Startup MBA 3.0 - Growth, content marketing

growth

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Question

Where do traffic and leads come from?

Beware!

There’s more bad advice about marketing than any other part of starting up

Comment on every blog post in your industry!

Always be tweeting! Build your followers!

Sanity check

“Do more of everything” is not a strategy

It is wild flailing from well-intentioned folks who

don’t know what you should actually do

Shawn Carolan Menlo Ventures

Startups don’t starve; they drown.

What we need

1. Clear goal & targets !

What we need

1. Clear goal & targets 2. Simple daily process

What we need

1. Clear goal & targets 2. Simple daily process 3. Measurable results

Discussion

What have you seen work previously? !

How did it drive the business?

Part I. Clear goal & targets

3 ways to grow

1.Sticky - users never leave

3 ways to grow

1.Sticky - users never leave 2.Paid - buy users for less

than you earn

3 ways to grow

1.Sticky - users never leave 2.Paid - buy users for less

than you earn 3.Viral - each user

brings at least 1 more

The right qualities for early stage

1.Sticky - cheap & fast 2.Paid - expensive; requires

mature business model 3.Viral - slow; requires lots of

product development

Sticky

Once a customer shows up, they never leave

Focus on retaining existing users rather than finding a repeatable way to get new ones

Paid

You can buy a user (via ads or salespeople) for less than you can earn from them

Rarely works profitably for young companies

Common paid channels

• Salespeople • Physical stores • Search ads • Display ads • PR

Rules of thumb

You can scale software with direct sales if your product sells for more than $10,000 !

Online ads are usually unprofitable for startups, but they’re cheap & easy to test

Caveat emptor

Premature scale is the #1 killer of startups mainly because of how much money you can spend when you try to “buy” lots of customers

Viral

Each user you get brings at least one more along with them

More of a product strategy than a marketing one

The rules of viral

1.You must have tech & design on your founding team

The rules of viral


2.You will prioritize growth over everything (including revenue)

The rules of viral



3.Virality must be core to the product, not a marketing add-on

The rules of viral




4.You must be relentlessly metrics-driven

The rules of viral




4.You must be relentlessly metrics-driven 5. “Word of mouth” is not a viral strategy

The rules of viral




4.You must be relentlessly metrics-driven 5. “Word of mouth” is not a viral strategy 6.Neither is twitter

The golden rule of viral

Nobody cares about your product as much as you do. If they’re going to share it, the act of sharing must add value.

Discussion

Which products caused you to quickly get other people to use them? !

Was it voluntary (a recommendation) or forced (a requirement)?

Improving virality

k = #referrals * clickthrough * conversion

Improving virality


1. Improve k

Improving virality


1. Improve k 2.Reduce time until sharing (it spreads

faster if you share after a minute vs. a month)

In our humble opinion...

Sticky is the right option for 90% of new companies

So let’s get back to sticky

Jason Cohen (on starting another company when he already has an audience of 50,000)

Absolutely true, it’s a completely unfair advantage, and it’s why so many people harp on folks to start things like blogs and mailing lists. !

When you want to do things like sell a book or a new startup you have a running start!

The goal

Develop your sticky community funnel

The community funnel process

1.Traffic shows up (we’ll learn from where)


1.Traffic shows up (we’ll learn from where) 2.You give away free gift & create value


1.Traffic shows up (we’ll learn from where) 2.You give away free gift & create value 3.Exchange larger gift for permission to

contact



contact 4.Stay in touch, over-deliver value



contact 4.Stay in touch, over-deliver value 5.Convert subscribers to paid customers of

core product



contact 4.Stay in touch, over-deliver value 5.Convert subscribers to paid customers

of core product 6.Retain, up-sell, get referrals


1.Traffic shows up (we’ll learn from where) 2.You give away free gift & create value 3.Exchange larger gift for permission

to contact 4.Stay in touch, over-deliver value 5.Convert subscribers to paid customers

of core product 6.Retain, up-sell, get referrals

Daniel Priestly

If you only have the core product and not the full model, you don’t have enough flow and are tempted to incorrectly drop the price

We’ll need to design these 5 pieces

1. Free gift 2. Product for prospects 3. Stay-in-touch content 4. Core product (£) 5. Follow-on product (£££)

Discussion

What are some gifts that are cheap for us to give away, and which create real value for visitors?

