Web 2.0: a real marketing opportunity for startups ?

(André, 2014)

MEMOIRE

Présen té en vue de l ' ob ten t ion du Mas te r en I ngén ieu r de ges t i on , à f i na l i t é Advanced Management

Web 2.0: a real marketing opportunity for startups?

Marie-‐Laure Cruyt

Directeur: Professeur Jean-‐Pierre Baeyens Commissaire: Professeur Philippe Biltiau

Année académique 2013-‐ 2014

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Special Thanks

I would first like to address my special thanks to the various experts and entrepreneurs

that have taken on their time to address my questions. Without their help I would not

have had a sufficient understanding of the various dimensions that this work

encompasses. Thank you to Sébastien François for briefing me on the art of Search

Engine Marketing, to Baudouin de Troostemberg for highlighting the role of social

media communication for small businesses, to Olivier Verdin for his very helpful

insights on the challenges startups face, to Damien Van Achter for his interesting

thoughts on the impact of digital communication, to Laurie Galazzo for patiently

describing the day-‐to-‐day activities of a community manager, and to Professor Philippe

Biltiau for his valuable opinion on the Internet’s role in marketing.

I further thank the entrepreneurs for sharing their experience with me. I very much

appreciated the friendly exchange I had with each of them. Thank you to Nicolas Finet

for sharing his growth hacking techniques within Sortlist, to Marine André for

explaining her journey with Bee Nature, to Nicolas Debray for detailing the importance

of Web analytics through Semetis, to Margaux Seghin and Nausicaa Theodotos for

their heartening comments on Ginger’s everyday challenges, to Adrien Roose for his

truthful emphasis on the necessity of multi-‐channel communication with Take Eat

Easy, and to Tanguy Goretti for describing the art of community building with Djump.

Their feedback greatly inspired me for both my work and personal projects.

I would also like to thank all those that have supported me during the elaboration of

this work. Most particularly, I thank Christophe Castan, for his very useful advice and

helpful comments; my father, Michel Cruyt, for patiently proofreading my work; and

especially Thomas Helleputte who kept encouraging me while patiently reviewing my

work and sharing his constructive remarks.

Finally, I would like to thank Professor Jean-‐Pierre Baeyens, my thesis director, for the

meetings he arranged and the guidance he gave me throughout my work.

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Table of Content

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY 9

PART I: WEB 2.0, A NEW PARADIGM FOR MARKETING

A. THE NEW WEB GENERATION 13

A.1 DEFINING WEB 2.0 AS AN UNDERLYING MOVEMENT 13 A.2 THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF WEB 2.0 14 A.2.1 DATA – THE SMART WEB 15 A.2.2 TECHNOLOGY – THE PARTICIPATIVE WEB 17 A.2.3 SOCIALIZATION – THE SOCIAL WEB 20 A.3 IN A WORD 22

B. THE EMPOWERED CONSUMER 24

B.1 EXACTING CONSUMERS 24 B.2 RESOUNDING CONSUMERS 24 B.3 PROSUMERS 25 B.4 IMPACT ON MARKETING 27 B.5 IN A WORD 27

C. THE NEW MARKETING APPROACHES 28

C.1 SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING 29 C.1.1 DEFINITIONS 29 C.1.2 THE IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH ENGINES 29 C.1.3 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION 30 C.1.4 SEARCH ENGINE ADVERTISING 31 C.1.5 THE LIMITS OF SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING 33 C.2 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING 33 C.2.1 BRAND COMMUNITIES : A CROWDSOURCING VEHICLE 34 C.2.2 BLOGS: AN AUTHENTIC COMMUNICATION VEHICLE 35 C.2.3 SOCIAL NETWORKS: AN ENGAGEMENT VEHICLE 36 C.2.4 MICROBLOGS: A MOOD-‐MONITORING VEHICLE 38 C.2.5 SOCIAL MEDIA : AN INBOUND MARKETING VEHICLE 40 C.3 WEB ANALYTICS 40 C.4 IN A WORD 41

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D. THE NEW 2.0 COMPETENCES 42

D.1 SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING SPECIALIST 42 D.2 CONTENT STRATEGIST 43 D.3 COMMUNITY MANAGER 43 D.4 WEB-‐EDITOR IN CHIEF 44 D.5 IN A WORD 44

PART II: WEB 2.0 AS A MARKETING OPPORTUNITY FOR STARTUPS

A. “STARTUP”: A TERM OF MANY INTERPRETATIONS 45

A.1 DEFINING STARTUP AS A SCALABLE BUSINESS 45 A.2 A STARTUP IS NOT ALWAYS A TECH-‐BUSINESS 46 A.3 THE TEMPORARY ASPECT OF A STARTUP 46 A.4 IN A WORD 47

B. THE LEAN STARTUP: A WEB 2.0 CONCEPT 47

B.1 SUMMARISING UNTESTED HYPOTHESES 48 B.2 THE CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT PROCESS 48 B.2.1 CUSTOMER DISCOVERY 49 B.2.2 CUSTOMER VALIDATION 49 B.2.3 COMPANY CREATION 50 B.2.4 COMPANY BUILDING 50 B.3 PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT WITH MVPS 51 B.4 IN A WORD 51

C. THE STARTUP LIFECYCLE: A PATH STREWN WITH MARKETING CHALLENGES 52

C.1 CONCEPT 53 C.1.1 GETTING OUT OF THE BUILDING: THE PARTICIPATIVE WEB HELPS BREAK THE ICE 53 C.1.2 REACHING CUSTOMERS: THE SOCIAL WEB FACILITATES EFFECTIVE TARGETING 54 C.1.3 ACHIEVING PROBLEM-‐SOLUTION FIT: WEB 2.0 MITIGATES SUNK COSTS THROUGH COST-‐EFFICIENT

TESTING TECHNIQUES 55 C.2 SEED 57 C.2.1 RELEASING QUALITY MVPS FREQUENTLY: WEB 2.0 INTRODUCES THE PERPETUAL BETA 57 C.2.2 TESTING PRODUCT-‐MARKET FIT: THE PARTICIPATIVE WEB FACILITATES CO-‐DEVELOPMENT 58 C.2.3 GATHERING CONSUMER FEEDBACK: THE SOCIAL WEB CAPTURES HONEST FEEDBACK 59 C.3 EARLY 60

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C.3.1 GENERATING FIRST SALES: WEB 2.0 HELPS BUILD A COMMUNITY OF EARLY-‐ADOPTERS 61 C.3.2 MONETISATION: WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES OPTIMISE CONVERSION AND RETENTION 61 C.4 GROWTH 65 C.4.1 THE CHASM BETWEEN EARLY AND MAINSTREAM MARKET 66 C.4.2 CROSSING THE CHASM: SEARCH ENGINES HELP REACH MASS VISIBILITY 67 C.4.3 CROSSING THE CHASM: GROWTH HACKING INEXPENSIVELY BROADENS CUSTOMER ACQUISITION 68 C.4.4 CROSSING THE CHASM: SOCIAL MEDIA BOOSTS VIRALITY 68 C.4.5 CROSSING THE CHASM: INFLUENCERS CONSTITUTE POWERFUL REFERRALS 71 C.4.6 ENSURING COMPANY BUILDING: INTERNAL SOCIAL NETWORKS SERVE AS EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS 72 C.5 IN A WORD 73

D. THE WEB DEMOCRATISATION: AN OPEN DOOR FOR STARTUPS 74

D.1 IN A WORD 77

PART III: THE LIMITS OF WEB 2.0 AS A MARKETING OPPORTUNITY FOR

STARTUPS

A. THE LIMITS OF WEB DEMOCRATISATION 78

A.1 THE PLUTOCRACY OF SEARCH ENGINES 79 A.1.1 THE PERFECT COMPETITION 79 A.1.2 THE GOOGLEARCHY 79 A.2 THE REDUCED REACH OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING 81 A.2.1 THE MONETISATION OF FACEBOOK 82 A.3 THE COMPLEXITY OF WEB ANALYTICS 84 A.4 IN A WORD 85

B. THE IMPORTANCE OF MULTI-‐CHANNEL COMMUNICATION 86

B.1 IN A WORD 89

C. THE PREREQUISITE OF PEOPLE 89

C.1 IN A WORD 92

D. BEYOND GENERALITIES 92

D.1 WEB 2.0 MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND B2C STARTUPS 92 D.2 WEB 2.0 MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES AND B2B STARTUPS 94

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D.3 IN A WORD 96

CONCLUSION 98

APPENDIX 101

A. APPENDIX 1: THE ABUSES OF SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING 101

A.1 GOOGLE BOMBING 101 A.2 BLACK HAT TECHNIQUES 101

B. APPENDIX 2: FURTHER DETAILS ON THE NEW 2.0 COMPETENCES 103

B.1 CONTENT STRATEGIST 103 B.1.1 IDENTIFYING THE APPROPRIATE MEDIA 103 B.1.2 SETTING OBJECTIVES AND CONTENT PLAN 103 B.1.3 MEASURING RETURN 104 B.2 COMMUNITY MANAGER 104 B.2.1 ANIMATING THE COMMUNITY 105 B.2.2 RESPONDING TO USERS 106 B.2.3 THE COMMUNITY MANAGER PROFILE 107

C. APPENDIX 3: THE BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS FRAMEWORK 108

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. BOOKS AND BOOK SECTIONS 109

B. JOURNAL & PRESS ARTICLES 110

C. ONLINE DOCUMENTS 112

D. REPORTS 115

E. INTERVIEWS 116

E.1 INTERVIEWED EXPERTS 116 E.2 INTERVIEWED ENTREPRENEURS 117

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Table of Figures

Figure 1: Illustration of the elements that characterise the Smart Web and the web

developments that exploit them. ................................................................................ 17

Figure 2: Illustration of the elements that characterise the Participative Web and the

web developments that exploit them ......................................................................... 20

Figure 3: Illustration of the elements that characterise the Social Web and the web

developments that exploit them ................................................................................ 22

Figure 4: Illustration of the Web 2.0 characteristics in the three dimensions ............... 23

Figure 5: Illustration of the Web 2.0 developments in the three dimensions ................ 23

Figure 6: Illustration of the impact of Web 2.0 on consumer behaviour ........................ 26

Figure 7: Illustration of three marketing techniques that respond to the Web 2.0

context .......................................................................................................................... 28

Figure 8: Twitter users tend to be early adopters ............................................................. 39

Figure 9: The Customer Development Process ................................................................. 50

Figure 10: The Linear Value Chain ..................................................................................... 54

Figure 11: The Value Creation System ................................................................................ 54

Figure 12: Illustration of the marketing challenges encountered during the Concept

phase and the Web 2.0 elements that help overcome them .................................... 57

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Figure 13: Illustration of the marketing challenges encountered during the Seed phase

and the Web 2.0 elements that help overcome them ............................................... 60

Figure 14: The Lean Marketing Funnel .............................................................................. 62

Figure 15: An A/B testing example ..................................................................................... 63

Figure 16: Illustration of the marketing challenges encountered during the Early phase

and the Web 2.0 elements that help overcome them ............................................... 65

Figure 17: The Revised Technology Adoption Life Cycle .................................................. 67

Figure 19: Illustration of the marketing challenges encountered during the Growth

phase and the Web 2.0 elements that help overcome them .................................... 73

Figure 20: Presentation of the results of the 2014 Marketing Trends Survey ................. 77

Figure 21: Share of global adspend by medium ................................................................. 87

Figure 22: Percentage of total marketing budget spent in digital marketing according to

firm evolution .............................................................................................................. 88

Figure 23: Most important Social Networks to US B2C Marketers .................................. 93

Figure 24: Percentage of business buyers using medium as source of information ....... 95

Figure 25: Most Important Social Networks to US B2B Marketers .................................. 96

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Introduction and Methodology

Since its first mention in 2005 by Tim O’Reilly1, famous computer-‐book publisher,

there has been a lot of literature regarding the term Web 2.0. While at first focused on

identifying the major characteristics that differentiate Web 2.0 from its previous 1.0

version, literature then further expanded to cover the consequences of this web

evolution. Indeed, the impacts of Web 2.0 go beyond a change in the online world.

Web 2.0 has introduced a series of new tools and web developments that have

drastically impacted the business, the political, the technological and the sociological

environment.

As a consequence, marketing strategies have also been affected. Web 2.0 has strikingly

increased the Internet’s prominence in users’ and businesses’ environment, and hence

in marketing. Marketers have had to integrate new, dynamic, online communication

channels in their approach. Numerous guidebooks and articles presenting Web 2.0

marketing techniques and good practices have been published in this respect.

In parallel, over the past twenty years, there has been a surge in entrepreneurial

activity. The plunge in job security has led individuals to increasingly consider self-‐

employment as an alternative. Moreover, the spread of the Internet in the 1990s has

opened up to a massive new industry and reshaped the way business is done while

providing major cost savings. Numerous startups blossomed during the dot.com

bubble, among which future giants like Amazon, Google, eBay, Yahoo and

Alibaba.com. The achievements of successful entrepreneurs were subject of many

publications and the status of the entrepreneur rapidly became one reflecting

innovation and economic growth. As a result, many publications have tried to set the

fundamentals of entrepreneurial success in order to understand the underlying

principles of this growing field. The literature is rich with theories that depict the

1 O'Reilly, T. (2005, 09 30). What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. Consulté le 04 18, 2014, sur O'Reilly: oreilly.com

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conditions of startup success, that provide guidelines to company founders, and that

attempt to explain the startup environment.

This work aims to combine the literature regarding startups and Web 2.0 while

focusing on the field of marketing. The term marketing here is understood as the set of

processes that are carried out to create, deliver and communicate value to customers

as well as all the activities that relate to customer relationship management. The

objective is to identify how Web 2.0 constitutes a marketing opportunity for startups

and what are the limitations of these possible opportunities. To do so, this thesis starts

by identifying the new marketing techniques enabled by Web 2.0 and analysing the

role and importance of marketing in startup development. It then puts forward how

the Web 2.0 applications previously described help overcome the marketing challenges

startups face. The ultimate goal is to identify to what extent these applications are

advantageous for startups, what are their limitations and applicability, and what

resources and investments are required to capitalise on the marketing opportunities

they offer.

Before getting to the heart of the matter, it seemed relevant to first clarify the Web 2.0

context by defining the term based on the various definitions advanced by Tim

O’Reilly in his many articles2. Web 2.0 characteristics are then enumerated to further

delineate the scope of Web 2.0. This enables to picture the three major facets of the

Web 2.0 (inspired by the three-‐dimensional approach of Gottfried Vossen – computer

science professor at Muensten University3): the Smart Web, the Participative Web and

the Social Web. Together, these web evolutions have severely impacted consumer

behaviour. The first part of this work thus continues by depicting the new consumer

characteristics that are a direct consequence of Web 2.0 based on a further review of

the Web 2.0 literature and its influence on marketing. In response to consumers’

changing expectations, Web 2.0 introduces a panel of new marketing approaches. This

2 O'Reilly, T. (2005, 10 1). Web 2.0: Compact Definition? Consulté le 05 23, 2014, sur Radar Oreilly: http://radar.oreilly.com/2005/10/web-‐20-‐compact-‐definition.html O'Reilly, T. (2005, 09 30). What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. Consulté le 04 18, 2014, sur O'Reilly: oreilly.com Musser, J., & O'Reilly, T. (2007). Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices. New York: O'Reilly Media, Incorporated. 3 Vossen, G., & Hagemann, S. (2007). Unleashing Web 2.0: from concepts to creativity. Burlington: Elsevier.

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work details the three most important ones: Search Engine Marketing, Social Media

Marketing and Web Analytics. These approaches differ considerably from traditional

strategies therefore each one is defined and explained based on the information

collected from a series of interviews with specialists in the domain4. Together they set

a new paradigm for marketing and require specific skill and competence to be carried

out efficiently. Consequently, the last point of this section introduces a series of typical

2.0 professions.

The second part of this work addresses the startup environment. It begins by defining

the term startup and explaining how Web 2.0 has reshaped the startup environment.

Popular entrepreneurial methodologies such as The Lean Startup5 and The Customer

Development Process6 are introduced and put in parallel with Web 2.0 characteristics.

Based on a thorough review of the startup literature and several interviews with

Belgian entrepreneurs7, it was possible to retrace the four stages of a startup’s lifecycle

and, for each phase, identify the major marketing challenges that impede a startup’s

success. For each of these challenges, this work identifies how the Web 2.0 elements

previously describing can help startups overcome these barriers and form auspicious

marketing opportunities. Finally, the section ends by outlining the concept of web

democratisation, which is spurred by the Web 2.0 context.

The last part of this work aims to nuance the findings of part II. The interviews

conducted with entrepreneurs and experts as well as several publications such as The

Myth of Digital Democracy8 or Small Businesses and Web 2.0: Hope or Hype9? reveal a

series of limitations that hamper the opportunities entailed by Search Engine

Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Web Analytics. The section goes through these

drawbacks and then continues by emphasising on the importance of a multi-‐channel

communication. It then pursues by determining the necessary prerequisites to harness

the marketing opportunities offered by Web 2.0. Finally, the diversity in activity sector

4 See presentation of interviewees in Bibliography 5 Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup. New York: Crown Business. 6 Blank, S. (2005). The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Lulu Enterprises Incorporated. 7 See presentation of interviewees in Bibliography 8 Hindman, M. (2009). The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 9 Boyles, T. (2011). Small Business and Web 2.0: Hope or Hype? Entrepreneurial Executive , 16.

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of the consulted startups made it possible to compare their approach and conclude on

the general applicability of Web 2.0 marketing strategies.

This work presents certain limitations that should be acknowledged. First, the number

of interviews conducted with entrepreneurs was limited so as to favour their

qualitative aspect. Moreover, all the interviewed entrepreneurs were founders of

startups that mainly operate in Belgium, undoubtedly colouring their responses.

Therefore, the results do not afford the same kind of generalizability as a quantitative

sampling would. However the quantity was sufficient to identify common sayings and,

from there, depict prevalent practices, trends and difficulties. Regarding the

interviewed specialists, it must be pointed out that most were currently working in a

digital marketing agency. This implies that their responses were slightly biased since

direct criticism was avoided. However, this was easily nuanced by confronting their

responses with the experience of the entrepreneurs. Finally, for the sake of remaining

concise, this work essentially focuses on the marketing opportunities and limitations

of three major Web 2.0 marketing approaches: Search Engine Marketing, Social Media

Marketing and Web Analytics. Other less dominant forms such as marketing through

virtual worlds, game marketing or marketing on application stores are not considered.

The ambition of this thesis is to help entrepreneurs and marketers better understand

the new marketing approaches that have emerged from the Web 2.0 context, what

marketing opportunities they encompass for startups, their limits, and what the

necessary prerequisites are to effectively integrate them into a startup’s marketing

strategy.

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Part I: Web 2.0, a new paradigm for marketing

The first part of this work focuses on laying out the Web 2.0 context. It starts by

clarifying the term Web 2.0 and describing its major characteristics. It then describes

the impact of Web 2.0 evolutions on consumer behaviour and continues by detailing

three new forms of marketing that are a direct consequence of the Web 2.0 context.

