Lean Marketing for Early Stage Startups - lecture for Technion BizTec Entrepreneurship Competition

www.theleanmarketer.com

Lean Marketing for Early Phase Start-ups

Rebecca Steinberg Herson

Presented to: BizTec Entrepreneurship Competition

April 30, 2012

1 Copyright © 2012 Rebecca Steinberg Herson


A bit about me

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• Led global marketing for over a decade in tech

companies & non-profits

• 3 high-growth Deloitte Fast 50 companies

• Primarily B2B, some B2C

• Today: principal at The Lean Marketer, providing

outsourced CMO services

• Fan of the Boston Red Sox & Celtics


So this is marketing…

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Our ambitious agenda

• Getting to know your potential customers

• Getting to know your industry ecosystem

• Lean product management

• Segmenting your market

• Defining your message

• Increasing your influence

• Calls to action

• Promotion

• Identifying what’s working (calculating ROI)

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YOUR SOLUTION SOLVES A PAIN.

WHO SUFFERS FROM THIS PAIN?

Getting to Know your (potential) Customers

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Your Customer is Not You

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How to get to know your customer

• Old days

– Focus Groups

– Phone surveys

– Analyst Reports

– Trade Shows

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Today


Market Surveys • Use surveys to

– test product ideas

– confirm your instincts

– refine your message

– discover new potential customers

• Google docs - its completely free

– Can be edited collaboratively (whoever you allow)

– Lots of available designs, or embed in your own web page or blog

• LinkedIn Polls

– Survey your own network for free

– Survey specific demographics for a fee (~$1/response)

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How to get people to fill out the surveys

• Post on groups, update your status, tweet, repeat

• Beg your friends and beg them to beg their friends

• Incentivize them

– free ipod/amazon gift certificate/ coffee with the founders…

– early access to your beta

• Reach out personally

– you can send a message to anyone LinkedIn member in the

same group as you

– Inmail also works but has to be very enticing

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Paid Survey Audience Solutions

• B2B:

– http://www.thinkspeed.com/ $3 - 5K/ survey depending on

the audience

• B2C:

– SurveyMonkey Audience

http://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/audience/

– $3.00 per finished response for standard demographics

(gender, age, income, education, employment, location.

Requires professional plan (~$20/month)

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http://www.thinkspeed.com/



http://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/audience/


Some results from our survey

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8

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IDENTIFY 3 QUESTIONS TO SURVEY YOUR

POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE

BETTER PRODUCT-MARKET FIT

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EXPLORE YOUR ENVIRONMENT

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Don’t forget, polar bears can be sneaky


Your Environment

• Narrow it down to the relevant:

– Sales Prospects

– Competitors

– Potential Partners

– Journalists/bloggers

– Industry analysts

– Marketing channels

– Industry events

– Etc.

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TechCrunch Disrupt is

not the relevant

launchpad for every

startup


Free tools for Web research

• Identify industry events, active companies, potential

partners, competitors http://www.google.com

• Identify market trends over time, estimate potential volume

and geographies http://www.google.com/insights/search/

• Estimate traffic volume, cost of acquisition, find related

keywords https://adwords.google.co.il/o/KeywordTool

• Identify your competitors keywords:

http://www.keywordspy.com/

• Get your questions answered: http://www.quora.com/

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http://www.google.com/

http://www.google.com/insights/search/

https://adwords.google.co.il/o/KeywordTool





http://www.quora.com/


Don’t Know? Post a Q on Quora

www.theleanmarketer.com 16


Jump in to Social Media

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Identify key people in your industry

• Search Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook for relevant people, groups, comments,

companies

• Follow, read their tweets, check their blogs

• Retweet relevant content – people appreciate it and it builds your

credibility

• Tweet your own thoughts – be authentic

• Join relevant groups on LinkedIn, Facebook

• “Lurk” for a while before you jump in – think cocktail party

• Then, start discussions (LinkedIn)

• Correspond with people who enter the discussion

• DM influencers (Twitter)

• Reach out to people – they are people, and most want to help

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Become part of the conversation


Learning @ LinkedIn

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www.theleanmarketer.com Copyright (c) 2010 Rebecca Steinberg

Herson 20

www.theleanmarketer.com Copyright (c) 2010 Rebecca Steinberg

Herson 21


Trade Shows – a concentrated learning

tool

• If you attend, do your homework

• Check on twitter what people are saying about the event, tweetups planned

• Review all the exhibitors and speakers – who do you want to talk to? Do

you want to meet the exhibitors or the attendees?

