marketing essentials for startups
TRANSCRIPT
Marketing Essentialsfor Startups
Cagdas Onen // Marketing Manager @ iyzico // @cagdasonen
About myself…
@cagdasonen
/in/cagdasonen
What is the Agenda?
Marketing in general
Marketing approach in startups
How to set the marketing strategy
Key points regarding marketing elements
Take-aways and personal experience sharing
Group discussions and Q&A session
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.*
* American Marketing Association – Definition of Marketing
What is Marketing?
What is Marketing?
“Marketing” in Startups!
1. “Wow, I have built a product!”
2. “I need to show it to my buddies and families”
3. “Wait a sec! I need to start some marketing as well. I have a ready product.”
4. “In fact, the product will market itself but a little marketing push will not kill anyone”
1. “Is it really solving a problem?”
2. “Will these people be really objective?”
3. “Will you start marketing just for the sake that you have a product?”
4. “What’s the basis to say that everyone will use your product and it will sky-rocket?”
“Marketing” in Startups!
But the reality is much more different than imagined…
So how will you
?
MARKETING SHOULD START THE MOMENT THE PRODUCT IS CONCEPTUALIZED
Everything starts with a story…
What’s your story?
You need to have a story for your product & service before kicking-off any marketing activity…
In fact you need a story not only for marketing but also for;
Company Culture
Talent Acquisition
Fundraising
What’s your story?
The story needs to be defined at the moment the product & service is conceptualized
The identity, branding, positioning will be built upon this story
Remember;
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories you tell” Seth Godin
Next Step: Strategy
Next Step: Strategy
For startups, the most important strategy is User Acquisition
Once the user acquisition starts, another strategy needs to be added.
And this will be Growth
User Acquisition + Growth will be the catalyst for your marketing efforts…
Strategic Approach: Marketing Funnel
Create a funnel and observe & analyse the user behaviour through each phase…
Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Revenue
Referral
Startup Metrics for Pirates by Dave McClure
Strategic Approach: Marketing Funnel
Acquisition: Users coming to your site & application through various channels
Activation: Users enjoy their first visit
Retention: Users come back again
Referral: Users liked your site & application and started referring friends
Revenue: Users started taking action that results in creating a revenue for you
Startup Metrics for Pirates by Dave McClure
A new terminology: Growth Hacking
http://www.startup-marketing.com/where-are-all-the-growth-hackers/
What is Growth Hacking?Growth Hacking is a set of tactics and best practices for dealing with user growth
The main task for a growth hacker is to figure out how to move users from one level of funnel to the next one
Growth Hacking Best Practices
User growth via single trick PS – I love you and a link back to the homepage of Hotmail.
API connection and posting of the entries to Craigslist
Bring your friend and get additional storage
Funnel Structure
Startup Metrics for Pirates by Dave McClure
Key Points – SEO
Fixing all SEO issues on the your website
Improving page speed for desktop and mobile version
Regular SEO-friendly content creation
Build high-quality backlink profile that helps for improving Google trust score
Regular SEO audit and analysis of mobile SEO performance
Sitemap and checking of 301 redirections if any
Complete page titles and descriptions
Key Points – Analytics and Remarketing
Integration of Google Tag Manager
Google Adwords & Google Search Console Integration
Social Media Analytics Integration
Filtering of Spammed Traffic
Analysis of Referred Traffic
Analysis of the User Journey on the website
Key Points – Analytics and Remarketing
Apply Remarketing for specific scenarios and bring users back to your website
Some scenarios examples are as below:
Lists that target all our visitors Lists that target specific page visits Lists that target visitors who took a certain action Listst that target visitors based on visitor segments
Key Points – Analytics and RemarketingRemarketing Sample Flow
User visits your page
Clicks on the “Registration”
form but doesn’t
complete
Via Remarketing, a
banner is shown to the
user
The user re-visits your
page
This time the user completes
the form
Key Points – Social Media Defining one of the social media channel as Mother Ship and position the others as in supporting position
Facebook >> Video Content & Lifestyle Approach
Twitter >> Engagement & Real-time Communication & Customer Support
LinkedIn >> Corporate Face of your Startup
Instagram >> Your Company Life & Company Album
YouTube >> Video Information Channel
Key Points – E-mailing As your user base grows, you need to be informing them in different channels
You need to have e-mailing templates for different user actions
Especially for re-activation of inactive users, e-mailings still work!
Yet for customer support purposes, e-mailing is one of the most effective tool
Key Points – Events & Sponsorships
Events are the key to “networking” and “leveraging your awareness”
You don’t necessarily need to be a sponsor at an event to get maximum disposure
It is better to;
Meet as many people as possible and be on the move all the time
Try to spend optimum time for each contact
Make sure you don’t overspend time with a single person
Follow-up as soon as the event finishes
Key Points – PR
Identify key influencers namely journalists and bloggers
Create your own list of contacts
Create a relationship and start a conversation with them
Don’t forget that it is crucial to maintain the relationship and be a great contact for them
If you believe you have a potential story, reach out and spread it
If you don’t have a potential story, it is useless to push them so go balanced!
Key Points – Budget & Team & Calendar
Once you decide on the tools, it is time to create the budget
Don’t forget that you will start with almost “zero” budget So you will need to work your wonders on the way
Marketing can never be a 1-man show so you need to have experts if possible to be helping you
Finally you need to be flexible on your plans but need to follow a calendar
In marketing, one shot actions never bring huge results. You need to have a continuos flow of activities
This way your efforts exponentially grows
Key Points – KPI and Tracking
Key Points – KPI and Tracking
Without tracking the KPIs , you can make sure that your marketing efforts are wasted!
As you assign each tool for each part of the tunnel, you need to define the KPIs and tracking methods as well
Funnel Desired Result Communication Channel KPI Tracking
Acquisiton Sign-up for the site Social Media Posts
Increasing reach of posts Social Media Analytics
Increase in CTR Google Analytics (UTM Tracking)
Acquisiton Sign-up for the site Online Advertising
High CTR Social Media Analytics
High Conversion Google Analytics (Remarketing Code Activation)
So what we have discussed so far… Marketing starts with a story
Before the start, you set your strategy
Strategy is transformed into a funnel structure
Each marketing tool is assigned for each part of the funnel
Your story is again your fundamental element for marketing messaging
Budget, team and calendar are set
KPIs are defined
And the marathon begins!
What I’ve learnt as “Marketing Manager” “Big marketing budget” doesn’t guarantee success
What works successfuly may not work next time!
Sometimes you are amazed to see good results with small budgets
Marketing is a team-work and harmony of different disciplines
Marketing is a marathon. If you run and stop in this marathon, you need more effort to catch your previous pace
If your marketing efforts don’t help your strategy, then stop immediately
Everyone has an idea about marketing so you need to have solid arguments
Things change very fast and if you can’t keep up, you are out of the game!
Nick Fury - The Avengers
Hat tip:
Let’s stay connected!
Cagdas Onen
Marketing Manager @ iyzico
@cagdasonen
/in/cagdasonen