Finally, the section puts forwards a series of new marketing skills that are essential to

carry out the previously mentioned new marketing approaches.

A. The new web generation

“Web 2.0; the next generation, user-‐driven, intelligent web.”10

A.1 Defining Web 2.0 as an underlying movement

Web 2.0 designs a new evolution of the web’s structure that introduces a read-‐write

interface as opposed to the “read-‐only” interface of the Web 1.0. In the Web 1.0

context, information was produced by a small number of experts before being

published to the mass who used the Internet for information retrieval exclusively.

Digitally enabled business transactions put an end to the Internet as a static

environment and turned it into a new sales channel, causing a huge migration of retail

activity from the streets to the web. Further developments introduced technologies

that invited users to participate and enabled them to inexpensively share and

contribute to online content. This marks the arrival of Web 2.0, a web that relies on

collective intelligence – where content value is greater when produced by a larger

number of users.

The term Web 2.0 was introduced in 2005 by Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of

O’Reilly Media and famous computer book publisher. O’Reilly defines Web 2.0 as

follows: “Web 2.0 is the network as a platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0

applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform:

delivering software as a continually-‐updated service that gets better the more people use

10 Musser, J., & O'Reilly, T. (2007). Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices. New York: O'Reilly Media, Incorporated.

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it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while

providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating

network effects through an ‘architecture of participation’, and going beyond the page

metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.”11

To sum up, the definition depicts three major changes in the World Wide Web:

-‐ the Web is a platform of interconnected data,

-‐ the Web’s content is continuously evolving,

-‐ the Web gets richer as more users participate in it.

In a more concise definition, also from O’Reilly, Web 2.0 is referred to as “a set of

economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next

generation of the Internet – a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user

participation, openness, and network effects12.” The important point to underline in this

definition is that Web 2.0 relies on a series of important principles and progressions

that set the basis of a new Internet generation. Therefore, Web 2.0 should be

understood as an underlying movement that goes beyond its simple buzzword. Web

2.0 is thus a web one of:

-‐ openness: value is created by remixing data from already existing sources;

-‐ interactivity: users are invited to participate in the process of content creation;

-‐ community: every user adds value by increasing the size of the collective pool of

intelligence, creating powerful network effects.

A.2 The three dimensions of Web 2.0

From a more technical aspect, Web 2.0 can be characterised by several major web

developments. These developments are divided based on the three dimensions – Data,

Technology and Socialization – identified by the Computer Science Professor Gottfried

Vossen (University of Muensten, Germany) 13. Each dimension introduces a facet of

Web 2.0.

11 O'Reilly, T. (2005, 10 1). Web 2.0: Compact Definition? Consulté le 05 23, 2014, sur Radar Oreilly : http://radar.oreilly.com/2005/10/web-‐20-‐compact-‐definition.html 12 Musser, J., & O'Reilly, T. (2007). Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices. New York: O'Reilly Media, Incorporated. 13Vossen, G., & Hagemann, S. (2007). Unleashing Web 2.0: from concepts to creativity. Burlington: Elsevier.

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A.2.1 Data – The Smart Web

The Internet has made it possible to track, record and measure every user interaction

online. Combined with the development of cheap storage techniques, this has led to

the generation of huge databases. New technologies have widespread inexpensive

online storage in such a way that, today, every web application is data-‐driven and

backed with a database in the aim to collect user-‐information. The data can be

analysed and transformed into metrics such as cost per conversion, interaction rate or

ad-‐exposure. As a result, control over unique and hard to recreate data sources is a

major competitive advantage. Indeed, building quality data sources is an expensive

process as the data has to be sufficiently representative, properly cleaned and

standardised for utilisation and storage.

The information retrieved from such databases has a huge potential for creating or

adding strategic value to a product or service and there are numerous ways for it to be

monetised. For instance, reviews posted on Amazon, or content posted on Facebook,

are no longer the author’s property but belong to the firm. This makes it possible for

the company to sell the collected user-‐data to advertisers or other interested parties.

Therefore data ownership also implies a variety of responsibilities regarding

ownership, copyrights, security, safety and privacy protection. It is also extremely

time-‐consuming and intricate to retrieve relevant insights from big data.

Consequently, database management has become a typical Web 2.0 core competency

and has introduced new disciplines such as Web Analytics that, when done efficiently,

open up to a panel of marketing opportunities. The discipline of Web Analytics is

clarified in point C.3.

The accumulation of data has led the web to become “an ever-‐growing and omnipresent

library of information.” 14 Retrieval of information is still one of the main uses of the

web. Faced with an infinite amount of knowledge online; directors, portals and in

particular search engines, were developed in the attempt to facilitate the users’ search

process. Yet, as opposed to a Web 1.0 context, Web 2.0 comes with new dynamics in

14 Vossen, G., & Hagemann, S. (2007). Unleashing Web 2.0: from concepts to creativity. Burlington: Elsevier.

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search. Search engines have become sophisticated and take into account user-‐data to

personalize, localise and contextualise search results. These results include diverse

media other than just hyperlinks like photos, videos and maps, to engage with users

through a variety of channels.

Form a marketing perspective, search engines have revolutionised the way advertising

can be conducted online. In Web 1.0, adverts appeared as display ads or pop-‐ups. They

basically reflected the traditional means of advertising translated into the online

context. Such ads are perceived as intrusive and irritating by users since they interrupt

them in their activity. Secondly, these adverts suffer from “banner blindness” as the

clutter of them overwhelms users. Thirdly, their disruptive nature makes them

irrelevant and drives an uninterested traffic to the site, making them completely

inefficient.

The increasing use of search engines by consumers to find information has led

advertisers to find a new way to get quality traffic to their site and increase ad-‐

relevancy. Bill Gross was the first to come up with the idea of delivering adverts in

response to users’ online search queries. The hypothesis was that people searching for

a specific term were potentially highly interested in ads linked to the term. This new

approach constitutes the first steps of Search Engine Marketing, a marketing that

capitalises on search engines to differentiate traffic, narrowcast consumers according

to their interests and expose them to targeted and relevant adverts. This new form of

marketing is detailed in point C.1.

To sum up, Web 2.0 is a smart web because it forms a giant reservoir of knowledge

online. On the one hand, data is accumulated in giant valuable databases, the Internet

facilitating the tracking of user behaviour. On the other hand, means such as search

engines offer tailored access to an infinite pool of information for anyone, anytime,

anywhere. In both cases, the impact on marketing is substantial. Figure 1 captures the

links between the Smart Web’s characteristics and the Web 2.0 developments that rely

on them.

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Figure 1: Illustration of the elements that characterise the Smart Web and the web

developments that exploit them.

A.2.2 Technology – The Participative Web

Another series of technical evolutions have led the web to become a more participative

environment. While some of these developments result into increased web-‐

functionalities – further increasing online possibilities, bringing more applications

online and feeding the amount of online data –, others introduce measures that enable

users to manage the excess of data and provide tools to efficiently structure, order and

prioritise it. A third stream of mechanisms gives users the opportunity to generate

online content, no longer limiting web publishing to a restricted pool of experts.

a. INCREASED FUNCTIONALITY MECHANISMS

Web 2.0 developments have introduced a series of new mechanisms with enhanced

functionalities such as Rich Internet Applications, evolving software and mash-‐ups.

Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are applications with a high level of functionality and

interactivity that can be executed entirely within a browser without having to

download anything. For example, Google offers a panel of RIA such as Google Docs

(the equivalent of Microsoft Office) or Google Maps that are all executed directly

online. The emergence of RIA has led to a massive migration of desktop applications to

the web.

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Another defining characteristic of the Web 2.0 is the delivery of software as a

constantly evolving service (software evolution). Applications are no longer software

artefacts released as periodic packages but ongoing services that are improved on a

continuous basis. The Google Apps cited above are all services whose interfaces are in

constant development. They are considered to be in a perpetual beta-‐state. Users act as

real-‐time testers to validate, refine the functionalities, suggest additional features and

co-‐develop the software. Gmail for instance kept the term beta in its logo for four

years. Today it still relies on user feedback to update and improve its service. This

reflects well the Web 2.0 mindset of interactivity and collective intelligence: the more

users join the software the better it becomes.

A mash-‐up is the process of providing a new value-‐added service by bringing multiple

services or sources of content together. For instance, HousingMaps.com is a site that

takes classified real-‐estate ads from the site craiglist.org and displays them on the

Google Map. This perfectly illustrates the openness of Web 2.0: information is shared

and reused; applications are light-‐weighted to be easily hacked and remixed with

others and create added value. Web 2.0 market leaders are those who will successfully

harness and integrate the services provided by others into a new valuable application.

b. DATA-‐CLASSIFICATION MECHANISMS

As the quantity of information online increases exponentially, so has the need for tools

that enable users to sort and evaluate it. In this respect, various data-‐classification

methods have surfaced. For example, RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication)

enables users to subscribe to information feeds from diverse sources they qualify

relevant. Users control the flow of information by determining the time-‐intervals of

refreshments. From an owner’s perspective, enabling RSS feeds constitutes another

channel for users to access site content. With RSS, communication process shifts from

a search and discovery model to a notification model and overcomes the problem of

information overload.

A second classification method is that of Social Tagging, or Folksonomies. It is a form

of collaborative tagging that exploits the concept of collective intelligence to classify

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online content. Users tag the content according to what makes sense to them. The tags

are then combined and the opinion of the majority defines their appropriateness.

Flickr, a web-‐based community for sharing photos, fully exploits the potential of social

tagging. Community members can tag photos according to their perception of

appropriate keywords. Once a critical mass is reached, the site can correctly categorise

the photos based on their tags, easing their search.

c. USER-‐GENERATED CONTENT MECHANISMS

The third type of Web 2.0 technical mechanisms are those that enable users to

generate and edit content. In Web 1.0, users were limited to reading the content

whereas Web 2.0 is a participatory web in which people jointly create. A direct

consequence of this read/write web is the exponential increase of data – explaining the

emergence of the data-‐classifications mechanisms cited above. Open-‐source software,

wikis, blogs and reviews are all elements with an open architecture that enables users

generate content.

• A software is “open-‐source” when its code is disclosed, giving users the ability to

modify it and add new features or functionalities to it.

• Blogs are web pages designed in a way that enables the average user, with no

programming skills at all, to publish content online. Their user-‐friendly interface

makes it easy for anyone to become a content publisher. Moreover, the comment

entries enable readers to directly react to a post, initiating user interaction.

• As opposed to blogs, in which users can only contribute by adding comments,

wikis constitute web pages that can be edited by any user in real-‐time.

Modifications directly appear online.

• Last but not least, product or service reviews constitute another form of user-‐

generated content. Firms are encouraged to allow users to publish product or

service-‐related comments on their sites, not only because it is a very demanded

feature but also because it is beneficial from a company point of view. When

buying a product, consumers seek unbiased credible sources of information to

guide their decisions. The consumption experience shared by peer consumers is

thus a key driver in the purchase decision. Indeed, other consumers are perceived

as a trustworthy source of information as they aren’t incentivized to submit

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positive reviews. From the supplier’s perspective, reviews constitute a valuable

source of data and feedback. They enable companies to collect frank customer

opinion, in a cheap and unobtrusive way.

Together, these mechanisms set a web-‐architecture of participation that relies on

network effects. User contributions have become the lifeblood of online services. Blogs

need user-‐interactions to remain active and their value increases as topic-‐experts join

the discussion; Wikipedia crucially depends on user input; the Amazon

recommendation service benefits from user engagement, an eBay seller profile

becomes more significant as more people share their experience with the seller etc.

Harnessing user collective intelligence is a key success driver in the Web 2.0 era.

Figure 2 gives an overview of the Web 2.0 developments that exploit the characteristics

of the Participative Web.

Figure 2: Illustration of the elements that characterise the Participative Web and the web developments

that exploit them

A.2.3 Socialization – The Social Web

All these Web 2.0 evolutions have led users to dramatically change the way they

interact with the web. Most generations have gotten used to the web as a

communication medium and now even as a socialization medium. The web’s

interactivity has enabled people from opposite ends of the planet to socialize, without

necessarily having met. The Web 2.0 context has shifted online communication from a

vertical model (one-‐to-‐many) to a horizontal one (many-‐to-‐many), where users can

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discuss with their peers and freely diffuse messages to a large potential audience.

People can connect with friends and family and have spontaneous dialogues and two-‐

way conversations. The social lives of individuals and families are increasingly enriched

with social online applications. The emergence of blogs, online communities and social

networks have allowed users to openly express themselves and share their experiences

with their network on a real-‐time basis. Therefore, while the 20th century was one of

diffusion, the 21st century is one of conversation. 15

• Through blogs, users can share their personal opinion or experiences and invite

others to comment. Blogs constitute online diaries that can be kept by anyone and

read by everyone.

• Online communities are the perfect representation of web socialization. The web

has enabled communities to no longer be geographically restricted. Technologies

such as instant messaging, comments and posts have helped people build online

communities and maintain their linkage through the web. Mumsnet (for

connected mothers), TripAdvisor (for travellers), MyGarden (for professional and

amateur gardeners) and SK Gaming (for active gamers) are all examples of online

communities. An online community’s existence heavily depends on the

participation and interaction of its members. The more active the members – the

more they share, post and discuss topics – the more successful the community.

Therefore, users are encouraged, or even have the moral duty, to participate in

content creation.

• Social networks like Facebook and MySpace fully exploit the social dimension of

Web 2.0 by multiplying the links between people and communities. Their

popularity and acute presence in our lives are driving radical changes in

communication media and social behaviours. Social networks provide a platform

for individuals to connect with each other, develop and maintain relationships and

share information. They fulfil the users’ social needs while providing

entertainment and information. Again, users are the content creators. They create

online accounts and profiles from which they interact with others by sharing

messages, pictures, videos or articles and commenting on other users’ content.

15 Laurent, F. (2008). Marketing 2.0: L'Intelligence Collective. Paris: M21 Editions.

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According to a report of the UK Office of Communication16, adults spend 51 minutes

per day on social media and younger generations 1h24. The report clearly depicts a

growing trend in favour of online services instead of television, newspapers and radio.

This shift of habit has made social media increasingly relevant for companies as a

marketing vehicle. They constitute platforms with high length of exposure time that

can reach both mass and niche markets. Moreover, user profiles form powerful

segmentation tools that gather valuable user information such as demographics,

geographic location and user interests. As a result, Social Media is of increasing

importance in marketing strategies; Social Media Marketing is detailed in point C.2.

Figure 3 represents the elements of the Social Web that have fostered social media.

Figure 3: Illustration of the elements that characterise the Social Web and the web developments that

exploit them

A.3 In a word

Web 2.0 sets the context of a new web generation. It is a web of interconnected data

in which everything can be monitored resulting into the formation of an expanding

pool of knowledge that can be accessed by anyone, anytime. In parallel, Web 2.0 is a

web that favours user-‐participation and pushes for the share, mix and reuse of

information: online applications are light-‐weighted, designed for remixability, co-‐

16 Office of Communication. (2014). The Communications Market 2014.

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developed with users and perpetually improved. Collective intelligence is exploited

to handle, sort and evaluate information overload. This leads to a model centered on

network effects, where value is gained as more users join in. Finally, Web 2.0 is a

social web, one in which everyone is invited to join the conversation. Dialogues are

spontaneous and personal, online communication is horizontal and users find in

communities and networks a valid medium to fulfil their need for affiliation and

socialisation. Figures 4 and 5 gather the three dimensions of Web 2.0 and the

characteristics and web developments they encompass.

Figure 4: Illustration of the Web 2.0 characteristics in the three dimensions

Figure 5: Illustration of the Web 2.0 developments in the three dimensions

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B. The empowered consumer

“Consumers are prosumers – masters of their destiny, their choices, of the products that

they imagine, that they criticize and of which they make or break the success”17

Web 2.0 and IT developments have deeply affected and relaxed the power relations

between producers and consumers. The Internet has empowered consumers by giving

them cheap access to information, greater choice and the possibility to express

themselves. This has resulted into new consumer characteristics and behaviours.

B.1 Exacting Consumers

With the Internet and the globalisation of markets, consumers have access to an

unlimited variety of worldwide products and services available at a click of the mouse.

Moreover, the Internet provides a huge reservoir of accessible information and

knowledge for free. Customers can easily compare product features and prices; they

can share their own experience and read reviews from others. As they are better

informed, they become more demanding and have higher expectations. They expect

quality, customisable and competitively priced goods available at all times and from all

over the globe. From a company’s point of view, this results in an increased

competition and pressured prices. The smart aspect of Web 2.0 has caused users to

become exacting18 consumers and rebalanced the producer-‐consumer forces.

B.2 Resounding Consumers

Through the Internet, consumers have also discovered new rights and possibilities.

They can communicate more easily, they can express themselves publicly and they can

share their personal experiences, satisfactions and disillusions with mass audience. On

the web, their voice is amplified and they have the potential to influence their peers.

Brands have lost the comfortable and low-‐risk position of monopoly over

communication channels. With the introduction of many-‐to-‐many communication,

any user can become a brand evangelist or terrorist. This is accentuated by the fact

that consumers no longer trust brands and seek transparent and authentic messages.

17 Florès, L. (2008). Web 2.0: des études ayant du répondant! Décision Marketing , 50, 79-‐82. 18 With very high expectations or standards.

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They develop their own knowledge about a product or brand without using the

information the company has published. A random user comment can thus have more

impact than a costly marketing campaign.

The bicycle anti-‐theft brand Kryptonite painfully experienced this shift of information

control when a user managed to open one of its locks with a standard ball pen. The

individual made a quick explanatory video and shared it on YouTube. The video

rapidly went viral and seriously damaged Kryptonite’s brand reputation, not to

mention the millions of dollars spent in lock reimbursement. The computer

manufacturer Dell went through a similar case. In 2005, angry blogger Jeff Jarvis posted

a reproachful article about Dell’s lousy after sales service. Other frustrated Dell

customers echoed the article and the news rapidly expanded through the web and was

even published under the title “Dell Hell” in the New York Times. Dell learnt a lot from

this mishap and radically changed its Customer Relationship Management.

These examples illustrate how an average citizen can mobilise forces against

multinationals. As customers have more voice, companies are confronted with their

ethical, social and commercial responsibilities. They also lose influence as traditional

media are less effective in guiding purchase decisions. Users prefer basing their

decisions on inputs provided by parties beyond company control. In such a context,

companies have to switch from a vertical to a horizontal communication and become

an interlocutor among others that respects users and considers them as equals. Firms

should provide infrastructures that enable permanent dialogue with consumers and

encourage the share of experience. This entails accepting to delegate tasks to them,

losing control of communication, acknowledging viral critics and providing rapid

response. Refusing to do so will only result in consumers talking about the brand in

places beyond its control. The social aspect of Web 2.0 has thus led consumers to

becomes resounding.