Educate Inform Amuse Inspire

Gifts

= Content

Gifts

Educate Inform Amuse Inspire

Rand Fishkin

Content is the keystone of inbound marketing. Without content, there’s no SEO, no social media, no community, and no revenue.

To create value, the content needs to be

exceptional !

(which is different from perfect)

Content is great

1.Fast & cheap to produce 2.Free & instant to distribute 3.Measurable 4.Lets you begin building audience

before product is finalized 5.Repeatable

Your startup has a mission

Startups are designed to either create joy or remove pain

Your content has a mission too. What do they get for their time?

This is all about helping ____________ learn/be/do __________.

Tip

Your content shouldn’t do exactly the same thing as your product. Rather, it should be interesting for the sort of person who might also want your product. !

For example, if your product is healthy snack food, your content could be about helping busy parents create a healthy home and happy kid.

120 seconds. Make as many as you can.

This is all about helping ____________ learn/be/do __________.

That’s the value proposition

of your gifts and content marketing

Workshop: design your funnel products


Part II. Simple daily

process

The process

1.Make things

The process

1.Make things 2.Tell people

The process

1.Make things 2.Tell people 3.Repeat

Example: tools for writers

This is all about helping new authors get their first book finished !

!



1.Daily inspirational mini-posts



1.Daily inspirational mini-posts 2.Helpful weekly newsletter

Most common content failure

“What should I say today?”

The content creator’s spiral of death

1.Decide you’ll write every time you have a “good idea”.

2.Wait months. 3.At last, inspiration has

struck! 4.Treat it like your baby.

Protect & perfect it. 5. Takes time. Finally finish. 6.Traffic doesn’t change 7.Not worth it. Give up.

Marketing is work (not inspiration)

Community growth: 2 years of writing when inspiration struck vs. 3 months of writing daily (from roughly 0 to 250,000 monthly visitors)

Best practice

Put your marketing on auto-pilot by deciding: !

1. What you’ll create and how often 2. Where you’ll announce it


1.Daily inspirational mini-posts 2.Helpful weekly newsletter


1.Daily inspirational mini-posts on pinterest

2.Helpful weekly newsletter


1.Daily inspirational mini-posts on pinterest

2.Helpful weekly newsletter of an author interview talking about writer’s block

Remember

Don’t make a decision every day if you can just make it once! !

(but of course, be ready to make a new decision if this one isn’t working)

Best practice

Reduce the cost by: !

1. Front-loading the creative burden 2. Removing friction from creation through batching, outsourcing, and setting up a content creation flow


1.Spend 2 hours today finding several dozen quotes, then outsource the design and daily posting to a student


1.Spend 2 hours today finding several dozen quotes, then outsource the design and daily posting to a student

2.Email all your favorite writers today to ask for interviews. Record the skype calls as soon as possible and send the audio to your student helper for transcription and editing

More examples

• Twitter important to you? Use bufferapp.com and ifttt.com to automate

More examples


• Making lots of video content? Set up a permanent studio for lighting & recording in your flat

More examples



• Spending forever perfecting your blog posts? Write outlines and then pay a grad student £10 to edit

More examples




• Wasting time on fancy graphs? Use tools like infogr.am to trivialize the process

More examples




• Wasting time on fancy graphs? Use tools like infogr.am to trivialize the process

• Video editing taking forever? Adjust your style & content to work with socialcam.com in one take

Workshop!

We’re going to front-load the creative burden of “what to write” by coming up with your manifesto !

1. You’ll soon have a pile of raw ideas 2. Later, turn them into content marketing

Rules

90 seconds per trigger question !

Come up with as many ideas as you can, one idea per card. Don’t self-censor. !

Remember who you are trying to help!

You

“It is absurd that…” !

What’s wrong with your industry? With the world? Pick a fight!

90 seconds

You

“Always/never do X” !

