click on the ‘natural’ search results rather than ‘paid’ ads

25% of clicks go to the

“paid” advertising results you

see at the top and right-

hand side of Google and Bing search

pages

75% of clicks go to the “natural”

or “organic” search results you see at the

left hand side of the search

results pages

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Why is Search Engine Optimization important?

Because when people do search, they usually don’t look past the first results on page 1

Most people (64%) click on the first 3 results on Google page 1•42% to the first result•12% to the second•9% to the third

Less than 10% click on pages beyond page 1

Source: SEOBook and SEOMoz

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• Search Engine Optimization is the process you use to appear higher in the search engine results pages for searches relevant to your business

• It is based on first understanding how people search for terms related to your business - keyword analysis

• You then use that understanding to update your website, interact with social media and seek links so you can push your business higher up on the search results

Website settings

Links (incoming, outgoing

and internal)Social media

Content on your pages

Keyword Analysis

Search Engine Optimization

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Search Engine Optimization

Search route 1

Search route 2

Search route N

• People take different routes when searching for your kinds of products and services

• You need to understand which kinds of searches are best at bringing your desired buyers to you online

• You should analyze each major ‘search route’ into your site so that you can increase that traffic

Search Engine Optimization

Signals that Google uses to decide which page to show for a query

Search Engine Optimization

1. Keyword use in title tag2. Anchor text in inbound link3. Global link authority of site4. Age of site5. Link popularity within the site’s internal structure6. Topical relevance of inbound links7. Link popularity of site in topical community8. Keyword use in body text9. Global link popularity of sites that link to the site

Overall, it looks at relevance and popularity.The list below is from an SeoMoz.org poll of SEO companies – 9 most important factors

The Long Tail

Search Engine Optimization

Source: SEOMoz.org

• The most popular keywords account for 18.5 % of search traffic• They are the most competitive terms – it is usually hard to get a new web page onto the top

of page 1 for these terms• However, over 70% of searches are for less common terms – these are the ‘long tail’

keyword phrases• Usually these terms are 3 words or longer and are more specific e.g. “1996 green 3 series

bmw” rather than “bmw”• Targeting these ‘long tail’ keywords is a good way to get more traffic to your site

The Long Tail

Search Engine Optimization

Three main tasks in SEO

“On Page” – configure settings and place content on your website

“Off Page” – Link Strategy – encourage other sites to link to you

Social media – has an increasing effect on your rankings in the results pages

On page Off page

WWW WWW

WWW WWW

WWW

Search Engine Optimization

Social media

First step – KEYWORD ANALYSIS – what terms do you want to be found for? Start similar to Google PPC keyword analysis – use Google keyword tool But – you have to pick smaller selection of keywords to focus on Sort by search volume (high) and level of competition (low) Pick top candidate phrases for your key phrases Optimize specific pages for particular terms More pages, more terms you can optimize for

Search Engine Optimization

4. Text, internal links, bold

Search Engine Optimization

1. Page Title

3. Header tags

2. URL

5. Page description text

‘On page’ optimization – 5 settings per page, plus regular use of your target keywords on an optimized page with relevant content

A link: www.dohertywhite.com

Links should be from other good sites

To get links, provide information/content that people think is valuable and should be shared

Identify a target list of sites you’d like to link to you

Who links to you now?

Who links to your competitors?

What sites are top for the search terms related to you?

What standard directories are there - irelandlookup.com,

localpages.ie, europages.ie

What associations are you a member of e.g. the Chamber

Search Engine Optimization

‘Off page’ optimization – get other sites to link to you

2. Landing page designSEO

SEO Resources

“Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide” – Google

“SEO Quick Guide” – DohertyWhite (lists other reources)

“Learning SEO from the Experts” – Hubspot

“Introduction to Search Engine Optimization” – Hubspot

“The Art of SEO” - Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin and Jessie Stricchiola

QuickSprout (Neil Patel) – good advice on driving traffic

SEOMoz.Org – Blog updates, “White board Friday” seminars

Bruce Clay – respected SEO expert

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Analytics

108

Having identified objectives you should identify corresponding metrics and report on them

Use Google analytics to measure and report on website traffic numbers, bounce rates and traffic sources (among other metrics)

Google adwords provides reports on impressions, click through rates, cost per click Monitor leads generated, what they downloaded, their IP address etc The email marketing systems will provide reporting on bounce rates, open rates,

click through rates per email campaign We can generate SEO reports that show traffic per keyword, relative improvement

over time, competitor ranking for selected keywords etc. Combine the key metrics into a one-page weekly summary so you can easily plot

your progress against the top 5 to 10 objectives e.g. Traffic, leads, lead quality, email response rates etc.

Analytics

Metrics , Analytics and Reporting

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Putting It All Together

110

The overall approach

Understand who you are targeting (your buyers) – what are their roles, which companies do they work for, where are they, what is important to them, how do you connect with them?

What are you selling – what does your product and service do for them, what is your value proposition for these buyers?

Generate ‘content’ – based on your understanding of the buyers, create information that your target buyers will find useful e.g. Case studies, white papers, research surveys, how to guides ...

Drive traffic to that content using PPC, email, SEO, PR, social media

B2B - Capture contact details in exchange for your content

Build a relationship with those people over time via your content, website, social media and email so they learn and understand your proposition, answer their concerns and select you as their best choice

??How do you compare with competitors – which ones are worth focusing on, how do you differentiate from them?

B2C – Sell your product(s) now

http://

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Revise website based on buyer

analysis, add landing pages

Generate content to attract visitor

registrations

Launch Google pay-per-click

ads

Launch Search Engine Optimization

activities

Generate PR and online PR

Email Marketing

Post to Corporate Blog and Social

Media

Hardcopy Mail to selected contacts

Telemarketing qualification of

warm leads

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9

The overall approach

112

How do your promote your SaaS system?

113

Bring people to your website

Persuade them to sign-up for a

Free Trial

Persuade them to pay for your

service

Convince them to renew each year –

retain your customers

How do you sell to those buyers?

Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention

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Key Points:•Understand your buyers•Be clear about the value you deliver•Get good at online marketing•Use content as ‘bait’•Keep cost of sales low – use web and phone•Measure performance of your process•Continually improve conversion rates

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Outcomes from today’s seminar

1. Why Digital Marketing is important for technology startups

2. How you can get started

3. A structure you can use – start, middle, end

4. How to prioritize what you should do first

5. Practical examples – Google ads, blog email, Facebook etc.

6. Where to look for help

At the end of today you should know …

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Outcomes from today’s seminar

1. What – what are you selling?

2. Who – who are you selling to?

3. How – how do you promote yourself?

Digital marketing is essential to promote your business…

3.1 Website

3.1 Google ads

3.1 Social media

3.1 Email marketing

3.1 Search Engine Optimization

Books• “Lean Startup”, Eric Ries• “Crossing the Chasm”, Geoffrey Moore• “Innovators Dilemma”, Clayton Christensen• “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, Peter Drucker

• Harvard MBA course on startups – recommended reading• http://platformsandnetworks.blogspot.com/2011/01/launching-tech-ventures-

part-iv.html?spref=tw

• Building a sales and marketing machine – Dave Skok – • http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/slides-sales-marketing-machine/

• Brad Feld, VC, author of “Do more faster” – www.feld.com

Recommended reading

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Outcomes from today’s seminar

Web traffic

+ Content

= Customers

Email michael.white@dohertywhite.comMobile +353 86 383 8981Phone +353 7491 16689Twitter @michaelgwhite

www.dohertywhite.com

Thank You