B.3 Prosumers

The Web 2.0 being a participative one, the consumer 2.0 is to be considered as an

active participant instead of a passive recipient. The client becomes a pro-‐sumer: a

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content producer who directly contributes to product development. There is a shift in

locus of value creation from firm to consumer19. Companies can take advantage of user

participation by outsourcing activities to customers and extracting the value they

create. By doing so, risk of failure as well as implementation and development costs are

reduced. However, for the firm, this entails providing innovative approaches to

implicate and learn from customers, to exploit their creativity and to incite them to

share their opinion in order to co-‐create value. This cannot be done by simply creating

a company Facebook page. If the strategy is to be successful, companies have to adopt

a Web 2.0 philosophy and treat customers as partners instead of targets. This means

they have to learn to integrate concepts that arise from the outside and accept to share

their power with consumers by establishing a balanced dialogue. It is the participative

feature of Web 2.0 that inspires consumers to become prosumers. Figure 6 gives an

overview of how each facet of Web 2.0 and their characteristics influence consumer

behaviour.

Figure 6: Illustration of the impact of Web 2.0 on consumer behaviour

19 Berthon, P. R., Pitt, L. F., Plangger, K., & Shapiro, D. (2012). Markeitng meets Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy. (Elsevier, Éd.) Business Horizons , 55 (3), 261-‐271.

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B.4 Impact on marketing

These new consumer behaviours and expectations have forced marketing techniques

to evolve. Mass communication is no longer effective as consumers seek unique

products that perfectly fit their needs. Moreover, they have become much more

unpredictable, spontaneous and inconstant. Their decisions seem to be aleatory,

forcing firms to leave their comfort zone and engage with consumers in real-‐time if

they wish to fully understand them. Fortunately, the explosion of data storage capacity

and dynamic online communication techniques has made it possible for firms to

develop a more relational marketing. As a response to increasingly creative and

participative consumers, the concept of Knowledge Marketing is introduced: a

marketing in which the marketer learns from the consumer. In this context, firms are

encouraged to establish means for dialogue and socialization to extract consumer

knowledge and favour value co-‐creation. For such a strategy to be successful,

consumers have to be both empowered (to have the competence to create value) and

engaged (to be able to communicate value with the firm).

In brief, Knowledge Marketing consists in building a community of active consumers;

setting effective dialogue tools that favour engagement; creating appropriate incentives

to motivate customers to freely share their knowledge; and implementing tools that

capture explicit and tacit feedback. Web 2.0 technologies have considerably enhanced

the web architectures in this respect, setting a more flexible and reactive environment.

Web 2.0 should thus be seen as an opportunity for firms to interact with their

customers and integrate them in the value creation process. Clearly, from a company

point of view, there is a tension between maintaining control on communication and

encouraging consumer interaction. Yet, Web 2.0 is an era of openness, dialogue and

personal approach; therefore, the latter prevails over the former.

B.5 In a word

By increasingly integrating the web into their daily lives, consumers have changed

the way they communicate, they make decisions, the way they socialize, learn and

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entertain themselves. Companies have to adapt to empowered prosumers with high

expectations and new values. These new consumers have instant access to

information and face a variety of comparable choices. Through the web, they have

the capacity to express their voice, interact, engage and share experiences with their

peers or brands. Firms should not see Web 2.0 as a threat that causes loss of control

over communication but rather embrace it as an opportunity to respond to these

new consumer attitudes. Web 2.0 is an ideal context to carry out Knowledge

Marketing and learn from consumers. It enables marketers to engage in an ongoing,

dynamic and balanced dialogue with their clients, to implicate them in brand

development and value co-‐creation.

C. The new marketing approaches

Web 2.0 developments have opened many doors to consumers, yet they also introduce

a panel of new tools and media that are becoming essential for firms to integrate in

marketing strategies. This section describes the most salient: Search Engine Marketing,

Social Media Marketing and Web Analytics. Figure 7 illustrates how these three

marketing techniques adequately respond to the consumer evolutions depicted above.

Figure 7: Illustration of three marketing techniques that respond to the Web 2.0 context

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C.1 Search Engine Marketing

“The secret of search marketing is that it delivers on the core goal of advertising. […]

Search […] does what advertising is ultimately supposed to do: find out where is the

demand for a product or service and put a relevant message in front of that demand.”20

C.1.1 Definitions

Although the boundaries of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are blurred, most

definitions consider all the techniques that boost commercial and marketing benefits

originated from online research through search engines. This includes techniques that

optimise site position in organic search results (Search Engine Optimisation – SEO) as

well as in sponsored results (Search Engine Advertising – SEA). The equation SEM =

SEO + SEA is sometimes extended to SEM = SEO + SEA + SMO (Social Media

Optimisation) as a presence in Social Media gains weight in search rankings.21

C.1.2 The importance of Search Engines

Retrieval of information is one of the main uses of the web. Search engines occupy a

prominent position in this respect as 90% of users use them to find information and

more than half of the Internet traffic begins with a search engine22. This dominance is

even reflected in our common language: instead of saying “Search it on the Internet”,

we say “Google it”. To find information, whether it be on products, places, events,

brands or people, users’ first reflex is to consult a search engine. Direct use of a specific

URL has become most unlikely.

This makes it essential for companies to ensure optimal brand visibility in relevant

search results; a well-‐designed web site is not sufficient. Search engines have become

to form a critical link between companies and the browsing population. According to

Forrester Research, 70% of online transactions originate from a search query23. Search

result visibility is thus crucial to increase site traffic, directly affecting site profitability.

20 Karpinski, R. (2004, 04). Search Marketing what's next? Advertising Age , pp. 22-‐23. 21Bathelot, B. (2011, 12 1). Défintion Search Engine Marketing. Récupéré sur Définitions web-‐marketing : http://www.definitions-‐

webmarketing.com/Definition-‐Search-‐engine-‐marketing 22 Shih, B.-‐Y., Chen, C.-‐Y., & Chen, Z.-‐S. (2013). An Empirical Study of an Internet Marketing Strategy for Search Engine Optimization . Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries , 23 (6), pp. 528-‐540. 23 New Media Age. (2005, 05 26). Search Marketing: Local Search. New Media Age , p. 4.

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C.1.3 Search Engine Optimisation

Search results are ranked according to special algorithms that determine page

relevancy based on various criteria. A well-‐optimised site will appear in top organic

results of relevant search queries. This has a direct impact on traffic volume and

enhances a site’s visibility and exposure. However, as search engine popularity has

increased, search engine optimisation has become increasingly complicated and

optimisation techniques include manipulation of hundreds of website elements. These

techniques can be broken down into four major phases24: keyword selection, on-‐page

optimisation, off-‐page optimisation and continuous updating.

a. KEYWORD SELECTION

Choosing the appropriate keywords is a crucial step in SEO. Three criteria have to be

taken into account when considering keywords25: volume, competition and relevancy.

The volume reflects the search frequency of a term and thus the number of potential

site visits it can generate. However, popular keywords often have a high competition –

they are highly requested – thus it is more difficult to appear in the top results of their

queries. Finally, keyword relevancy is central. A site will never appear high in the

results for keywords that are not linked to its content. To balance these three divergent

criteria, it is advised to choose very specific keywords. Precise terms generate lower

volume but attract truly interested people, resulting into higher conversion rates26. For

example, by adding a geographical region or a specialisation in key phrases, traffic is

narrowed, competition is reduced and value of visitors increased.

b. ON-‐PAGE OPTIMISATION

Once the keywords are selected, it is important to develop page content in relation to

them. The keywords have to be placed throughout the page content, headings and

URLs in order for the page to be considered relevant by search engines and boost

visibility. Inefficient content management can have a drastic effect on page ranking.

For example, a supermarket chain failed to appear in the results for the term

“supermarket” simply because its site never mentioned the term. Content constitutes

24 Malaga, R. A. (2008, 12). Worst Practices in Search Engine Optimization. Communications of the ACM , 51 (12), pp. 147-‐150. 25 François, S. (2014, 04 12). Interview de Sébastien François, Partners and Operations Director of Universem. (M.-‐L. Cruyt, Intervieweur) 26 Percentage of visitors that convert into customers

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one of the three major elements that intervene when considering on-‐page

optimisation. The second is popularity and refers to the internal link structure of the

site. Pages buried within a site’s link hierarchy are isolated and therefore ignored by

search engines and left unreached by visitors. A good in-‐site structure is one that

references important pages through the same link on various relevant site areas. The

third element refers to all the technical aspects of SEO that aren’t visible for end-‐users

but that help search engines read and classify the site. For instance, an electronic site

map, invisible to users, helps the search engine understand the site structure and

identify its important pages.

c. OFF-‐PAGE OPTIMISATION

Search engine algorithms attach a lot of importance to the number of external links

that refer to a site. These back links are considered as an endorsement of the site by its

peers. Back link generation is thus key to gain in ranking position and can be boosted,

inter alia, through blog postings, presence on social network, video submissions or

press releases. Some sites, like education or governmental sites, have more weight than

others. Links from these sites are of high value.

d. CONTINUOUS UPDATING

SEO is a continuous process. Sites have to be regularly updated in order to be

considered active. For instance, sites who blog more than 20 times a month get 5 times

more traffic than those who blog less than 4 times a month27. Moreover, ranking rules

change on a weekly basis. Therefore firms have to stay alert, rapidly understand

changes, and adapt site structure accordingly. Each search engine has its own

algorithms and rules, yet these remain similar. This entails that a site well optimised

for a particular engine will also be for another and effort is spread over the various

engines. This is not the case for SEA, where a campaign is specific to an engine.

C.1.4 Search Engine Advertising

SEA consists in bidding on keywords for a site to appear in their search results. A

provider formulates an ad that is restricted to a few lines of text and then pays to list

27 Hubspot. (2011). Lead Generation Lessons From 4,000 Businesses . Consulté le 07 12, 2014, sur Hubspot : http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/file-‐13221878-‐pdf/docs/ebooks/lead-‐generation-‐lessons-‐from-‐4000-‐businesses.pdf

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the ad in search results. The choice of relevant keywords in ad description is crucial.

When a user enters a query, paid-‐results are placed in a reserved area next to the

organic results based on entered keywords. Thanks to this system, advertising is

directed to people who have already shown interest in ad-‐content, significantly

increasing ad-‐relevancy. By clicking on the ad, the user is redirected to the provider’s

website. For every click, the advertiser is charged a fee, which means that he only pays

if the ad has actually generated traffic. Nevertheless, from an advertiser’s point of view,

what matters is conversion, not traffic. An SEA campaign is costly and useless if site is

not optimised for conversion.

No matter how many advertisers sign up to publish an ad, the number of paid-‐results

on result page is limited. This has led search engines to develop contextual advertising,

a system that places ads on web pages other than those of search results. The content

of the page is read by a software that then attributes it a relevant ad. Users are likely to

be interested in the ad as it is shown in a suited context. This new channel enables

search engines to increase their revenues, publishers to monetise the empty spaces of

their sites and advertisers to expand their reach.

SEA comes with a series of limitations. First of all, as bidding becomes a common

practice, bid prices have gone through the roof, making it impossible for limited

budgets to follow. The pay per click model has also led to misuses as pirates artificially

increase the number of clicks by generating automatic fraudulent clicks. Firms are also

vulnerable to becoming dependent of SEA as a major source of generating traffic,

putting themselves in a delicate hostage situation. Finally, users show scepticism

towards paid results and are five times more inclined to trust organic ones.

Yet, SEA is a valuable tool that offers advertisers a faster way to achieve a higher level

of presence on search engines. Compared to SEO, it is a far more reactive alternative

that can generate peaks of traffic for specific events or product launching. However, it

is a cost and not an investment. SEA campaigns are ephemeral; they leave no trace

behind once they are over. SEO has the advantage of reaping long-‐term results. Once

the substantial work of site structuring is done, the website is likely to keep a high

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ranking as long as it is regularly updated. Together, SEA and SEO form complementary

methods that maximise a site’s visibility in search results. To illustrate, if a firm only

engages in SEO, it leaves its competitors the opportunity to appear in the paid-‐results

of sensitive keywords and vice-‐versa. This induces the risk of loosing valuable traffic

for the competition.

C.1.5 The limits of Search Engine Marketing

SEM popularity has led to many abuses and cheat practices. Cases of brand

infringement arose as companies used competitor’s names as keywords to attract

potential customers. Other abuses consist of Google Bombing and Black-‐hat

techniques, which are detailed in Appendix 1. Search Engine Marketing campaigns are

also directly affected by bots (“software programs that imitate the behaviour of

humans28”). Bot traffic accounts for 61.5%29 of all website traffic, directly affecting a

site’s metrics, diluting ad-‐exposure and wasting the ad budget spent.

Search engines constantly increase their efforts to tackle these abuses. They are

becoming more and more intelligent and sophisticated, making it tougher to lure

them. As the reliability (from a user perspective) of search results is improved, sites are

incited to be optimally conceived for end-‐users in order to appear in top results. As a

consequence, search engine listings have come to form a non-‐intrusive pull marketing

technique30 that is more effective than traditional push marketing31 means. 76% of

marketing executives rate SEM as more effective than banner advertising32. Indeed, ad-‐

relevancy, cost-‐effectiveness and positive consumer perception are increased.

C.2 Social Media Marketing

“Social Media is, at its most basic sense, a shift in how people discover, read, and share

news and information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology,

transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many).”33

28 The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. 29 Incapsula. (2013, 12 09). Report: Bot traffic is up to 61.5% of all website traffic. Consulté le 07 15, 2014, sur Incapsula, An Imperva Company: http://www.incapsula.com/blog/bot-‐traffic-‐report-‐2013.html 30 Marketing approach designed to draw customers to a brand or product. The branded message is solicited by the consumer. 31 Marketing approach that consists in showing brand or product to the prospect without soliciting him. 32 Karpinski, R. (2004, 04). Search Marketing what's next? Advertising Age , pp. 22-‐23. 33 Yost, L. (2010). You've got Tweets. Parks & Recreation , 45 (2), 48.

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The term Social Media encompasses the online technologies that allow people to

connect in a new variety of ways. Besides offering the opportunity for people around

the world to connect in real-‐time, Social Media is also a new medium for marketing. It

offers a new approach that encourages interaction between consumers and brands, a

boon when facing highly connected consumers avid for reciprocal conversations.

Brands can build personas through Social Media to appear more human, authentic and

transparent. This helps build trust and credibility and sets a better framework for

knowledge sharing. Moreover, Social Media is a powerful medium for spreading word-‐

of-‐mouth; content is shared to users’ network with remarkable speed and ease. In Web

2.0, reputations are built through numerous conversations that take place on the web,

whether the company is part of it or not. Consumers have a voice and can have a true

impact on company reputation, in which case responding appropriately and rapidly is

key to avoid losing potential customers. Firms should capitalise on Social Media as a

means to join the conversation and monitor the public opinion. Social Media should

be seen as a customer relationship management tool as well as a medium to increase

brand exposure and customer engagement.

There are four major channels to engage in Social Media Marketing: Communities,

Blogs, Social Networks and Microblogs. Each medium is used differently and for

different purposes. Therefore, just as a company decides whether to use billboards,

television or radio for a marketing campaign, so will it have to choose the appropriate

Social Media mix. Thorough understanding of each medium – who uses them, in what

context and for what purpose – is essential to effectively carry out Social Media

Marketing. The choice depends on firm’s sector, its positioning, strategy and goals.

C.2.1 Brand Communities : a crowdsourcing vehicle

Communities gather users that share a common interest. Sometimes this common

interest is a particular brand. Brand communities are “social entities that reflect the

situated embeddedness of brands in the day-‐to-‐day life of consumers”34. Their members

34 Muniz, A. M., & O'Guinn, T. C. (2001). Brand Community. Journal of Consumer Research , 27 (4), 412-‐432.

35

have similar consumption practices and understand each other’s feelings towards the

brand. They share a social bond around the brand and, most importantly, they feel a

connection between one another. Brands with strong images and publicly consumed

products are the most likely to create such communities35.

Brand communities gather actively engaged customers that act as brand evangelists.

They represent a powerful means to develop the brand-‐consumer relationship and

involve members in the co-‐creation process by crowdsourcing their ideas. For example,

Dell implemented the crowdsourcing platform IdeaStorm through which customers

share thousands of ideas. As they use the products daily, they know best what their

needs are and what improvements are to be made. Their ideas are valuable feedback of

what truly matters to clients while being a rich pool of inspiration for product

designers. Brand communities can also be used to crowd-‐source solutions and solve

challenges. Apple has an Apple Support Community where members share tips and

solutions with fellow Apple users for free. Customers rapidly find answers to their

questions and companies save millions on support call centres. As clients freely express

themselves through the community, valuable information is shared and firms have to

make sure this knowledge is captured and taken into account.

C.2.2 Blogs: an authentic communication vehicle

Blogs can be used in numerous ways for marketing purposes. A company can join the

conversations on existing blogs by answering and commenting company-‐related posts.

In this case it is essential to leave business-‐talk behind and concentrate on getting

brand personality and opinion across. Indeed, blogging is a person-‐to-‐person activity;

dialogue is direct and transparent. Although anyone is invited to comment his opinion

freely, each blog has its own code of ethics that has to be respected in order to

guarantee authenticity and content relevancy. For this reason it is advised to follow the

blog before joining in so as to understand its purpose, the way people communicate on

it, the typical member profile, the appropriate tone to use, who are the leaders and

what are the implicit rules. In some cases, conversations are better off without any

brand participation and company intervention is seen as an attack.

35 Muniz, A. M., & O'Guinn, T. C. (2001). Brand Community. Journal of Consumer Research , 27 (4), 412-‐432.

36

Firms can also create their own blogs. A company blog must always appear human and

readers have to sense that it is held by a real person and not an organisation. For

instance, CEOs can create corporate blogs and share their daily feelings, thoughts and

suggestions. This gives a very human and tangible aspect to the firm that consumers

appreciate. When Vichy set up the fake blog “My Skin Blog” held by a so-‐called Claire,

readers were quick to sense that postings weren’t sincere and rapidly discovered that

Claire was a pure marketing invention. This triggered a violent bad buzz for the brand.

Vichy was quick to react and transparently addressed the most active users, asking

them to become the Vichy bloggers. By remaining honest, the brand managed to

transform the hostile bloggers into powerful spokeswomen. The case puts forward the

desire of users to dialogue with real people.

Finally, blog content should be relevant for target audience. It should by no means

consist in pushy marketing messages. Authenticity and expertise is appreciated. For

example, a company can share free advice to readers; this is valuable to them while

demonstrating company know-‐how. Blogs should combine a media mix of images,

videos and related links and be regularly updated. It is equally important to invite

customers to comment and interact and to respond to their engagement. Last but not

least, blog postings should be easily sharable with relevant tags to boost visibility,

search engine reference and increase traffic.

C.2.3 Social Networks: an engagement vehicle

As opposed to blogs where conversations are asymmetric, Social Networks enable

much more human and personal conversations. Social Networks have reconciled the

web identity with the real identity as people use profiles instead of pseudonyms.

