Startup Marketing 101 - RADIUS SFU
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Transcript of Startup Marketing 101 - RADIUS SFU
Startup Marketing 101
Anoop Aulakh@_anoop
About Me
• Marketing, BizDev, Sales, Product• Design, Non profit, Real Estate,Tech startups• Vancouver / Silicon Valley• QuikPiq, Perch, Schoolzone, Cleanweb, Strutta
@_anoop
Early Stage Startup Marketing
• Customer Development• Getting Traction
• Any burning questions?
Customer Development
• Product Market Fit
Customer Development
• Understand your customers’ problems and needs intimately
• Create a hypothesis• Validate with real people
Customer Development
• Online Survey• In-person interview
Food on the Table
• Observed shoppers at grocery stores• Asked survey questions• Asked interviewees to sign up for $$$• Got rejected!
Food on the Table
• Found 1 person willing to pay• Used “Concierge MVP” to understand needs
and problems• Dropped off weekly package with coupons and
recipes• Collected feedback, AND… $9.95• Manual work, no code
Eventually…
• Got a few more customers• Learned LOTS• Low tech iterations (in-home visit > emails,
cheque > credit card)• No wasted time/money on product
development• Built a solid foundation of domain expertise so
they knew how to win
Customer Development
Tools• Survey.io, Google Forms, SurveyMonkey• “If you could wave a magic wand and change
anything about the way you do _______, what would it be, and why?”
• Will you pay $20 to sign up today?
Don’t know where to start?
Exercise
• Who is your customer/user?• What are your assumptions?• Where can you find potential users to
interview?• How can you test your assumptions in the
interview?
Getting Traction
Getting Traction
• Where can you find your first customers/users?
• How can you do this on a low budget?
Pre-product Marketing
• Lead Generation: Landing Pages, AdWords, Social Media
• Content: Blog, articles, e-book, whitepapers• Relationships: prospect, media, influencer
You are the expert in your domain!
from @aprildunford
Lead Generation
• Landing Pages, Social Media Promotions• Lead capture promotions, downloads,
webinars
Landing Pages
• Concise Value Proposition• Use your customers’ language• Clear Call To Action• Capture email
• Tools:• Unbounce, LaunchRock, Striking.ly
Social Promotions
Social Promotions
• Low Barrier to Entry (Enter to Win)• Fan-gate if on Facebook• Offer a prize that is relevant to your users• Collect email!
Tools: (use free trials)• Offerpop, ShortStack, Strutta
Content Marketing
• Blog, articles, e-book, whitepapers• What content is valuable to your user?• Who makes good content today?• Learn from top players• Use terms and keywords your customer uses
(SEO)
Where to post…
• Quora• Hacker News• Reddit• Blogs specific to your nice market
A word about PR…
If your customer doesn’t read tech blogs, Don’t waste time getting covered by tech blogs!
Exercise
• What type of content might be valuable to your user?
• Who makes good content today?• What are some examples of blog posts you
should create?
Push The Ball Forward
• Be ruthlessly efficient with your time• Don’t spend time on activities that aren’t
crucial• Test assumptions quickly• Get out of the building!