• Most of the people in the booths are sales reps – is that who will be most

useful for you? Some companies also send executives, but they don’t hang

around waiting for visitors; you need to book an appointment

• The Press are also there. Don’t bother with them unless you already have a

customer they can talk to

• Look up the people you want to meet on LinkedIn and memorize what they

look like – you just might run into them in a hotel lobby

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IDENTIFY 3 PLACES (ONLINE OR OFFLINE) THAT

WILL HELP YOU LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR

ENVIRONMENT (COMPETITORS, CHANNELS…)

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LEAN PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

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Test Early and Often

There is no substitute for watching real people try

(and fail) to use your product

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Testing Tools

• Your brain

• All the survey & social networking tools mentioned

earlier

• http://pickfu.com - $10 for 50 opinions

– Use for A/B testing

– Gauge popular opinion

– Determine consumer preference

– Predict consumer behavior


http://pickfu.com/


WHAT ARE 3 LEAN TESTS YOU CAN RUN

BEFORE YOU RELEASE BETA?

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SEGMENTING TARGET MARKETS

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Identify your ideal customer(s)

Build marketing personas • Customer company size / end-user demographic

• Vertical industry – finance, medical, retail, automotive,

etc.

• Geographic location

• Who is my potential buyer? What is his/her job title?

• Who are my influencers? What are their job titles?

• What is the total addressable market?

• Who competes in this market already?

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Segmenting the market

• Different segments will require different marketing

strategies

• May require slightly different product features

• Try to limit yourself to the quickest acting segment at

first – for first customers

• Later, focus on the most profitable segment

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WHO SHOULD BE YOUR FIRST TARGET

SEGMENT? WHAT CHARACTERIZES THEM?

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DEFINING YOUR MESSAGE

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Value Proposition, Elevator Pitch

• The unique value you offer to your customers

• Boil it down into a very short, medium and long

statement

• Literally try saying it in the elevator – it’s hard

• Test it out on others, especially outside your company

• Polish this before you start officially promoting, to

maintain consistency

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Elevator Pitch Template

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From: http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/30/startups-give-us-your-best-one-sentence-pitch/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/30/startups-give-us-your-best-one-sentence-pitch/
















WHO IS YOUR (INITIAL) TARGET AUDIENCE?

WHAT PROBLEM DO YOU HELP THEM SOLVE?

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INCREASING YOUR INFLUENCE

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Why you need a blog (or FB Page, or Vlog,

or Tumblr, or Twitter feed, or…)

• It’s the second thing people will look at when they want to understand

you and your company

• (the first is your LinkedIn profile)

• Great for SEO

• It becomes your own media channel - who needs ComputerWorld

anymore?

• Gives you more credibility with the mainstream media – you can become

a source for them

• Gives you something to tweet, for people to retweet, and for them to

comment on – gets you into the conversation

• Of course, you need to have something to say

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Start your blog (or X…)

• Blog can be your own personal blog, that is, if you have enough to say on your own

• If you open a company blog, you will have more options for contributors

• Facebook pages have lots of blog-ish options; main drawback: not searchable

• Be authentic

• Talk about issues in the industry

• Comment on newsworthy items

• Offer advice

• Blog at least 2 months before you want to publicize it

– This ensures you know what you’re getting into and can maintain it

– You will have archived content from day 1

• If you’re vlogging, include keyword-heavy descriptions for each video

• Include CALLS TO ACTION in your blog or near your posts

• Don’t know what to write about? http://blog.kissmetrics.com/topic-generation-machine/

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http://blog.kissmetrics.com/topic-generation-machine/






THINK OF 5 IDEAS YOU CAN

BLOG/VLOG/TWEET ABOUT

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THE CALL TO ACTION

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Calls To Action

• Sign up for our newsletter

• Visit our web site

• Download this white paper

• Enter this contest

• Meet us at this event

• What do you think about X? Tell us in the comments

• Register for our free version

• View this webinar

• Answer our survey

• Call our hotline… operators standing by

• BUY!!!