Engaging in Social Network is very time-‐consuming; therefore, a firm has to carefully

choose which networks are the most relevant by identifying where its audience is.

There are many different types of social networks, each one having a specific focus or

utility that directly influences its target audience. Social networks, such as Facebook,

MySpace or LinkedIn, support relationship building and maintenance. Facebook is

based on personal accounts that are meant to connect friends and family, whereas

37

LinkedIn has a more professional approach and aims to connect professionals in

specific fields or businesses. Other networks have a niche approach as they focus on a

specific hobby or personal interest. For instance, Dogster is a social network that is

focused on committed dog owners.

Most firms choose to be present on the most popular networks because they have a

high “stickiness” – members visit them frequently and stay on them for a long time –

and the advantage of gathering a giant number of users. Indeed, social networks rely

on network effects: they become interesting only once a critical mass of users is

obtained. Therefore companies will have higher returns by capitalising on existing

networks that have already reached this mass. Yet reach is not the most important

factor when considering social networks. What counts is engagement, and this often

depends on relevancy. For example, a firm selling dog products will reap better results

on Dogster where reach is smaller but relevancy is high.

Once a platform is chosen, companies have to build a profile that is consistent with the

platform and the brand’s positioning. It is essential to integrate the network without

being perceived as intrusive. A presence on several platforms implies building several

profiles, each one adapted to the site while remaining consistent with brand image.

Company profiles give the brand a persona that makes it easier to engage and interact

with customers. Facebook, for instance, enables firms to build graphically personalised

pages – the branded equivalent of a user profile – that users can become “fan” of. Such

a page demands a lot of time investment as fans do not come in naturally. Companies

have to design a credible and likable brand personality as well as provide valuable

content to give consumers a reason to become fan.

Bringing in fans is a necessary condition to assure survival, yet it is not a sufficient one.

Engagement is vital; fans need to be nourished regularly with appetising content. The

brand has to incite them to dialogue, share and connect in order to build a

community. A page with no valuable interaction is doomed to be left unread. This

means that brands have to make sure that they are ready to converse with clients

before integrating social networks.

38

Finally, social networks are also a good lever for virality. Every user interaction has the

potential of becoming viral. Social networks favour both active and passive virality36.

Active virality – actions done by the user himself – is encouraged through easy and

visible interaction buttons such as “Like”, “Share”, “Add to favourites” or “Recommend

to a friend”. Passive virality is done automatically. For instance, when a user becomes

fan of a page, the information automatically appears in the newsfeed of his network.

The feed “[User Name] is now fan of [Company Name]” gives a social motivation for

others to become a fan too.

C.2.4 Microblogs: a mood-‐monitoring vehicle

A Microblog is a social medium through which users post short frequent newsfeeds.

Microblogs are built around the status, as opposed to social networks that are built

around the profile. The most prominent microblog known today is Twitter. Users

share their thoughts in real-‐time in the form of Tweets. Tweets are limited to 140

characters. Although this may be perceived as a constraint, it is what makes Twitter so

powerful. Tweets are spontaneous and direct, resulting into rapid and real-‐time

exchanges. Interactions on microblogs are much more dynamic than blog discussions,

they are also more to-‐the-‐point and less personal than social network exchanges. This

makes them a complementary medium that completes the Social Media panel.

Tweets are public by default. This means that, knowing that Twitter has more than 645

million active users since January 201437, each tweet has the potential to reach 645

million people. Of course the message has a greater chance to be seen by followers

(people that follow a Twitter profile). Visibility is further enhanced through retweets

(users retweet the tweet on their own profile, exposing the tweet to their followers and

creating a snowball effect) or by highlighting keywords with the symbols @ (profile

reference) and # (keyword tagging for better reference in searches).

36 Fraysse, E. (2011). Facebook, Twitter, et le web social: les nouvelles opportunités de business. Bluffy: Editions Kawa. 37 Statistic Brain. (2014, 01 01). Twitter Statistics. Consulté le 06 02, 2014, sur Statistic Brain: http://www.statisticbrain.com/twitter-‐statistics/

39

Initially conceived as a communication tool, Twitter has rapidly become a dominant

information network, enabling real-‐time discovery and consumption of information. It

is particularly adapted for opinion leaders and trendsetters to express themselves and

thus has become the barometer of public mood. It is a great means to identify market

trends and connect with the most influent users (cf. Figure 8). Twitter is “the web’s

pulse”38 and hence an essential medium to follow.

Figure 8: Twitter users tend to be early adopters39

Twitter is also an amazingly fast-‐moving Customer Relationship Management tool. A

firm can monitor client opinion and address issues instantly. It can cover live events in

real-‐time, immerging followers into it and enhancing their experience. It is equally a

great crisis management instrument. For example, during the Christmas holidays in

2009, the air traffic was heavily disturbed due to snow. EasyJet frequently updated

travellers through Twitter by communicating alternative schedules and presenting

apologies. AirFrance’s communication was completely different, followers would read

tweets such as “Enjoy your holiday” and “Merry Christmas” as if nothing was amiss.

Customer perception was badly tarnished.

When opening a corporate Twitter account, a firm has to make sure it can allocate the

adequate resources to it. Twitter communication is only effective if done very

frequently. Tweets are rapidly buried in the flow of information, making it essential to 38 Fraysse, E. (2011). Facebook, Twitter, et le web social: les nouvelles opportunités de business. Bluffy: Editions Kawa. 39 Webster, T. (2010). Twitter Usage In America 2010. Edison Research.

11%

16%

29%

25%

19%

25%

24%

27%

12%

10%

USUALLY LAST TO KNOW TO TRY/BUY NEW PRODUCTS

BUY/TRY NEW PRODUCTS AFTER OTHERS, NOT LAST

BUY/TRY NEW PRODUCTS SAME AS OTHERS

BUY/TRY NEW PRODUCTS BEFORE OTHERS, NOT FIRST

AMONG THE 1ST TO BUY/TRY NEW PRODUCTS

TOTAL POPULATION 12+

MONTHLY TWITTER USERS 12+

��

SOURCE: EDISON RESEARCH, 2010

40

tweet on a daily nay hourly basis. However, high frequency should not entail low

quality. It is necessary to keep-‐up interest to animate the community and build

reputation. This includes regular updates, engaging with people, retweeting, reacting

to user tweets or brand mentions, sending private messages to important new

followers and responding to customer issues in a timely manner.

C.2.5 Social Media : an Inbound Marketing vehicle

Marketing through Social Media is powerful due to its possibility to hyper-‐segment

and accurately target a specific audience. Communities and blogs are often focused on

a particular theme, microblogs make it easy to identify trendsetters and social

networks are built on profiles that constitute easy access to valuable prospect

information such as geographic location, age, sex and interests (assuming that profile

information is accurate). This makes Social Media an ideal means to target groups and

refine communication to make it the least intrusive possible. In a word, Social Media

Marketing is about reaching a specific user profile without disrupting him.

Social Media Marketing is thus a pull-‐marketing: one that attracts consumers’

attention rather than steals it. The user chooses the information he is exposed to. It is a

form of Inbound Marketing: a marketing that focuses on creating quality content

aligned with consumer interests so that he spontaneously engages with the firm. By

providing users with relevant quality content, firms educate and inform users while

gaining their trust.

C.3 Web Analytics

“Web Analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data

for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage.40"

The Internet has become a prominent marketing channel that has the huge advantage

of being measurable. This has introduced a new golden rule in marketing: decisions are

only taken on measured elements; instincts and good sense are no longer reliable. The

new discipline of Web Analytics is a direct consequence of the possibility to monitor

40 Web analytics association. (2008). Web Analytics Definitions. Wakefield: Web Analyics Association.

41

and gather data at a very low cost. Its objective is to retrieve relevant information from

the collected data in order to improve online performance and fine-‐tune

communication.

Every online interaction is recorded and feeds the astronomical amount of data that

accumulates. The data is then interpreted into relevant statistics such as number,

length and frequency of visits, number of sales, conversion ratio, source of traffic etc.

These statistics help understand the successful and less successful elements of a

website or online campaign, making it possible to adjust accordingly. For instance, by

comparing the conversion rates of different keywords, a SEA marketer can identify

which keywords are the most profitable to bid on. One can also identify which source

of traffic is the most relevant – whether from search engines, social networks or a

particular site – so as to better concentrate marketing efforts.

Web Analytics is equally helpful for site optimization. With the appropriate indicators,

a marketer can identify which site areas are the most popular, which pages are ignored,

which call-‐to-‐action buttons work best or at which step of the registration or buying

process does the user drop-‐out. All this is crucial information hidden in the data that,

once retrieved and treated, can leverage impressive results.

Finally, the potential of linking a user’s behaviour with his profile further increases the

opportunities to calibrate communication and customize experience. This can be done

by inviting users to register with their social media account. It enables firms to gather

a huge amount of precious user information (name, age, sex, living area, professional

activity, interests) while simplifying the registration process from a user perspective.

C.4 In a word

Web 2.0 has deeply reshaped marketing approaches. Search Engine Marketing

techniques capitalise on the dominance of search engines as a means of finding

information. By exploiting the potential of keywords, marketers manage to better

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target their message towards an interested audience. Social Media Marketing has

helped companies build personalities and become more human in their

communication. Direct conversations with consumers can be established, favouring

a context of interaction and sharing of knowledge. Again, the approach is different

from that of traditional marketing as firms learn to give up intrusive methods and

adopt a strategy of quality content that naturally attracts the right customers.

Finally, Web Analytics constitute powerful tools that enable firms to constantly

monitor and improve their communication. This results into a hyper-‐targeted

approach, adapted to user behaviour and profile, that engages with consumers

without disrupting them in their natural environment and provides them with

exactly what they value.

D. The new 2.0 competences

“[Web 2.0] applications are only tools. One then has to create animation and interaction

to make them live. […] human intervention is ultimately needed.”41

The previous point identifies a series of Web 2.0 marketing approaches that open up

many opportunities in terms of marketing strategy. These approaches have reshaped

communication in such a way that one cannot simply copy-‐paste the traditional

marketing techniques to them. To be carried out efficiently, they require specific

expertise. Web 2.0 thus introduces new professions that specialise in the day-‐to-‐day

operation and management of these Web 2.0 applications. Four examples are briefly

depicted below.

D.1 Search Engine Marketing Specialist

A few years ago, anyone could engage effectively in Search Engine Marketing by

reading a few guidebooks. Today, however, the discipline has become much more

sophisticated. In terms of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), keywords have to be

carefully analysed and site has to be meticulously structured for a page to appear in

41 Fraysse, E. (2011). Facebook, Twitter, et le web social: les nouvelles opportunités de business. Bluffy: Editions Kawa.

43

top organic search results. For instance, websites with 500-‐1000 pages get six times

more traffic than those with 50-‐100 pages42. Search rankings also depend on numerous

and complex factors that are constantly reviewed. For example, Google recently gave

additional weight to multimedia results like videos, images and maps. As a

consequence, sites had to reference their images, post videos on YouTube, be present

on Google Maps and include a Google Street View to enhance their Google visibility.

SEO specialists are required to relentlessly follow these evolutions, grasp how they

impact rank position and adapt site structure accordingly.

As opposed to SEO, Search Engine Advertising (SEA) implies recurrent costs.

Therefore SEA campaigns have to be carefully thought through and monitored to

ensure decent return. If not done properly, a SEA campaign can reveal to be very costly

for little return. The task should be assigned to an expert to avoid costly mistakes.

D.2 Content Strategist The content strategist, as its name suggests, is responsible for defining the content

strategy of a firm. This involves identifying the appropriate media to reach target

audience, setting the Social Media Marketing objectives, establishing a content plan

(guidelines to maintain consistency in communication while adapting content to each

medium) and measuring return based on defined KPIs. Each of these activities are

detailed in Appendix 2.

D.3 Community Manager

The community manager is responsible for building and managing the company’s

community. The position is a time-‐consuming one that requires expertise. Community

managers have to produce adequate content, engage with users, relentlessly scan the

Internet for new content or brand mentions, participate in numerous overlapping

conversations and react to comments and feedback. Community management is a

human-‐to-‐human activity, therefore, human resources are indispensable and

interactions cannot be automatized since the objective is to create authentic and long-‐

42 Hubspot. (2011). Lead Generation Lessons From 4,000 Businesses . Consulté le 07 12, 2014, sur Hubspot : http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/file-‐13221878-‐pdf/docs/ebooks/lead-‐generation-‐lessons-‐from-‐4000-‐businesses.pdf

44

term relationships with users. Further detail on a community manager’s day-‐to-‐day

activities and profile can be found in Appendix 2.

D.4 Web-‐editor in chief

Writing for the web is a challenging task. On the one hand, user attention is difficult to

catch. Users tend to read in diagonal therefore, to draw their attention, content has to

be concise, impactful and multimedia enriched (photos, videos, hyperlinks etc.). On

the other hand, web-‐editing follows very specific good practices that are far from

similar to traditional editing. Phrases should be short, lively and direct. They should

invite users to interact (Right? or You know what I mean or Don’t you think?). Such a

style is difficult to master therefore companies should refer to web-‐editing specialists

before publishing articles online.

D.5 In a word

Web 2.0 has introduced several new professions that are decisive to capitalise on the

opportunities offered by Web 2.0 applications. This section has described a few of

them. The SEM specialist masters the optimisation techniques that ensure top rank

position and optimal advertising campaigns on search engines; guaranteeing high

visibility at a controlled budget. The content strategist defines the online

communication guidelines, identifies the most effective channels, and monitors

results for continuous improvement. The community manager carries out the

guidelines set by the content strategist. He is responsible for building and animating

an engaged community with whom he is in constant dialogue. Finally, the web-‐

editor is in charge of writing the articles that are to be published on the company

website or blog. He is familiar with the peculiar style and format that is to be used

online.

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PART II: Web 2.0 as a marketing opportunity for startups

Part one introduced three major marketing approaches enabled by the Web 2.0

context: Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Web Analytics. The

second part of this work applies these findings on the startup environment. The

objective is to identify how these new marketing techniques help startups overcome

the marketing challenges they are confronted with. The section starts by defining the

word startup and then describes how Web 2.0 circumstances have reshaped the

startup environment. It then continues by dividing the the startup lifecycle into four

stages of development. For each phase, major marketing challenges are identified

along with indications as to how Web 2.0 can help startups surmount these barriers.

A. “Startup”: a term of many interpretations

“The word startup has taken on a new meaning.”43

A.1 Defining startup as a scalable business

The definition of the term startup is quite a controversial one. While most dictionaries

define a startup as “a small business that has just been started” 44, entrepreneurial gurus

emphasize on scalability and rapid growth as key startup characteristics. This suggests

that not all starting businesses are startups. Paul Graham, influential venture capitalist

and essayist, underlines that “it is this focus on growth unconstrained by geography

which differentiates startups from small businesses”45. Steve Blank, Silicon Valley serial-‐

entrepreneur, author and reference in entrepreneurship, defines a startup as “an

organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model” 46 .

Therefore, according to these authors, being in an early-‐stage of development is not

sufficient for a business to be named a startup. Startups think big, they focus on rapid

43 Fry, S. (2011, 03 23). Startup vs. Company. Consulté le 04 17, 2014, sur SpencerFry: http://spencerfry.com/startup-‐vs-‐company 44 Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus. (s.d.). English Definition of "start-‐up". Consulté le 04 17, 2014, sur Canbridge Dictionaries Online: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/start-‐up 45 Graham, P. (2012, 09). Startup = Growth. Consulté le 04 17, 2014, sur Paul Graham: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html 46 Blank, S. (2010, 01 25). What's a Startup? First Principles. Consulté le 04 17, 2014, sur Steve Blank: http://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/whats-‐a-‐startup-‐first-‐principles/

46

growth and seek to scale and repeat their business across boundaries. This is what

differentiates a startup from a recently opened local bakery.

A.2 A startup is not always a tech-‐business

The arrival of the Internet has played a crucial role in helping startups achieve

scalability and high growth rates. Many startups’ activities rely heavily on the Internet

and some have even developed themselves exclusively online. This reliance of startups

on the web has led to inaccuracies in the interpretation of the term startup itself. The

word is sometimes used to refer to companies whose activities are exclusively web-‐

dependent. Such an interpretation would mean that giant firms like Google or

Facebook could be characterised as startups. Yet, when a firm has grown so big and is

generating millions of dollars, it should be acknowledged that it has moved out of its

startup phase. Furthermore, the term “startup” is often confused with that of

“technology startup”. A technology startup is one for which technology is the core of

operations. Although nearly all startups are technology-‐enabled, only few of them are

actual technology startups, which create technology, as opposed to just using it. In

conclusion, a startup does not, by definition, have to be tech-‐oriented.

A.3 The temporary aspect of a startup

It is important to bear in mind that the status of “startup” is a temporary one. The

objective of a startup is to develop into a sustainable business by following a scalable

business model. Remaining a startup implies failure. The moment when a startup is no

longer one is difficult to define and depends on various factors. The occurrence of

certain events helps indicate a “graduation from startupdom”. For example, the

acquisition of a startup by a larger company, the sale of shares by a founder and a

steady growth in revenues, number of employees or board members are all indicators

that the startup is moving out of its development stage. Profitability is another hint

that a startup is shifting away from startuphood. Such events generally occur after

being in business for about three years47.

47 Robehmed, N. (2013, 12 16). What is a Startup? Consulté le 04 17, 2014, sur Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2013/12/16/what-‐is-‐a-‐startup/

47

A.4 In a word

To conclude, the interpretation of the term startup that will be retained in this work

is that of an organisation in its early phase of development that has a potential for

growth and is based on a repeatable and scalable business model. The term startup

includes tech-‐based startups but does not only limit itself to web-‐based activity

businesses. However, the typical aspects of scalability and growth potential exclude

businesses that are destined to remain local such as bakeries or greengrocers. Finally,

the startup status is a temporary one as a startup is supposed to grow into a

sustainable business.

B. The Lean startup: a Web 2.0 concept

“Most startups fail because they didn’t develop their market product, not because they

didn’t develop their product.”48

The concept of lean startup was conceived by Eric Ries and is defined as “a startup

which combines fast, iterative development methodologies with customer development

principles”49. As opposed to the traditional method of writing a business plan from an

isolated desk, raising funds and developing a product with no customer input, the lean

methodology encourages entrepreneurs to involve customers at the very beginning of

the product development process. This fully complies with the Web 2.0 concepts of

harnessing collective intelligence and implicating consumers as prosumers. Moreover,

in his book The Lean Startup50, Ries writes that the notion of lean startup was

expedited by various Web 2.0 developments. On the one hand, the emergence of open-‐

source and free software has enabled startups to launch reliable online applications

without incurring substantial costs or requiring particular software skills. On the other

hand, Web 2.0 provides a dynamic environment for user interaction (the Social Web),

customer participation (the Participative Web) and feedback gathering (the Smart

48 Blank, S. (2005). The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Lulu Enterprises Incorporated. 49 Cooper, B., & Vlaskovits, P. (2010). The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development. CustDev. 50 Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup. New York: Crown Business.