Nothing like a good ultimatum. Take a stand. What are the non-negotiables?

90 seconds

You

What are the must-read books and authors for your visitors? !

Making recommendations for other good content is easy and valuable. Why do you like these sources?

90 seconds

You

Mistakes were made! !

What are the most common blunders people fall for when trying to accomplish this? Bonus points if you can share personal failure tales.

90 seconds

You

What’s the most common bad advice? !

Who gave that moron a microphone!? What’s the most popular advice in this area that you totally disagree with?

90 seconds

You

What are the recent questions you’ve been asked? !

Get into the habit of writing down the questions customers ask you about the industry - every answer is a bit of content marketing in disguise!

90 seconds

3 minutes

Working in pairs, help each other turn as many ideas as possible into strong titles that make a bold claim. !

Once you have the title, creating the rest of the content is easy.

Rob’s process

1.Capture loads of ideas 2. Ideas -> Titles -> Drafts ->

Scheduled backlog 3.Don’t obsess; publish 2nd drafts 4.Automate promotion 5. Ignore analytics 6.Write a little every day

Content marketing is powerful

Two startups with the same product; one of them used blogging strategically

Part III. Whence traffic?

Gabe Weinberg’s startup is one of the dumbest ideas possible !

He is competing directly with Google on search

And yet, he is succeeding

How?

Gabriel Weinberg

Are you... Building an empire, lighting a power-keg, or starting a movement?

Reality check!

Every founder dreams of creating an empire and prays they’re sitting on a powder keg. !

But most of us are actually growing movements. We gain customers and fans one step at a time. There’s no magic bullet.

These are the top 5 mistakes he’s seen other founders make

Mistake #1

They don’t pursue traction in parallel with product development

Why is it useful to explore early?

1. Initial customer development informs your product roadmap



2.Launch with a nice base of initial users



2.Launch with a nice base of initial users

3.Test messaging and distribution channels

Mistake #2

They didn’t spend enough time pursuing traction

How much time is it really worth?

1.Distribution is equally important as product



2.You should be spending 50% of your time on it



2.You should be spending 50% of your time on it

3. For tech people, you should probably bias it to 75%

Mistake #3

They didn’t take advantage of micro-opportunities

Micro-opportunities

Micro-opportunities are little chances to grow which appear unexpectedly and temporarily. !

E.g. responding to a story in the press or trying a newly created advertising platform.

Each of the letters was a successful micro-opportunity for growth

This week, for example, Instagram is launching their new ad platform

Gabriel Weinberg

You have to be watching, flexible and creative. !

So you need to be spending enough time on it.

Paul Graham

You reach scale by doing things that don’t scale.

Mistake #4

They were biased toward or away from certain traction verticals

Traction comfort zones

Every startup relies on blogging, twitter, and Adwords. They can’t be the solution for everyone.

What about billboards? PR? Publicity stunts? Direct sales? Lead generation? Snail mail?

Sometimes the weird stuff works.

Mistake #5

They didn’t take a systematic approach to getting traction

Gabriel Weinberg

The usual approach is to build the product, then frantically try to figure out how to promote things, then haphazardly attempt the obvious stuff

Discussion

We talked about product MVPs. !

What would a traction MVP look like? What are some examples?

The traction process

1.Have an educated guess at a few traction verticals



2.List them all out in order of potential usefulness



2. List them all out in order of potential usefulness

3.Approach the most promising verticals (say five) with small but effective tests



2. List them all out in order of potential usefulness

3.Approach the most promising verticals (say five) with small but effective tests

4.If one or two out of the initial five seem promising, focus hard on them

Workshop

Let’s explore our options with the traction cards

Part IV. Measurable results

!(the short version)

Key metrics (the short version)

Sticky - community growth rate; conversion to paid

Paid - lifetime value; cost of acquisition

Viral - # of referrals; clickthrough rate; conversion rate

You measure because...

You have better things to do with your time and money than ineffective marketing!

Build the funnel to “catch” traffic


Questions on

growth?Startup MBA by Founder Centric & Escape the City

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Startup MBA 3.0 - Growth, content marketing