YLD Entrepreneurship Series Seize The Market,

Before It’s Too Late! Kris Zanuldin @kzanul

about me Acting VP of Emerging Commerce"@ American Express

16 years Product Development & Marketing

New York, London and Toronto

what they teach you in b-school

Product Pricing Place Promotion

•  pitch! •  know your environment •  distribution, distribution, distribution •  eyes on the prize •  putting it all together

If we only had one hour… (practical marketing)

your marketing M’s

Message Medium Metrics

a word before we begin…

Good Product > Good Marketing

pitch!

1

the big idea?

2

3

4

Explain it in 60 secs or less

What’s the need?

Who are you?

Why are you different?

keep it simple (speak plainly)

Instagram makes mobile photos fast, simple, & beautiful.

#FAIL

YES!

We’re a content discovery platform that enables personalized, geo-tagged content to be distributed through widescale social networks.

a sample pitch “Think: part friend-finder, part city-guide, part social-game. Foursquare is a mobile application that helps you keep up with your friends while using game mechanics to encourage and reward users for experiencing new things.”

know your environment

Photo: Phillip Booth

know your personas Sue Moore, 33 Coffee Shop Barrista

Sue has been running her coffee shop for the last 3 years. She’s located near a busy station, so there are lot of tourists passing by her shop.

However, most of her customers come from local businesses.

She wants to attract more people to sit outside her shop while they wait for their trains.

She likes commuters as they tend to buy more stuff when they are sitting there.

She’s not allowed to advertise on her windows as that’s against local regulations.

She is allowed to have one sign outside of the shop but keeps it as a default sign as she’s too busy to update it.

Quotes “I get a lot of passer by trade and would love to attract more people within 150-200m of my store.” “Getting the regulars in more often would be great!”

•  33 years old •  Married •  Turnover >$100k •  Barrista & owner

Characteristics •  Cares about customers •  Very busy day to day •  Willing to try new tools to bring in business •  Average Internet ability

•  More repeat customers •  More reach •  Ideas to market her business

better

Needs •  Limited budget for advertising •  Unable to reach all the office workers nearby •  Doesn’t understand how many people see

her adverts

Pain Points

Devices

•  18-34 years old •  Own a House •  Income $80k-$150k •  Male

•  Need to cut the grass every week

•  Have only 1 hour •  Low maintenance

This is correlation… This is causation…

I just bought a lawnmower

know the job

know the competition (and your position)

distribution, distribution, distribution

the funnel AWARENESS

CONSIDERATION

CONVERSION

LOYALTY

ADVOCACY

your channels

OWNED MEDIA

web content twitter / facebook

blogs

PAID MEDIA search ads

display ATL

EARNED MEDIA re-tweets shares

bloggers

guerilla marketing

Budgets are fixed…. Creativity is unlimited

content is king

not this…

get this…

eyes on the prize

what’s success?

Rule of thumb: •  Early: awareness, distribution,

usage, user experience •  Intermediate: sales, rev

growth, more distribution •  Maturity: profit, cost, loyalty

Your goals will change as your business matures (keep it to <3)

beware vanity metrics (the tale of FSQ vs. Gowalla)

always be validating

•  Smoke tests •  A/B Testing •  Focus Groups •  Observational Research

Minimize the time to get learnings and make adjustments

putting it all together

your marketing plan ü  elevator pitch ü  customer personas ü  competitive position ü  distribution strategy & media mix ü  content strategy ü  goals

Thank You!