48

Web) which are all essential requisites for the lean startup methodology. Web 2.0

technology improvements thus play a central role in shaping today’s entrepreneurial

landscape.

The lean method is based on three key principles:

1) Summarising untested hypotheses into the Business Model Canvas framework,

2) Testing hypotheses by following the Customer Development Process

3) Developing product through Minimum Viable Products.

Together, these principles allow a startup to iterate rapidly and reach an impressive

number of learning cycles while controlling its budget.

B.1 Summarising untested hypotheses

A startup begins with a vision of a new product or service; yet, this vision is based on

educated guesses. The founder makes assumptions on how his solution solves a

problem, how it will reach customers and why many people will want to buy it. Each of

these hypotheses have to be stated in the Business Model Canvas framework (cf.

Appendix 3).

B.2 The Customer Development Process

Once stated, the hypotheses have to be tested. To do so, Steve Blank coined the

Customer Development Process51: a customer-‐centric model that brings customers and

their needs head first into product development. The model encourages entrepreneurs

to confront their project directly with customers as early as possible. By going out into

the field, entrepreneurs learn what customers really want and can adapt their offering

before being committed to a specific path.

Before launching a product, startups have to figure out which market they will address.

They have to prove the market exists and that there is a sufficient amount of customers

ready to pay money for the solution provided so as to turn the startup into a

sustainable business. This is done through four recursive phases: Customer Discovery,

51 Blank, S. (2005). The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Lulu Enterprises Incorporated.

49

Customer Validation, Company Creation and Company Building. The phases are

recurrent as the process is an unpredictable one. An entrepreneur will have to try

several times before getting it right; going backwards is part of the learning and

discovery process. The process follows one overarching goal: proving that there is a

profitable and scalable business for the company.

B.2.1 Customer Discovery

The first stage focuses on understanding customer problems and needs. The stated

hypotheses are confronted with real customers in order to identify the group of users

for which startup offering is a valuable solution. The goal is to prove that the

entrepreneur’s initial vision addresses a real customer pain and that customers are

ready to pay for a solution. Testing and validating the hypotheses with real potential

customers grants a gradual process of concept optimisation that increases the

Problem-‐Solution fit52. Moreover, by confronting themselves with customers, founders

learn what problems are of higher value and thus can better define their unique value

proposition. If a hypothesis is not validated, the founder is encouraged to pivot

towards a more optimal solution.

B.2.2 Customer Validation

Once the solution-‐concept is clearly defined, the startup initiates Customer Validation.

This stage consists in refining startup offering and developing a sales model that can

be replicated. It is the quest for Product-‐Market fit53. The startup builds a first base of

early customers and first sales validate all the polite feedback previously received. At

this point, the entrepreneur has to verify that the market is large enough to build a

viable business. This implies three criteria:

1) there is a sufficient set of customers willing to pay for the solution,

2) the cost of customer acquisition is lower than the Customer Lifetime Value54,

3) the market is large enough to support the business.

52 The advanced solution effectively solves a valuable customer problem. 53 The product delivers a clear value proposition for a clearly defined market and for which there is a demonstrated sufficient demand. 54 Total profit (or loss) estimated to result from an ongoing business relationship with a customer over the life of relationship. (Business Dictionary, 2014)

50

Only once the startup has found a group of repeatable customers with a repeatable

sales process can it move on to the next phases. If not however, the model returns to

the Customer Discovery stage and the founder has to redefine his solution while

making sure that customers are willing to pay for it.

B.2.3 Company Creation

At this stage, the product is refined enough to sell to a large pool of less enthusiastic

customers. The startup has to create broad user-‐demand and drive it into its sales

channels. This implies scaling the business and bolstering marketing efforts while

following a repeatable sales roadmap. Heavy marketing investments are required.

B.2.4 Company Building

In the last phase of the Customer Development Process, the startup is ready to move

out of startupdom and enters a phase of transformation. The organization moves from

one designed to learn and discover (informal) to one that executes a repeatable model

(formal) and is organised in support departments (Sales, Marketing, Business

Development etc.).

Figure 9: The Customer Development Process55

55 Cooper, B., & Vlaskovits, P. (2010). The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development. CustDev.

51

B.3 Product development with MVPs

Customer development goes hand in hand with product development. While the

former focuses on grasping what customers need, the latter provides the solution. The

lean method encourages entrepreneurs to build products in short, repeated cycles and

confront them directly with customers for feedback. Such products are called

Minimum Viable Products (MVP) – they only present the product’s critical features. A

startup builds a MVP, confronts it with customers, gathers their feedback and starts

over with a revised MVP. Adjustments can be small (iterations that improve the

product and ensure Product-‐Market fit) or substantial (pivots that improve the

concept and ensure Problem-‐Solution fit). The cycle is iterated repeatedly,

incrementally incorporating customer input. This method accelerates the learning

cycle and ensures that when the product is ready to be distributed widely (i.e. Product-‐

Market fit is completed) it already has an established customer base.

B.4 In a word

To conclude, the lean approach is one that directly involves customers in the process

of concept elaboration and product development. By testing hypotheses with them

and confronting them with MVPs, a startup can accomplish Product-‐Market fit faster

and at a controlled budget. As Steve Blank puts it, the lean approach “favors

experimentation over elaborate planning, customer feedback over intuition and

iterative design over traditional ‘big design up front’ development”56. These three

points can be put in parallel with three major Web 2.0 characteristics:

-‐ users are invited to test and co-‐develop,

-‐ the service is improved as more consumers join,

-‐ services are in a perpetual beta state, subject to continuous improvements.

56 Blank, S. (2013, 05). Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything. Harvard Business Review , 3-‐9.

52

C. The startup lifecycle: a path strewn with marketing challenges

“For most companies, the hard part—the business part—is the process of connecting

product or service with customers given a limited set of resources.”57

In his book, STARTUP: an insider’s guide to launching and running a business58, Kevin

Ready warns entrepreneurs about the importance of marketing. He asserts that

building a product or a value proposition is often the “easy part”. The challenge is to

connect with potential customers, communicate value proposition and convince a

sufficient amount of them to pay for it. Marketing plays a central role in this respect as

it builds customer attention and brand awareness. However, marketing efforts often

demand a significant amount of budget while startups typically evolve under a set of

rigid constraints. In order to survive, startups have to come up with marketing

strategies that establish a base level of sales in a short enough time span while

maintaining budget control (which is exactly what the lean methodology aims for).

This section intends to identify how the Web 2.0 applications detailed supra can help

startups overcome this challenge.

For better structure, the startup lifecycle has been divided into the four stages defined

by Lance Weatherby: Concept59, Seed60, Early61 and Growth62. At each stage, the

startup faces marketing challenges that it has to overcome in order to pursue its

evolution. Although Weatherby is no highly recognised academician, his experience as

a customer-‐focused entrepreneur has led him to define the startup lifecycle in an

accurate way. The cycle is in accordance with the lean approach defined above and

each stage can be put in parallel with a phase of the Customer Development Process.

57 Ready, K. (2011). STARTUP, An insider's guide to launching and running a business. New York: Apress. 58 Ready, K. (2011). STARTUP, An insider's guide to launching and running a business. New York: Apress. 59 Weatherby, L. (2009, 02 11). Startups: The concept stage. Consulté le 04 17, 2014, sur Weatherby Blog: http://blog.weatherby.net/2009/02/startups-‐the-‐concept-‐stage.html 60 Weatherby, L. (2009, 02 25). Startups: The Seed Stage. Consulté le 04 17, 2014, sur Weatherby Blog: http://blog.weatherby.net/2009/02/startups-‐the-‐seed-‐stage.html 61 Weatherby, L. (2009, 05 18). Startups: The Early Stage. Consulté le 04 17, 2014, sur Weatherby Blog: http://blog.weatherby.net/2009/03/startups-‐the-‐early-‐stage.html 62 Weatherby, L. (2009, 07 21). Startups: The Growth Stage. Consulté le 04 17, 2014, sur Weatherby Blog: http://blog.weatherby.net/2009/07/startups-‐the-‐growth-‐stage.html

53

C.1 Concept The concept stage is the earliest stage of a startup and occurs when the idea of a

potential business if formed. Steve Blank describes it as the moment when a founder

starts out with the vision of a product that solves a customer problem63. The first step

is to identify the value proposition of the vision: what valuable solution will the

business provide and for who is this valuable? The founder states his hypotheses and

then sets out to verify them and find what is the market for his vision (quest for

Problem-‐Solution fit). As explained in the lean methodology, when testing the various

hypotheses on which the business model relies, guesswork is no option and common

sense is misleading. Consumers often define the usage they make of products

themselves and shape their evolution. Many visions end up serving a market segment

the founder had never thought of initially. Founders have to adapt to this unexpected

market, reposition their product and show flexibility. However, it is important to stay

focused on the initial vision and avoid gathering an endless list of requests from

customers. Success depends on the ability to focus efforts on a small group of early

customers since satisfying everyone is impossible.

The concept stage initiates the Customer Discovery phase and entails a series of

challenges. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to co-‐create value proposition with

consumers, therefore they have to “get out of the building”64, identify the relevant

customers and confront them.

C.1.1 Getting out of the building: the Participative Web helps break the ice

Getting out of the building already constitutes a first challenge and many

entrepreneurs look for excuses or reasons to avoid the task. By fear of rejection, they

end up concentrating on their Grand Idea without verifying if there is a market for it.

Although meeting customers through the Internet is no perfect solution, it can be a

first step. Web 2.0 has introduced new communication rules that favour dialogue and

interactivity, making it easier for entrepreneurs to make the big leap out of their

comfort zone. The participative technologies introduced by Web 2.0 make it possible

63 Blank, S. (2005). The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Lulu Enterprises Incorporated. 64 Blank, S. (2005). The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Lulu Enterprises Incorporated.

54

to jointly create value with a group of temporally and geographically scattered people.

Value creation is decentralized and becomes a system in which producer, user and

solution interact. Such a system is consistent with the lean approach and opposes itself

to the traditional linear value chain as depicted in Figures 10 and 1165.

Figure 10: The Linear Value Chain

Figure 11: The Value Creation System

C.1.2 Reaching customers: the Social Web facilitates effective targeting

Once a first contact is established, the challenge is to identify who are the customers

interested in the startup’s vision. Before the web was interactive or social, reaching a

significant pool of pertinent consumers was both difficult and costly. The social

characteristic of the Web 2.0, with its social networks, blogs and communities, has

made it much easier to target a specific group of consumers and to contact them in a

very scalable and cheap manner. Facebook Ads for example, makes it possible to test

different messages and target-‐groups to identify where market traction is. Nausicaa

Theodotos and Margaux Seghin, two young Belgians currently busy launching their

new mobile App Ginger, explain how their first Facebook Ad campaign was a disaster

in terms of conversion but enabled them to realise they were targeting the wrong

people. To better identify their market segment, they spotted which user-‐profiles liked

their competitors’ Facebook page and who was following the competition on Twitter.

This allowed them to adjust their approach and focus their efforts. In short, the web is

65 Briggs, C. (2009). Web 2.0 Business Models as Decentralized Value Creation Systems. Dans M. Lytras, E. Damiani, & P. Ordonez de Pablos, Web 2.0, The Business Model (pp. 37-‐52). New York: Springer.

Producer Solution Customer Value

creation

Value

extraction

Producer

Solution

Customers

Interaction

Interaction

Interaction

Interaction

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a cost-‐effective way to better pinpoint the relevant prospects and establish first contact

with them. However, the infinite number of online communities makes it important to

carefully identify the most relevant to address in order to concentrate resources.

C.1.3 Achieving Problem-‐Solution fit: Web 2.0 mitigates sunk costs

through cost-‐efficient testing techniques

While identifying the group of potential customers confronted with a common

problem, an entrepreneur should also be testing his solution to achieve Problem-‐

Solution fit. At this stage, building an actual product or service is not necessary, what

the startup should test is its concept. The goal is to identify if there is market traction

for its vision. Direct testing with consumers is of high value, however, sunk costs are

high if the approach is wrong and reaching a sufficient pool of testers is time-‐

consuming. Web 2.0 has enhanced testing opportunities by introducing more flexible

and scalable techniques that do not require high upfront costs. Although feedback is

less complete online, these techniques enable entrepreneurs to adapt rapidly and avoid

costly mistakes. Two major online tools to test market viability and customer interest

are the landing page and Search Engine Advertising.

a. THE LANDING PAGE

A landing page is a simple web page that describes a startup’s concept, product and

features. The aim is to get visitors to click on a specific “call to action” such as

“Subscribe to our newsletter” or “Create an account”. The page can be a complete mock-‐

up and doesn’t require product to be ready for sale. For instance, when launching

TileTM (a small Bluetooth connected device to help people keep track of easily losable

items), Nick Evans and Like Farley set up a landing page where customers could pre-‐

order their product. However, the device wasn’t ready yet and the startup needed

$20.000 to initiate production. The landing page (and the video presenting product

and pointing towards the page) was a huge success. Pre-‐orders flowed in and the

startup raised more than 2 million dollars in less than a year.66 This is one example of

how the Internet has made it easy to test and pivot inexpensively. By measuring the

66 Lomas, N. (2013, 06 20). Tile Wants You To Stop Losing Important Stuff With Its Bluetooth Tags Plus App Combo. Consulté le 05 09, 2014, sur Tech Crunch: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/20/tile/

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number of clicks on the call to action, a startup can judge if there is market traction for

its concept or not.

b. SEA

Search Engine Advertising is another cost-‐effective way for testing market traction.

Tools like Google AdWords have opened opportunities for startups to place ads on the

web and be visible to a large pool of potentially interested consumers. SEA, as opposed

to SEO, has the advantage of being a highly reactive medium that can generate traffic

peaks for specific events or product launching. For example, before launching the

online shoe store Zappos, the founders first set up a mock-‐up site with random shoe

photos. They advertised the site through Google AdWords and waited to see if people

would try to buy the presented shoes. The high number of clicks proved them there

was market demand for their service. With SEA, startups can market themselves and

even reach niche markets without having to set heavy advertising infrastructures. By

targeting the right keywords, the startup ensures that the ad is directed only to

relevant users and can measure customer interest in terms of number of clicks.

However, every click incurs a cost, therefore it is essential to carefully define which

keywords and phrases are worth bidding upon. Moreover, click-‐rate is no perfect

measure of market demand since consumers still have to convert.

Through these tools the entrepreneur has to sense if his vision is accurate (does the

vision solve a valuable customer problem?) or if the initial concept needs to be

changed, in which case he has to pivot. The cost-‐efficiency of landing pages and SEA

avoid making heavy investments in a direction without being sure that Problem-‐

Solution fit is achieved. This enables entrepreneurs to fail fast and adapt quickly.

However, one should not pivot as soon as a customer has rejected an idea. As the

entrepreneur, adviser and venture investor David Feinleib puts in his book:

“Persistence is critical to entrepreneurial success, but stubbornness can kill you. Finding

the balance is what makes entrepreneurship an art, not a science”67. Being able to feel

when is the right moment to change or, conversely, the opportune moment to focus

(when Problem-‐Solution fit is achieved) is a subtle balancing exercise that not

67 Feinleib, D. (2012). Why startups fail and hod yours can succeed. New York: Apress.

57

everyone can master. Figure 12 recaps of the marketing challenges startups encounter

during the concept phase and which Web 2.0 elements help overcome them.

Figure 12: Illustration of the marketing challenges encountered during the Concept phase and the Web 2.0

elements that help overcome them

C.2 Seed Once Problem-‐Solution fit is found, the startup completes the Customer Discovery

phase and is ready to commence Customer Validation. The Seed stage is about

transforming the solution into a refined product or service and achieve Product-‐

Market fit. The challenge is to release solid beta-‐versions as early as possible and

convince prospects to test the unfinished product. The process of testing is a cyclical

one. For every test, feedback has to be gathered and product has to be improved

according to the data received.

C.2.1 Releasing quality MVPs frequently: Web 2.0 introduces the

perpetual beta

Product-‐Market fit is reached through iterations – as opposed to pivots that are more

substantial changes to achieve Problem-‐Solution fit. In his book, Feinleib insists on the

importance of putting a product on the market as soon as possible: “Perfection is your

enemy when you’re executing early. Get your product out fast, and ask for feedback"68.

This is reflected in the lean methodology by the frequent release of revised MVPs. Yet 68 Feinleib, D. (2012). Why startups fail and hod yours can succeed. New York: Apress.

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releasing an MVP as early as possible should not be assimilated with bad quality. The

huge accessible choice on the Internet has led to exacting customers hence quality is a

must. A product that isn’t “great”, even as a beta version, is doomed to fail. This is why

continuous iteration is essential: products with defects may attract customers, but in

order to create retention, they have to evolve rapidly.

In the particular case of online services (where product is intangible), Web 2.0 has

allowed firms to go beyond the stage of discrete periodic MVPs by introducing the

perpetual beta state. The iterative cycle of building an MVP, testing it and reviewing it

is further accelerated online as improvements are made and released instantly. For

example, Delicious, a social bookmarking site, keeps track of user behaviour and

analyses their feedback to update existing features and bring new ones. Each web page

has a feedback button that invites users to help improve the web site. As a result, the

product remains in continuous evolution.

C.2.2 Testing Product-‐Market fit: the Participative Web facilitates co-‐

development

Consumers know what they value the most in products or services; they know their

habits, the way they use a product and in what circumstances. They also know what

the competition offers. Integrating the consumer into the product development

process consolidates Product-‐Market fit and ensures market success. “Consumers

should have their say in the innovation process, otherwise they will divert product use”69.

The Participative Web has made it easier to engage with many users as real-‐time

testers. A large pool of testers has the advantage of supplying a constant new mix of

fresh eyes. New users are honest about their product experience. They identify the

defects that accustomed users have learned to work around. Web 2.0 also offers cost-‐

effective means to co-‐develop products with consumers, accelerating the product

improvement cycle. Marine André, CEO of the Belgian startup Bee Nature (beauty

products made from organic honey), underlines that she uses Facebook as simple way

to engage with customers. The social network is a cheap and natural means of testing

69Laurent, F. (2008). Marketing 2.0: L'Intelligence Collective. Paris: M21 Editions.

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different product formulas, asking advice on preferred fragrances, or inviting

customers to design the startup’s next packaging. LaFraise.com (a French online t-‐shirt

retailer) is another example of a successful Web 2.0 startup that directly involves users

in product creation. Users vote for their favourite design and decide which ones will be

printed on the t-‐shirts. The dynamic and participative context of Web 2.0 facilitates

working closely with consumers.

C.2.3 Gathering consumer feedback: the Social Web captures honest

feedback

Web 2.0 sets a favourable environment for customers to freely express themselves.

Social media makes it easy for them to share their feedback in a way that is visible to

the firm. Comments and postings constitute a valuable source of information. Tools

such as Mention.com – a real-‐time media monitoring application – help firms locate

relevant mentions. Startups can listen to the web, to what is being said on them, on

their competitors or on relevant topics.