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www.theleanmarketer.com www.theleanmarketer.com 43



WHAT ARE 5 DIFFERENT CALLS TO ACTION YOU

CAN USE TO MARKET YOUR SOLUTION?

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MARKETING PROMOTION

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Promotion

47 MIT Sloane School Marketing Management Course Lecture

Social Networking


Public Relations

• Keep track of articles that cover your industry – these are most likely the

journalists you will want to contact when the time comes

• Journalists look for newsworthy stories:

– Timely

– Conflict

– Unexpected

– Meaningful

• Craft your “pitch” based on what you’ve learned about the journalist – what

kinds of stories does s/he write?

• Try for the less obvious publications – you may find coverage easier to

achieve

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Trade Shows/ Conferences

• You don’t necessarily have to exhibit (expensive!!) – try visiting the first

time, and making appointments – great research tool

• Apply for speaking engagements even if you don’t exhibit

• Check with the organizers if they have any matching-type services to

bring relevant people to you

• Request the press list in advance and reach out to relevant journalists

before you get there

• Tweet that you’re going; update your LinkedIn profile; Facebook

• Don’t expect the relevant leads to show up just because you are there.

You need to make the meeting happen.

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HOW TO KNOW WHAT’S WORKING (ROI)

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How to Measure What’s Working?

• SALES (of course)

• What if you’re not selling? Divide your pipeline into specific stages, and track

opportunities as they progress

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Social/ SaaS: 1-free trial registrant 2-spent time on site/app 3-populated personal profile 4-asked support question … 8-signed up for 1 month paid 9-Renewed for 1 year paid

Traditional Enterprise Product: 1-Qualified suspect – meets our criteria 2-Initiated contact 3-Interest expressed – potential opportunity identified … 9-Verbal commitment to purchase Closed Won Closed Lost Stalled/Postponed


Sample Pipeline by Lead Source

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0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Stage6

Stage7

Stage8

Stage9

Sold

Trade ShowLondon

Twitter

Google Ads

Webinar

Articles


Measuring Conversion Rate

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1175

94

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Unique page views

Respondents

58 Attendees

4700 Email blast sent

Invitations Opened

2% of invited

44% page conversion

25% open rate

Attendees > respondents indicates WOM


Iterate, Iterate and Iterate Again

• Build in feedback models

– A-B testing

– Track opens, clicks, event attendance, registrations, etc.

• Do it better the next time

• Adjust your message

• Adjust your demo

• Adjust your home page

• Adjust your marketing channel

• Try to improve the # of leads coming into the funnel

• Track and improve your conversion rate at every step in the funnel

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WHAT SALES STAGES ARE MEANINGFUL

FOR MY BUSINESS?

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That first (second or third) customer

• Revenue is important, but in the early stage these are even more important:

• Feedback that can help improve the product

• Testimonial - a customer approves a quote for your web site or other marketing materials

– “This product is great because it solves such & such problem…”

• Case study – customer goes on the record with before/ after data and quotes

• Reference – customer agrees to talk to other potential customers, journalists or analysts about how great you are

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Useful Marketing Resources

http://theleanmarketer.com

marketing resource list in right column, scroll down

Highly recommended reading:

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http://theleanmarketer.com/


Thank You!

Rebecca Steinberg Herson

[email protected]

+972-54-444-2372

http://il.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaherson

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mailto:[email protected]

http://il.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaherson

http://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaherson

Business

Lean Marketing for Early Stage Startups - lecture for Technion BizTec Entrepreneurship Competition