Web 2.0 also facilitates instant messaging, another compelling means of gathering

customer feedback. Adrien Roose, CEO of the Belgian startup Take Eat Easy (an online

platform for home-‐delivery of quality restaurant courses), relates that the live chat of

his startup’s web page enabled customers to explain their troubles in real-‐time.

Through these interactions, the IT team could understand more in depth what

customers were looking for and which site areas were to be improved. Nonetheless,

Adrien admits that it is by meeting clients on field that he learnt the most. The co-‐

founders of Ginger (a mobile dating-‐app) support this opinion. They explain that the

web helped them inexpensively improve beta-‐versions of their mobile application but

feedback was mostly gathered through the live testing events they organised. Similarly,

the startup Djump prefers to call unsatisfied customers to get their feedback directly

and understand what went wrong. In short, most entrepreneurs agree that the best

feedback is obtained through one-‐to-‐one, face-‐to-‐face confrontation. However, this is

time-‐consuming. The Internet makes it easier to establish a first contact with a

pertinent group of people. By building a strong and relevant network online, the direct

prospecting incurred thereafter is made more efficient. Figure 13 summarises the

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marketing challenges encountered by startups during the Seed phase and the Web 2.0

elements that help overcome them.

Figure 13: Illustration of the marketing challenges encountered during the Seed phase and the Web 2.0

elements that help overcome them

C.3 Early Product-‐Market fit does not limit itself to a product that matches a market but also

includes efficient ways to distribute the product. Investing in the wrong distribution

channels or in the wrong market strategy is just as costly as getting the product wrong.

Throughout the Early stage, the startup pursues Customer Validation and searches for

a sales model that can be repeated while improving product. The major challenge in

this case is to generate first sales and monetise the business concept. First sales not

only prove monetisation of concept, they also enable the startup to move up the

learning curve, accumulate production and lower cost per unit. Although the first sales

of a startup are at loss, they constitute a valuable learning experience as the startup

acquires new customer knowledge. This expensive learning process pays back as soon

as the startup discovers how to acquire customers in a scalable and efficient manner.

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C.3.1 Generating first sales: Web 2.0 helps build a community of early-‐

adopters

First sales are difficult as the startup has no company image, no distribution channel

and no economies of scale. Accurate advertising and promotion is necessary in order to

find early customers and boost sales rapidly. These early adopters represent only a very

small segment of the market, yet they are of capital importance. With traditional mass

marketing, large budgets are needed in order for a message to reach a small niche of

consumers. To improve campaign effectiveness, advertisers are invited to choose

specific channels that can be expensive. The web has the advantage of offering

businesses of all size unprecedented access to many markets and has opened great

opportunities in terms of hyper-‐segmentation. A skilful Search Engine Marketing

makes it possible to differentiate traffic and target consumers according to their

current needs without having to pay for a huge coverage. Similarly, exposure in the

right communities and presence on the appropriate social media can put startups

directly in contact with niche segments for reasonable budget. Tanguy Goretti explains

how his startup Djump leveraged the influence of early adopters. Djump – a social

ridesharing application – started to build a community of early adopters on Facebook

before its app was even ready. At the beginning, one-‐to-‐one communication was

crucial. The founders spent a lot of their time organising special Djump events during

which they would present the concept and identify the early adopters. The Facebook

private group helped constitute the community and formed a constant means of

communication, engagement and bonding. This resulted into a powerful base of highly

engaged brand ambassadors that gradually attracted new customers to expand the

startup’s community.

C.3.2 Monetisation: Web 2.0 technologies optimise conversion and

retention

A perfect Product-‐Market fit is of no use if it cannot be monetised. Monetising

customers is about making money out of them. To do so, the startup has to bring

consumers down the lean marketing funnel 70 illustrated in Figure 14. The lean

70 Griffel, M. (2012). Introducing the Lean Marketing Funnel. Consulté le 06 17, 2014, sur GrowHack: http://www.growhack.com/2012/10/25/introducing-‐the-‐lean-‐marketing-‐funnel/#.U6Abk42Sw09

62

marketing funnel is divided into four major steps: acquisition (acquiring visitors),

conversion (converting visitors into customers), retention (making customers come

back) and monetisation (making money out of customers). For each step there is a

number of customer dropouts, hence the name “funnel”.

Figure 14: The Lean Marketing Funnel

With the lean marketing funnel in mind, startups have a better idea of the budget it is

worth allocating in acquisition, conversion and retention methods. Failing to acquire,

convert and retain customers both repeatedly and profitably jeopardizes a firm’s

sustainability. If the costs cannot be driven down, the company is unable to scale and

become profitable. The conversion and retention optimisation opportunities offered by

Web 2.0 are depicted hereafter.

a. OPTIMISING CONVERSION: THE POWER OF WEB ANALYTICS

With Web 2.0, many tools that help optimise conversion rates have emerged. Web

Analytics solutions like Google Analytics or KissMetrics enable startups to monitor

customer onsite behaviour and accurately improve their conversion rates based on

measured and reliable facts instead of instinct and common sense, which are often

misleading.

A very straightforward Web Analytics technique for site conversion optimisation

consists of A/B testing. A/B testing is used to test two variants, A and B. Site visitors

are randomly presented with one or the other and their behaviour is then compared to

see which has the most positive impact on the call of action. This approach can be

Acquisition

Conversion

Retention

Referral

Monetisation

63

used to test all sorts of elements such as product pricing, registration process, new

features or even button layout on web page. To illustrate, Olivier Verdin, startup coach

at Solvay Entrepreneurs, relates a real-‐life case wherein the format of the arrow

pointing towards the call of action led to different conversion rates. Figure 15 illustrates

the two layouts presented to the visitors. The first one resulted into a conversion rate

40% higher than the second.

Figure 15: An A/B testing example

A/B testing is an efficient and inexpensive way to test and improve startup offering.

However, it can be very time consuming as every detail is worth testing. Sometimes a

slight change of colour, of button shape, or of image position can lead to big

differences, especially when site traffic is high.

For every test, it is important to define what is considered to be a success beforehand

and to specify a sufficient test period for results to be indicative. The test results then

have to be compared in order to keep only the best alternative. A/B testing is essential

at all stages of a business. Even big firms such as Amazon use this method everyday to

test new features on their website.

b. OPTIMISING RETENTION: THE POWER OF RE-‐MARKETING AND

SOCIAL MEDIA

In order to boost retention rates, Google has developed a powerful technique as part of

its Adwords program: Re-‐marketing. Re-‐marketing consists in reviving customer

interest by showing him the ad of a product he has previously shown interest for (i.e.

by visiting a specific website or beginning the purchase process without fulfilling it).

The ad is displayed on the pages of sites and networks visited by the user to remind

him about the product and encourage him to come back to the website.

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When it comes to retention, Social Media also plays a crucial role. A presence on Social

Media is essential right from the early stage of startup development. Entrepreneurs are

encouraged to create a blog and to have a Facebook and Twitter account through

which they tell the story of their project so as to rouse public interest. The objective

here is not to publish commercial content but rather relevant content that is

interesting for potential customers: update them on what the startup has been up to,

share interesting articles etc. By doing so, the startup gradually builds a pool of

followers that buys into its vision. It is the first step of the long process of building a

reputation.

Social Media communication involves a series of good practices including storytelling,

authenticity and content quality.

• Storytelling is about transforming facts into images and emotional stories. It is

essential in the process of building a reputation. The skill is to remain authentic

and embellish reality without fooling the audience.

• Social Media communication is a person-‐to-‐person activity, therefore postings

should appear human and authentic. Marketing messages are frowned upon.

• Content must have real substance. If a startup only talks about itself, it won’t

interest anyone. Therefore, using social media exclusively for commercial

communication makes no sense. One should keep in mind that the posts are

written for the readers, to acquire their valuable attention. Quality content is

associated with a positive perception and post regularity assures that the firm,

brand or product is borne in the consumers’ mind. If the page is perceived to be

dynamic and content rich, people want to follow it and be kept informed. This

sets the basis of a high retention. Although they may not need the startup’s

service immediately, consumers will know where to find it as soon as they do.

Conclusively, Social Media Marketing is an inbound marketing. Inbound marketing

can be summarised as a strategy that brings prospects “in” rather than having to go

“out” and reach them. It is a form of advertising that users invite into their lives. By

posting high-‐quality content regularly, information no longer needs to be pushed to

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the targeted prospects. Instead, the audience builds up naturally in a much less

intrusive process. For example, AppTweak, a startup active in mobile Application Store

Optimisation (ASO), regularly publishes ASO-‐related content. Users interested in ASO

follow AppTweaks’ posts and form a base of potential customers. Updates on new

products and timely promotions on social media are not excluded. Indeed, once a pool

of followers is created, these communication channels are extremely cost-‐effective.

However, they are to be used with moderation to maintain content quality level.

Figure 16 illustrates the marketing challenges that startups face during the Early phase

as well as the Web 2.0 elements that help overcome them.

Figure 16: Illustration of the marketing challenges encountered during the Early phase and the Web 2.0 elements that help overcome them

Once Product-‐Market fit is validated, the startup can move on to the growth stage.

This means that, before investing in growth, it has identified a sufficient set of loyal

customers and a repeatable sales process that ensures sustainable profitability.

C.4 Growth

Startups are, by definition, scalable businesses, therefore the growth stage is all about

scaling. The focus is put on accelerating market adoption and reaching a critical mass

in order to move out of the startup state and become a sustainable business. To do so,

the startup has to build on the success of its initial sales. Once conversion and

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retention are optimised, the startup can focus on acquisition and drive user-‐demand

down the marketing funnel. It is the Company Creation phase. At this point, heavy

marketing efforts become crucial. As soon as the company has hit the growth

inflection point, it should raise the necessary capital to grow as quickly and as

aggressively as possible. The growth inflection point is a critical moment. Scaling

prematurely is extremely costly since there is no return on investments if market does

not “bite”. Similarly, not investing when there is serious market traction can have a

disastrous effect.

C.4.1 The chasm between early and mainstream market

In a model called The Diffusion Process71, Everett Rogers – communication scholar and

sociologist – describes the way different demographic groups accept new ideas and

technologies. The adoption of technology over time forms a normal distribution law.

The curve is divided into five social groups of adopters: Innovators, Early Adopters,

Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. The first two groups constitute the early

market, the next two form the mainstream market. The early market represents a small

portion of consumers; the curve then grows exponentially into the mainstream market,

where it peaks before turning down and reaching the laggards. Geoffrey Moore –

author and high-‐tech consultant in Silicon Valley – popularized and refined the model

by adding the notion of “chasm” between each group72. The biggest chasm is the one

between the early and the mainstream market. Figure 17 illustrates this model.

71 Rogers, E. (1962). The Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press. 72 Cooper, B., & Vlaskovits, P. (2010). The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development. CustDev.

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Figure 17: The Revised Technology Adoption Life Cycle

The model can be used to depict the leap startups have to accomplish throughout their

growth stage. Powerful marketing tools and sales strategies are necessary to win a

much larger group of customers. The transition from an early market of enthusiasts to

the general market of pragmatic customers is a tough one. Web 2.0 introduces a

handful of opportunities in this respect.

C.4.2 Crossing the chasm: Search engines help reach mass visibility

The search functionality of the web is a powerful tool to achieve mass visibility. As

described in part one, the majority of the population browses the web through search

engines. Combined with the ability to differentiate traffic according to keywords, a

presence in search results represents an immense opportunity for firms to reach a

massive pool of potential clients with a high propensity of being interested in company

offer. As stated above, SEA constitutes a great means to locate market traction. Once

found, startups are encouraged to engage in both SEA and SEO to maximise their

visibility in search results. SEO techniques have to be integrated as early as possible

since site structure directly affects search rankings. Achieving top rank is a laborious

process but it reaps long-‐term benefits. SEA is a quicker way to achieve a higher level

of presence on search engines but at a growing cost.

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C.4.3 Crossing the chasm: growth hacking inexpensively broadens

customer acquisition

Growth hacking consists in inflating the number of customers while being constrained

by a near-‐to-‐zero budget. As opposed to traditional marketers who focus on external

channels to attract customers, growth hackers create built-‐in user growth mechanisms.

They analyse features that incite and make it easy for active users to attract new ones.

Growth hacking is thus “a cross between marketing and coding that is intended to

sharply increase a nascent business's user base”73. Customer data is meticulously

analysed to retrace the patterns that have led customers to become active users. For

example, Facebook discovered that new users were more likely to stay if they acquired

at least seven friends in 10 days. Knowing that, the firm developed an algorithm that

suggested “people you may know” to the new user and sent emails to prompt him to

invite other friends to Facebook.

Growth hackers are obsessed by low-‐cost growth. The best zero-‐cost acquisition is

done through referrals. Therefore startup products are scrutinized to find out which

features incite active users to recommend them to new ones. Dropbox, a file-‐sharing

service, offered free storage space whenever its users invited their friends to join. This

enabled the startup to rapidly expand its customer base without spending on

advertising. As soon as successful low-‐cost sharing techniques are identified and

tested, they are automated to inexpensively scale rapidly. To illustrate, Nicolas Finet,

co-‐founder of the Belgian startup Sortlist – a web application that helps marketing

managers find communication agencies – explains that by automatically welcoming

new Twitter followers, traffic volume on startup website was increased by 40%.

C.4.4 Crossing the chasm: Social media boosts virality

Social Media is the new and empowered channel for word of mouth that capitalises on

the networks of users. With Social Media, getting customers to recruit new ones has

become almost effortless. For instance, a common growth hacking technique is the

“Tell a friend” button that incites users to share their brand experience with their

network in a click. This is all the more valuable when one takes into account that

73 Needleman, S. E., & Safdar, K. (2014, 05 29). 'Growth Hacking' Helps Startups Add Users. The Wall Street Journal

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prospects originating from recommendations have a predisposed positive attitude

towards a brand and a 15% higher conversion rate74.

Social networks are particularly powerful as they enable interactions that are ideally

adapted for indirect connections75. Direct connections refer to close relationships such

as friends and family – the close network that is typically reached through traditional

word of mouth. Indirect connections are those that point towards friends of friends –

the extended network. The Internet has enabled marketers to exploit these less

intimate connections. Interactions such as “pokes”, “likes”, “retweets” or “shares” are

particularly adapted for indirect connections. Such links represent a huge potential as

they open-‐up to broader networks and expose referrals to a much larger pool of

potential customers than direct word-‐of-‐mouth. For example, knowing that the

average user has 130 Facebook friends76, by sharing and liking branded content, the

user effortlessly recommends it to another 130 potential customers. It is the essence of

viral marketing. Content can spread across the web like a virus without companies

having to put much effort or investment in the creation or purchase of a channel. Of

course, to obtain worthy results, branded content should incite user interaction. This

is more easily said than done.

On social media, information is not pushed but shared among connections. Promotion

is about tapping into these connections to reach the friends of fans. Startups have to

give consumers a reason to share their branded content. They should include creative

concepts that engage target audience and provide entertaining and valuable content

that is worth sharing. This can be done by rewarding loyal customers who spread

organic and positive word of mouth. For instance, Quaser Expeditions, a luxury cruise

company, organised photo contests and gave discounts on future trips to the clients

who posted the most photos and positive comments to boost its Facebook visibility.

The marketing manager reported that the move not only increased web traffic referrals

on Facebook but also increased the number of trip bookings.

74Birkner, C. (2011). Sharing the love. Marketing News , 45 (3), 20-‐21. 75Fraysse, E. (2011). Facebook, Twitter, et le web social: les nouvelles opportunités de business. Bluffy: Editions Kawa. 76Birkner, C. (2011). Sharing the love. Marketing News , 45 (3), 20-‐21.

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Moreover, for a Social Media campaign to be effective, content also has to be easily

shareable. For example, a blog post should always appear with the Twitter “Tweet” or

“Follow” and Facebook “Share” or “Like” buttons. These links make it very easy for

users to spread word of mouth to their network without having to change their

browser window.

YouTube is another great channel in terms of viral marketing. Users can easily share

and comment videos through the platform. This makes it a great online distribution

channel for commercial videos. It is also an extremely cheap alternative compared to

purchasing advertising time on a national TV channel. Indeed, YouTube supports

video hosting costs, already has a critical mass of users and is particularly visible on

Google. As a result, YouTube videos can have a huge reach and, if they go viral,

procure an impressive media coverage. The power of YouTube resides in the fact that

most of its content is user-‐generated. Therefore startups are encouraged not only to

post videos themselves but also to incite users to post videos with branded content.

User-‐generated advertising is powerful because it is perceived as authentic, and thus

more credible. Totally organic ads are extremely valuable and suggest highly engaged

customers. Brands can also motivate consumers to co-‐create advertising, moving away

from the traditional model of prefabricated ads to one in which users play an active

role. By setting guidelines, brands increase the likelihood that ad content is consistent

with brand positioning. Involving customers in the creative process has many

advantages: it increases customer loyalty, encourages him to share his creation,

spreads word of mouth and maximise reach and engagement while being more cost-‐

effective. Moreover, as consumers start to combine their creativity with the brand’s

message, brand engagement is enhanced. Although inexpensive, incited user-‐

generated advertising still incurs costs. Such campaigns require human resources to

screen submissions, manage legal issues and answer participants’ questions.

Figure 18: The social media buttons

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C.4.5 Crossing the chasm: influencers constitute powerful referrals

Blogs and communities are becoming increasingly influential and have a huge

marketing potential to leverage. In three years time, the blogosphere grew by a 60-‐

factor77. Although anyone can hold a blog, certain bloggers have larger readerships

than others. They are called influencers – knowledgeable people with a wide network

who can impact others with their persuasive power. Influence is based on member

seniority and value of contribution to the community (i.e. post relevancy, frequence of

activity, investment in time and energy). In order to spread their message virally,

startups should target these people. Influencers play a similar role to public relations.

They intervene as an unbiased third-‐party referral and have the power to draw massive

attention to a branded content just by talking about it. They are so influential that

companies sometimes pre-‐release information to them. Starbucks, for instance,

effectively took advantage of influencers’ weight by offering them a new coffee blend

and encouraging them to share their experience on social media. The campaign is said

to have reached more than 1.5 million people through 8000 influencers78.

Tools that help identify powerful online influencers exist. Klout, to cite one, evaluates

the influence of an individual by assigning him a score from 1 to 100. The higher the

score, the more influential the individual. Influencers are then sorted by topic, making

it extremely easy for companies to pick out and connect with the most relevant.

However, advertising through influencers is a delicate matter. In the blogosphere,

ethics and implicit rules are very important. It is essential for an influencer to remain

trustworthy and credible if he wishes to maintain his influence. Yet, branded content is

often a source of suspicion as readers presume that the poster has received benefits

from the cited brand. In addition, the success of blogs has unsurprisingly led to a series

of abuses in the form of fake blogs, or flogs. Firms have tried to fool their audience by

inventing customer testimonials (cf. the Vichy blog “My skin blog” related in part one).

This is a very risky strategy that heavily backfires if unveiled and crushes brand

credibility.

77 Vossen, G., & Hagemann, S. (2007). Unleashing Web 2.0: from concepts to creativity. Burlington: Elsevier. 78 Birkner, C. (2011). Sharing the love. Marketing News , 45 (3), 20-‐21.

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An alternative to creating a company blog is to approach already existing blogs with

large readerships. When reaching out to an influential blogger, it is crucial to take time

to get to know the person, his interests and what he blogs about. When pitching the

content to be shared through the blog, the message has to be personal and the content

itself should be desirable for readers and, in no case, look like advertising. Moreover, to

lead to results, the content has to be valuable enough for users to visit the company

website and convert. Influencers are extremely cautious in making endorsements as

branded content is seldom perceived to be genuine, putting their reputation at stake.

Therefore, successful marketing through influencers requires patience and tact.

Wal-‐Mart learnt this the hard way. The firm paid an average American couple to set up

a blog on which they shared their experience of cruising around the USA and sleeping

each night for free in a Wal-‐Mart car park. The blog was very popular until the artifice

was revealed: the retailer was paying for all of the couple’s expenses. This created

immense bad press and seriously damaged the firm’s credibility and brand image. If

Wal-‐Mart had been transparent it would have avoided such an outcry, but by fooling

the readers, the company deceived its followers79.

C.4.6 Ensuring company building: internal social networks serve as

effective knowledge management systems

Company building is the last stage of the Customer Development Process during

which the startup moves out of startupdom to become a sustainable business. As the

number of employees grows, the firm has to structure itself into departments,

company culture has to be formalised and an effective knowledge management has to

be implemented. Web 2.0 tools can improve organisational performance. Intranet

social networks constitute a great opportunity to enhance communication and

collaboration within an enterprise. Internal social networks can act as means to

connect employees and incite them to share their knowledge. Most employees are

familiar with social networking, making it easy for them to adopt it. Social networks

are also more flexible and cheaper than traditional knowledge management systems.

Of course, employees still have to be motivated to participate and knowledge sharing

79 Cubitt, E. (2007, 03 29). Search Marketing: Opinion formers. New Media Age , p. 8.

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can only be done in an environment of trust. However, this is another matter since, at

this point, the startup is considered to be moving out of startupdom. Figure 19

compiles the marketing challenges a startup encounters during the Growth phase and

the Web 2.0 elements that help overcome them.

Figure 19: Illustration of the marketing challenges encountered during the Growth phase and the Web 2.0 elements that help overcome them

C.5 In a word

The four stages of the startup lifecycle all come with their challenges for which

marketing is of transversal importance. Web 2.0 offers various opportunities to

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overcome part of these obstacles. In the Concept phase, 2.0 communication

techniques make it easier to dynamically interact with consumers and engage in

value co-‐creation. The web facilitates the process of target-‐market identification by

offering inexpensive means of trial-‐and-‐error. As the startup enters the Seed phase,

its focus is on refining its solution for the identified market. Web 2.0 technologies

allow to develop solutions closely aligned with customer desires by empowering

them to test the solution, co-‐develop it and share their feedback. During the Early

phase, a startup can capitalise on web technologies that introduce cost-‐effective

means to address early-‐adopters. Marketing techniques like Web Analytics and

Inbound Marketing help boost conversion and retention rates. Regarding Growth,

the Internet has made mainstream markets more accessible. The pre-‐eminence of

search engines, the automated growth-‐hacking techniques, the virality of social

media and the influence of dominant bloggers make them essential media to exploit

to acquire substantial growth. Finally, as a startup moves out of startupdom and

grows into a sizeable business, internal social networks constitute a powerful

knowledge management tool.

D. The Web Democratisation: an open door for startups

“The tools of Web 2.0 allow anyone, willing to put in the time and effort, to harness the

tools of the Internet and build the next great startup. Inexpensive and collaborative

technology is allowing entrepreneurs to create unbelievable products and services even

with meager resources and this environment of innovation should inspire entrepreneurs

of any age to tap into the opportunities."80

There is a general belief that Web 2.0 technologies have democratized the business

environment. With user-‐friendly online tools, increased interactivity, open-‐source

software, instant access to global markets and use of the Internet as a primary source

80 Small Business Trends. (2010, 05 12). Small Business News: Rise of The Technopreneurs. Consulté le 06 9, 2014, sur Small Business Trends: http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/05/small-‐business-‐news-‐rise-‐of-‐the-‐technopreneurs.html

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of information; the web appears as a great marketing channel that considerably

reduces the costs of launching a startup and makes achieving first sales self-‐fundable.

Startups suffer from resource-‐poverty81: their access to material, financial and human

resources is limited. Web 2.0 technologies appear to have broken down these barriers.

First, Web 2.0 applications come at very reasonable prices. No upfront costs are

required to build a social media profile or start a blog. One can set-‐up an advert on

search engines with just a few dollars. As a result, these media appear as inexpensive

alternatives when compared to other more traditional channels such as television or

print advertising. Open-‐source software and cloud services have made software

developments much more affordable, slashing costs from millions down to thousands.

Such technologies are available and exploitable by even a one-‐person organization,

mitigating the size disadvantage startups face.

Second, the Smart Web favours access to information, giving company founders access

to an overwhelming amount of advice, tips and good practices online. Thrid, the open

architecture of Web 2.0 has enabled anyone to create content without having to worry

about technical aspects such as coding. Any individual can publish messages that are

potentially instantly viewable by a global audience at minimal cost. Even creating a

website can be done without hiring an IT professional. Marine André, for instance, set

up the Bee Nature website by using pre-‐existing customisable templates and codes for

a very affordable budget. No IT skills were required.

Fourth, the Social Web has revolutionized communication techniques, enabling to

accelerate exchanges, easily gather feedback, harness collective intelligence and

amplify word-‐of-‐mouth in a much cheaper way than traditional marketing methods.

According to a Hubspot report, inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than

traditional outbound marketing82. Finally, the Internet’s monitoring capacity makes it

possible to swiftly adapt startup solutions without incurring heavy sunk costs. As a

whole, Web 2.0 applications offer rich opportunities to better understand and

81 Boyles, T. (2011). Small Business and Web 2.0: Hope or Hype? Entrepreneurial Executive , 16. 82 Hubspot. (2011, 02). The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing. Consulté le 07 12, 2014, sur Hubspot: http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/file-‐13222134-‐pdf/docs/ebooks/the2011stateofinboundmarketingfinal.pdf

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collaborate with ever-‐changing and demanding consumers. This leads to possible

drastic cost reductions in marketing, distribution and sales, suggesting a mitigation of

the startup resource-‐poverty and an established equal footing between startups and

corporations.

In parallel, Web 2.0 technologies enable small entities to achieve mass-‐market

visibility by exploiting the Long Tail of the web. The Long Tail represents the huge

number of niche sites that are visited by a very specific audience as opposed to the few

popular sites visited by the mass that constitute the head of the demand curve83.

Search engines for example, enable all sorts of little businesses to advertise online.

They do not limit their advertising system to ‘head sites’ – big companies with hefty

marketing budgets. Rather, they make most of their money from the numerous small

advertisers that collectively add up to be more profitable. The possibility for small

niche sites to access the web more easily is another aspect of web democratisation.

Finally, the increasing presence of the web in users lives makes it an inevitable

communication channel. The budget spent on social media and company blogs has

more than doubled (from 9 to 21%) between 2009 and 201184. According to the “2014

Marketing Trends Survey” carried out in North America by StrongView85, 9 in 10

business leaders plan to increase or maintain the marketing budget spent in digital

marketing channels. Email marketing comes in top position with 52% of respondents

planning to increase their spending in this channel. Close behind comes social media

(46%) followed by organic and paid search (41%). Traditional media budgets seem to

be the first affected by this shift. Indeed 32% of respondents plan to decrease spending

on print advertising and 21% on direct mail. Full results are presented in Figure 20 .

83 Anderson, C. (2004, 10). The Long Tail. Consulté le 04 23, 2014, sur The Long Tail: http://www.longtail.com/about.html 84 Hubspot. (2011, 02). The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing. Consulté le 07 12, 2014, sur Hubspot: http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/file-‐13222134-‐pdf/docs/ebooks/the2011stateofinboundmarketingfinal.pdf 85 StongView. (2014). 2014 Marketing Trends Survey. Redwood: StrongView Systems Inc.

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Figure 20: Presentation of the results of the 2014 Marketing Trends Survey86

These trends clearly depict a growing importance of the web as a marketing channel.

Therefore, Web 2.0 is not only a marketing opportunity adapted to startups’

constraints, it is also in line to with the contemporary world. In this respect, startups

benefit from a higher flexibility than well-‐established businesses to implement state-‐

of-‐the-‐art marketing techniques.

D.1 In a word

Web 2.0 evolutions have helped democratise the business environment and reduced

barriers to entry for startups by drastically reducing marketing, distribution and sales

costs while increasing visibility. In this context, startups are liberated from their

resource-‐poverty and can more easily compete with already established businesses.

86 Marketing Charts. (2013, 12 30). 2014 Marketing Budget Plans, by Channel. Consulté le 07 12, 2014, sur Marketing Charts: http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/online/2014-‐marketing-‐budget-‐plans-‐by-‐channel-‐38888/

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PART III: The limits of Web 2.0 as a marketing

opportunity for startups

The last part of this work aims to nuance the findings of part two. The section puts

forward various elements that temper the marketing opportunities opened by search

engines, Social Media and Web Analytics. It also insists on the importance of

conducting a multi-‐channel communication and the weight of human resources in

harnessing Web 2.0 opportunities. Finally, the marketing strategies that result from

the Web 2.0 context are not equally adapted for all startups and the marketing

opportunities they offer vary according to the startup’s activity or sector. For instance,

the way to approach clients with Web 2.0 applications can be very different for B2C

and B2B startups. The section depicts some of these differences.

A. The limits of web democratisation

“Even though the Internet is a miracle of technology that has revolutionized

communication and commerce, know that it is still governed by the same laws of

economics that have controlled business since the earliest days of man.”87

Although Web 2.0 opens numerous marketing opportunities for startups, so does it for

every other business. Therefore, Web 2.0 technologies do not constitute an absolute

advantage for startups. Instead they come to form must-‐have strategies and those who

ignore them increase their risk of failure. This section goes through the three major

marketing strategies identified in part one (Search Engine Marketing, Social Media

Marketing and Web Analytics) and points out important aspects that temper the

marketing opportunities they represent.

87 Ready, K. (2011). STARTUP, An insider's guide to launching and running a business. New York: Apress.

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A.1 The Plutocracy of Search Engines

A.1.1 The perfect competition

Search Engines offer an immense opportunity for startups to reach a global market and

maximise profit. However this is true for every competitor too. When Google claims

that a startup is only a few clicks away from a massive pool of clients, it also means

that clients are a few clicks away from the competition. Online markets are global

markets where competition is fierce, market forces are complex and pressure can arise

from anywhere, anytime without warning. Users have access to a huge variety of

products that they can easily compare, resulting into a market of perfect competition.

In this context, differentiation is key. For a startup to survive the Darwinian laws of

global markets it has to (1) be extremely efficient to maintain a competitive cost

structure; (2) constantly innovate in its solution, so as to stay ahead of competition;

and (3) devote huge marketing efforts to stand out form the competition. In short, a

presence in search engines, while drastically increasing the potential reach of a startup,

comes with an escalation of competition.

In terms of SEA, competition has drastically increased cost per click, turning it into a

hardly affordable advertising medium for startups. For example, Marine André from

Bee Nature explains that, in the cosmetics sector, keywords and clicks are simply too

expensive (around 1,5$ per click). Djump, a mobility solution, has a similar situation:

“Taxi” is the only relevant keyword for the startup but it is over-‐priced. Conversion

rates are too low for it to be interesting for these startups to engage in SEA.

A.1.2 The Googlearchy

Matthew Hindman, author of the book The Myth of Digital Democratisation, calls

Googlearchy “the rule of the most heavily linked”. The concept induces that the web’s

structure is governed by a power-‐law of distribution and that only a handful of heavily

linked sites receive the bulk of online traffic88.

88 Hindman, M. (2009). The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton: Princeton Uniersity Press.

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The unequal distribution of traffic results from two tendencies. First, search engine

algorithms highly value the number of links that point towards a page to determine its

rank. Second, surfers have a tendency to satisfice: rather than looking for the best

result to their query among the thousands returned, they stop after browsing the top

results and as soon as their query is more or less satisfied. One should know that 74%

of user-‐clicks go to the top five results89 and less than 10% go to links that appear after

the third page.90 As search engines improve their search efficiency, the clicks are

increasingly concentrated on top results. These two practices result into a winner-‐take-‐

all system where only a few successful sites receive a disproportionate share of online

traffic. The process is self-‐perpetuating as top sites attract more eyeballs and thus more

links. Site visibility drops in an exponential fashion as soon as it is retrieved from top

rankings. In addition, certain links are more powerful than others: one link from a

popular site is worth a dozen links from less prominent sites. This makes it very

difficult for new startups to tap into the system. Sites with few links require skill and

time to discover and, hence, are left ignored. Consequently, online traffic is more and

more concentrated and follows an anti-‐egalitarian distribution law that cultivates

disparities.

The theory of Googlearchy is a direct consequence of the overabundance of online

information. The open architecture of the web has allowed anyone to publish

information, resulting into a vast amount of human knowledge that, although

valuable, is impossible to manually process entirely. “In an information-‐rich world […]

wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”91. In other words, by lowering the

costs of content publishing, the web has made it more difficult to attract user

attention. Therefore, to retain users, search engines have to make sure they find

relevant results rapidly and without entailing a sophisticated search process for users.

This has led engines to concentrate results by relying on a reference model: link

popularity determines relevancy. Since most search engines rely on this model, top

results often overlap from one engine to another, further concentrating the number of

89 Hindman, M. (2009). The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton: Princeton Uniersity Press. 90 Shih, B.-‐Y., Chen, C.-‐Y., & Chen, Z.-‐S. (2013). An Empirical Study of an Internet Marketing Strategy for Search Engine Optimization . Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries , 23 (6), pp. 528-‐540. 91 Simon, H. (1971). Designing Organizations for an Information-‐Rich World. Dans M. Greenberger, Computers, Communication, and the Public Interest (pp. 40-‐41). Baltimore: John Hopkins Press.

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highly visible sites. As a result, only a few worthwhile sources manage to obtain high

visibility, leaving most sites doomed to obscurity. As Hindman puts it: “Almost anyone

can put up a […] Website. For the vast majority of citizens, this activity is the online

equivalent of having their own talk show on public access television at 3:30 in the

morning.”92

Nonetheless, a certain nuance should be made. Search engines, by capitalising on the

Long Tail, have increased visibility for niche-‐leading sites. Combined with the

popularity ranking system, this results in a structure of niche domination where, for

each group of sites (i.e. for each niche), there is always a small number of leaders. This

emphasizes on the importance for startups to tap into niche segments by focusing on

specific keywords to increase site visibility for a narrowly targeted traffic.

Finally, the theory of Googlearchy underlines the workload that SEO represents. As

search engines only favour popular sites, poorly referenced sites have no chance to

appear in top organic results. Therefore, for search to impact a site’s traffic volume and

profitability, invariable presence in top results of specific queries is key. Being well

ranked cannot be achieved without budget, hard work and expertise. For this reason,

experts in the domain of Search Engine Marketing are a necessity.

A.2 The reduced reach of Social Media Marketing

As explained in part one and two, Social Media is a great means of increasing brand

exposure and awareness, improving customer relationship management and

enhancing customer engagement. However, direct return of Social Media efforts on

sales is difficult to monitor. Control is an important issue. While a firm has total

control and can monitor user behaviour on its own site, this is not the case on third-‐

party social media platforms. Although existing platforms have the advantage of

already possessing a critical mass of users, they have their specific rules that firms are

to comply to if they do not wish to be banned from. The platforms have complete

ownership and control over the content that is exchanged through them. For example,

Facebook explicitly states in its privacy terms that it owns all content posted on its 92 Hindman, M. (2009). The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton: Princeton Uniersity Press.

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network. This implies that the data of Facebook fans belongs to Facebook. The giant

can decide which information it is willing to release (freely or not).

In addition, these platforms have high switching costs due to network effects. If a

company chooses to quit Facebook or Twitter for another network, it will have to build

its community of fans and followers all over again. These lock-‐in effects lead to an

unbalanced power relationship, giving firms little bargaining power.

Finally, the sustainability of these platforms heavily depends on their ability to

monetise. This has a direct impact on firms that use them as marketing tools as they

are becoming an increasingly expensive medium. Facebook is a good example of a

social media platform that seeks to monetise its mass of users. Considering the

prominence of Facebook, it seems relevant to detail its situation.

A.2.1 The Monetisation of Facebook

Facebook is by far the most popular social network. Emmanuel Fraysse – author

entrepreneur and specialist in digital marketing – remarks: “If your audience is not on

Facebook, your market is extremely specialised or … we have no other explanation”93.

The network counted 1.23 billion active users worldwide and of all age levels by the end

of 2013 94 . This impressive mass of Facebook users has made it an unavoidable

marketing channel today. Companies are compelled to create Facebook company

pages and acquire likes to constitute a community of fans. A high like count acts as a

powerful recommendation. As a result, like acquisition has opened opportunities for

the platform to monetise.

There are three ways for firms to acquire likes 95:

• Organic likes that result from people who have genuinely come across the page;

• Legitimate paid likes, which are obtained by promoting the page through

Facebook’s advertising system;

• Illegitimate paid likes that originate from click farms.

93Fraysse, E. (2011). Facebook, Twitter, et le web social: les nouvelles opportunités de business. Bluffy: Editions Kawa. 94 The Guardian. (2014, 02 04). Facebook: 10 years of social networking, in numbers. The Guardian . 95 Fox News. (2014, 01 05). 'Click farms' making millions by duping social media. Consulté le 02 23, 2014, sur Fox News

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a. THE FACEBOOK ADVERTISING SYSTEM

Companies can legitimately pay Facebook to boost their visibility. The promoted pages

or posts are shown in the newsfeeds of users who have a potential interest for the page

based on their profile information. The concept is of high potential: firms are offered

the opportunity to reach thousands of people that are potentially interested in the

brand for a few dollars only. This can be very helpful for startups to spark market

exposure in an early stage of development. Moreover, the information provided by the

user in his profile makes it possible to efficiently hyper-‐target consumers.

Nevertheless, the Facebook algorithm is changing in such a way that paid

communication becomes the only way to achieve a decent exposure. Nicolas Finet –

co-‐founder of Sortlist – explains that, before, it was easy for the startup’s posts to

organically reach an audience much higher than its number of page likes. Today, such

results are impossible. Adrien Roose, CEO of Take Eat Easy, shares similar views. He

explains that Facebook’s advertising system helped his startup build a community and

reach 15,000 likes. However, it has become increasingly difficult for organic posts to

reach this community, even though it is one for which the startup has already paid for.

Posts are only published in the newsfeeds of a portion of fans. For organic posts, this

portion has decreased from 12 to 6% between October 2013 and February 201496. These

changes are a clear indication that Facebook is increasingly becoming a paid channel.

Indeed, firms have to pay twice to obtain a decent exposure: once to acquire the fans

and then again for the posts to reach them. It is interesting to note that engagement is

also an important aspect that is taken into account by the Facebook algorithm. Posts

with high engagements (i.e. posts with likes, comments and shares) are considered

content-‐relevant and exposed to a higher portion of fans without additional payment,

underlying the necessity to spark engagement.

96 Delo, C. (2014, 03 06). Brands' Organic Facebook Reach Has Crashed Since October: Study. Consulté le 07 13, 2014, sur AdAge: http://adage.com/article/digital/brands-‐organic-‐facebook-‐reach-‐crashed-‐october/292004/?utm_content=bufferb7efb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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b. CLICK FARMS

Companies that wish to boost their Social Media numbers can pay for clicks that result

into Facebook likes, YouTube views, Twitter followers etc. The clicks originate from

click farms: warehouses where underpaid workers or automated robots continuously

click for hours to boost a sites’ visibility. The importance of social media exposure has

led to a growing global marketplace for such illegitimate clicks. However, such

techniques are of high risk and social media companies actively tackle them.

A.3 The Complexity of Web Analytics

The Internet has the major advantage of being a measurable marketing channel.

However, collecting data, analysing it, retrieving information and translating it into

actions is a strenuous process. Numerous user-‐friendly tools help aggregate the huge

amount of data that is monitored online. Although these tools are easily accessible to

all, in order to retrieve precise information from them, they have to be properly

configured and their manipulation becomes complex. Accurate interpretation of

statistics and generation of customized reports demand high expertise. Therefore Web

Analytics solutions have steep learning curves that rapidly flatten out: an average user

can promptly master the basics, but experts are indispensable to extract granular

insights. Such experts are much more efficient as they deeply understand the tools and

their best practices. Therefore, although they appear user-‐friendly, analytics solutions

are not within everyone’s reach.

Most of the time it is interesting to combine a series of tools. Laurie Galazzo from

AppTweak explains that Google Analytics alone is often insufficient. More

sophisticated tools like MixPanel allow going further into the dynamic details of users’

behaviors (by monitoring the buttons that were clicked on or the areas where user

mouse lingered for example). The information retrieved is of high value but induces

even more data-‐mining substance, further complicating the process. To illustrate,

Tanguy Goretti, CEO of Djump, reveals that they have set 30 different metrics on the

Djump application and another 20 on their marketing channels. The former are

analysed every week and enable to capture information on how the application is used.

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The latter are followed on a monthly basis and help adjust marketing budgets. Tanguy

believes these metrics are crucial to take decisions, evaluate team performance and

rapidly identify problems and room for improvement. However, to retrieve this

precious information, the job requires his full time and attention. Not all startups can

afford having someone entirely committed to Web Analytics.

Web Analytics gets even more complicated when one considers the firm’s offline

activity. Online and offline marketing are complementary and online communication

has an impact on offline activity. It is very difficult to measure this impact through

Web Analytics, yet ignoring it is not a solution. Google is currently working on

Universal Analytics, a solution that aims to link online and offline data by using

elements such as loyalty cards with online logins that are directly linked to the user’s

online account. Connecting these types of data has a huge potential but it also further

complicates the whole analytical process, emphasizing the need for experts. At Djump

for instance (an application through which users can share a car-‐ride), a customer

journey often starts on the Facebook community (online) and only ends when the

customer has taken a Djump ride and paid the driver (offline). It is extremely tricky to

track every step of the journey – site visit, registration, identification, retention, Djump

request, match, ride, payment etc. – and identify at which stage the drop-‐out rate is

high and for what reasons.

Consequently, many startups acknowledge the potential of Web Analytics but do not

invest the appropriate resources into it. Priority is put on day-‐to-‐day management

issues, leaving no time for analytics. Hiring an expert is too expensive and not

considered as an urgent matter, leaving the valuable hidden information untreated.

A.4 In a word

The opportunities opened by Web 2.0 applications do not limit themselves to

startups and are open to all businesses. This leads them to be more of a must-‐have

rather than an advantage. Moreover, the 2.0 marketing tools depicted in part one

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come with limitations. Search Engine Marketing, by opening access to a global

market, has severely increased competition. Moreover, the overabundance of

information online has caused search engines to develop ranking algorithms that

favour link popularity. This results in a power law of distribution and a winner-‐take-‐

all model. Social Media Marketing produces unclear and difficultly measurable

returns on sales. Moreover, social platforms are fully controlled by their host and

involve powerful lock-‐ins, leaving no room for bargaining power. This is all the more

worrying as these channels are increasingly shifting towards a paid model. Finally,

Web Analytics solutions, despite being easily accessible to all, require deep

knowledge if one is to retrieve granular insights from the massive amount of

collected-‐data. The process gets even more complicated as online and offline data

are brought together.

B. The importance of multi-‐channel communication

“The wise entrepreneur spreads his marketing budget over a wide swath of available

approaches and will only eschew those campaigns that have failed already.”97

Firms should keep in mind that consumers use multiple channels of information and

that some customers are predisposed to prefer one type of channel to the other.

Therefore it is important to plan a multiple-‐layered communication. A strong

communication strategy is one that encompasses a variety of media while remaining

consistent. Multi-‐channel does not mean being present on every channel but carefully

identifying the most relevant according to target segment and marketing objectives.

Exclusive web communication reaps meagre results. Startups also have to carry out

techniques that favour physical contact between brand and clients. Tanguy Goretti,

CEO of Djump, highlights that direct prospecting and physical presence in important

events are indispensable. When Adrien Roose, CEO of Take Eat Easy, talks about the

97 Forgione, T. (2013, 06 21). Combining Traditional and Digital Marketing. Consulté le 07 15, 2014, sur Waisite: http://www.waisite.com/blog/combining-‐traditional-‐and-‐digital-‐marketing/

87

internationalisation of his startup, he insists on the role of press coverage and printed

communication as a complement to the online communication.

According to ZenithOptimedia, traditional media still account for the majority of

marketing budgets worldwide. Television takes up 40% of total ad spending and print

media 32% while digital advertising represents only 21% of the marketing budget.

These numbers show that traditional media are far from being obsolete. The full

distribution of global adspend by medium is depicted in Figure 21.

Figure 21: Share of global adspend by medium98

It is also interesting to note that the portion of communication budget allocated to

digital marketing decreases with firm size and age (cf. Figure 22). Early businesses

initially spend a third of their marketing budget online but as they grow, investments

in traditional media increase. This suggests that digital marketing is the most

accessible marketing channel for startups but, as the firm evolves and once budget is

sufficient, other more traditional communication channels become crucial. However,

it is important to point out that the low percentage spent in digital marketing for older

firms (11+ years) may also be due to conservative practices. Indeed, the curve seems to

stabilise around 20% for both large firms and firms between 4 and 10 years old,

underlining that a good balance between offline and online media is inevitable.

98 Zenith Optimedia. (2014, 04 07). Global adspend set to return to pre-‐financial crisis growth ratesglobal adspend set to return to pre-‐financial crisis growth rates . Consulté le 07 13, 2014, sur Zenith Optimedia: http://www.zenithoptimedia.com/global-‐adspend-‐set-‐to-‐return-‐to-‐pre-‐financial-‐crisis-‐growth-‐rates/

40%

18% 3%

17%

8%

7% 7% 0%

Television

Desktop Internet

Mobile Internet

Newspapers

Magazines

Outdoor

Radio

Cinema

88

Figure 22: Percentage of total marketing budget spent in digital marketing according to firm evolution99

Regarding web marketing, although Web 2.0 applications offer interesting

opportunities, many Web 1.0 techniques remain efficient. Tanguy and Adrien insist on

the power of emailing as a retention means. Although it seems out-‐of-‐date, they both

advance that it is the most effective means to contact clients and rouse their interest

anew. It is also a way to engage in personal one-‐to-‐one conversations with customers.

Finally, diversifying in online media is crucial to avoid situations of dependency.

Nothing is eternal on the web and the leaders of today are not guaranteed to be those

of tomorrow. For example, two years ago Yahoo! closed its Yahoo Analytics service.

Users had two months to recover their data and had no other choice but to restructure

it for compatibility with other tools. Avoiding lock-‐ins is not so obvious. As stated in

part one, network effects are a major characteristic of Web 2.0 applications. This has

led to a winner-‐take-‐all market. Network effects benefit the market leader, leaving

little alternatives. For instance, Facebook and Twitter have become so prominent that

it is impossible for a startup to ignore them. Google controls 95% of the search market

in Europe and two thirds worldwide100. A presence on these sites is a must-‐have. On

the one hand, this assures efficient market coverage while focusing efforts on a limited

number of channels. On the other hand, it implies that startups have few alternatives

to choose from.

99 Spoeth, A. (2011, 05 12). Is content marketing tradiitonal advertising's new rival? Consulté le 07 12, 2014, sur Marketo: http://blog.marketo.com/2011/05/is-‐content-‐marketing-‐traditional-‐advertisings-‐new-‐rival-‐infographic.html 100 Klaassen, A. (2009, 11 2). Search Marketing. Advertising Age , 80 (37), pp. 16-‐17.

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B.1 In a word

One should acknowledge that Web 2.0 tools come as complementary channels and

that communication is, above all, multi-‐channel. Traditional methods remain

effective and diversity avoids hostage situations.

C. The prerequisite of people

“The key to success is the quality of the team. I have seen great teams with initially

flawed projects do very well and promising projects led by weak teams fail.”101

New technologies have introduced new marketing approaches that appear to be very

user-‐friendly at first. Any startup can start a blog, place a Facebook Ad, create a

company profile, tweet, engage in SEA or understand Google Analytics for near-‐zero

budgets. Barriers to entry to these channels are almost non-‐existent. However, to be

carried out professionally, in a credible and visible way, these media require state-‐of-‐

the-‐art skill and expertise. This means that, although the entrepreneur can

amateurishly test various online communication methods in the early stages of

development, as soon as he wishes to grow and acquire substantial traffic, qualified

human resources are required. Expertise avoids costly errors, speeds up the process

and, in most cases, brings much higher value to the startup. Without the competent

people behind the marketing strategy, the startup will not be able to optimise its

exposure and communication to relevant audience. It will not have the resources to

engage and dynamically interact with its customers and it will fail to capitalise on

major growth potentialities offered by Web 2.0 applications. In short, although Web

2.0 marketing practices involve no costs for material support – as opposed to

traditional media – they still are people-‐intensive activities that require substantial

investments in human resources. Not all startups invest sufficiently in these resources,

resulting into suboptimal outcomes.

101 Verdin, O. (2014, 05 05). Interview of Olivier Verdin, Coach at Solvay Entrepreneurs . (M.-‐L. Cruyt, Intervieweur)

90

In her interview, Marine André, CEO of Bee Nature, explains that she did her startup’s

site SEO herself, even though she had no particular knowledge in the domain. She

followed a 10-‐hour training session and read a lot of good practices on the Internet.

The basics she acquired helped her reach a minimum viable visibility (the startup site

appeared as top result of the query Bee Nature in Belgium only after two years). She

achieved this through an accumulation of press coverage and Social Media activity.

However, today, there are still many aspects that she does not master and it is

impossible for her to keep updated with the numerous changes. She recognises that

this situation is not an optimal one and admits that a professional input is unavoidable

to capitalise on growth, but this requires extra resources.

Adrien Roose from Take Eat Easy (a platform that connects clients with close-‐by

restaurants for home delivery) explains that they initially managed the startup’s

AdWords campaigns themselves but they were rapidly overwhelmed by the time and

attention it required. He underlines that insufficient skill lead to expensive mistakes.

Trial-‐and-‐error is not applicable in SEA. Therefore, Take Eat Easy had no choice but to

outsource the activity to a specialised agency.

Regarding Social Media, Laurie Galazzo – community manager of the startup

AppTweak – explains how time-‐consuming her job is. Just on Twitter, Laurie spends a

lot of time favouring and retweeting positive tweets to increase engagement. By doing

so she expresses gratitude to the tweeters while showing the community members that

others are talking positively about the startup and inciting them to act alike. Building

an engaged audience that goes beyond the entrepreneur’s network takes several

months nay a couple of years she says. At first, 9 out of 10 posts are left without

response; patience and perseverance are key. With time, the audience builds up and

interactions gradually increase. To create this audience, Laurie has to meticulously

identify relevant influencers. This is done by checking follower profiles, comparing

individual Klout scores and assessing users’ online impact. As the community starts to

grow, time has to be spent to respond to users.

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The case of AppTweak is not an isolated one. At Djump, they have to reply to 80 emails

per day. Marine André from Bee Nature, takes time to answer every online question or

comment that concerns her startup. She reacts to press articles and responds to blog

posts or forum comments to represent the brand’s positioning and give an image of

proximity.

Blogging, with its many advantages, is yet another highly time-‐consuming activity.

Writing a 1500 word-‐long blog article takes up a day’s work102. Blog articles have to be

interesting while being consistent with startup sector. They have to be based on a

variety of sources and include current news topics. Regular postings involve active

quality content research. Therefore many startups end up using blogs irregularly. Bee

Nature and Djump, for instance, use their blogs only to communicate milestones like

press coverage or new product launching. At Take Eat Easy, blogging was considered

too time-‐consuming compared to the value the blog articles would add to the existing

communication and thus was left aside. Co-‐founders of Ginger started a blog but

quickly realised that maintaining activity on Facebook and Twitter left them no time

for blogging. In all cases, when choosing the relevant social media mix, one must make

sure one has the sufficient resources at hand to animate it. An inactive page or blog is

worse than nothing at all.

In short, human resources are essential to act out Web 2.0 marketing opportunities.

However, acquiring the appropriate expertise has a cost. Startups are faced with three

possibilities: outsource the activity (and entrusting a valuable activity to a third party),

hire an expert (and disburse the required budget) or have a team member devoted to

the job (and lose a hand for the day-‐to-‐day management). Composing the exceptional

team is a key success driver to harness the Web 2.0 opportunities, yet it incurs high

costs and is by far one of the most difficult challenges to overcome. Entrepreneurs

have to find the people with the appropriate experience, with common goals and

interests, and who accept to work in the constrained and risky startup environment.

102 Galazzo, L. (2014, 05 27). Interview of Laurie Galazzo, community manager at AppTweak. (M.-‐L. Cruyt, Intervieweur)

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C.1 In a word

The Web 2.0 new marketing strategies are people-‐intensive activities. While they

avoid costly material support expenses, they require substantial investment in the

appropriate human resources to capitalise on the opportunities they offer.

Consequently, expertise is needed if a startup is to grow using Web 2.0 technologies.

This mitigates the low-‐cost aspect of these marketing techniques while further

underlining the importance of building the right team for startup success, a non-‐

trivial obstacle to overcome.

D. Beyond generalities

“As a general rule, B2B marketing relies more heavily on rational–rather than emotional–

product or service benefits.”103

Even with the right team, Web 2.0 marketing strategies are not always applicable.

Although most them can be applied to a wide range of startups in both B2B and B2C

activities, there is no one-‐size-‐fit-‐all strategy. In some case these new marketing

approaches are not appropriate at all. A startup has to identify if a Web 2.0 presence is

relevant or not and, if so, how to nicely integrate Web 2.0 elements into its

communication and carefully pick out the most relevant media to focus on. This

entails a thorough understanding of Web 2.0 media, of the startup’s activity sector and

of its customer profile. A first difference can be made between B2C and B2B startups.

D.1 Web 2.0 marketing opportunities and B2C startups

Consumers spend more and more time online, therefore a web presence has become

increasingly important for B2C startups. As stated in part I, search engines constitute

an important means of information retrieval for consumers. However, not all products

are subject to Internet searches and thus Search Engine Marketing techniques are not

always relevant. For example, search engines and user-‐generated content appear to be 103 Henning, K. (2010, 10 21). B2C vs B2B Marketing: Do the Differences Really Matter? Consulté le 08 05, 2014, sur The Social CMO: http://www.thesocialcmo.com/blog/2010/10/b2c-‐vs-‐b2b-‐marketing-‐do-‐the-‐differences-‐really-‐matter/

93

the most influential sources of purchasing for high-‐tech electronics. Indeed, these

expensive items are subject to thorough research efforts before purchase and users

attach high importance to the feedback provided by other buyers. However, this is not

the case for low-‐involvement products such as household staples or fast-‐moving

consumer goods. For these products, investing in SEM is a less useful.

In the same line of idea, the increasing number of users present on social media has

opened huge opportunities in terms of community building for B2C marketers. Figure

23 illustrates the most important Social Networks considered by B2C marketers. Not

surprisingly, Facebook occupies a leading position in this respect.

Figure 23: Most important Social Networks to US B2C Marketers104

When it comes to startups, Tanguy Goretti from Djump, claims that Facebook was the

most appropriate platform to build the Djump community. Adrien Roose explains that

Take Eat Easy prefers to communicate on Facebook because the platform is adapted to

the startup’s appetising photo posts that animate its community of food lovers.

Community building is a central activity for many B2C startups. In this respect, Twitter

is a less appropriate medium. On Twitter, posts are impersonal and public, making it

impossible to create the sense of belonging that is key to any community. Twitter is

more relevant for sharing tips, good stories or favourable referrals.

For a multitude of B2C startups, it is also essential to give the brand a personality and

to create a universe around it. In this respect, visual platforms like Pinterest or

Instagram are perfectly adapted and storytelling through blogs serves to enhance

104 Stelzner, M. A. (2014). 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Social Media Examiner.

69%

10%

6%

6% 2% 2% 5% Facebook

Twitter

Blogging

LinkedIn

Google+

YouTube

Other

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consumer brand perception and immerse him into the brand’s universe. To illustrate,

Bee Nature uses Facebook and Instagram to create the Bee Nature universe of Organic

Honey for Beauty. Photos of nature, bees, natural honey, soft skin and colourful

products are regularly posted. Again, such a communication is not applicable to any

type of product. In some cases, blogs and photo-‐sharing platforms are completely

irrelevant.

As previously explained, sparking user engagement is essential in Social Media

Marketing, however it is not always appropriate for all businesses. For instance, travel

and financial services involve very personal and confidential information. This makes it

delicate for businesses in this sector to be active on social media and incite user

sharing even though they heavily rely on the web and search engines to acquire

customers. Ginger is also confronted with such confidentiality issues since dating

matters are perceived as intimate and not usually shared publicly. Therefore it is

difficult for the startup to engage with consumers through social media. As a

conclusion, even among B2C startups, the appropriate media mix is function of the

startup’s specific nature of activity and strategy.

D.2 Web 2.0 marketing opportunities and B2B startups

B2B marketing is often assimilated with offline marketing techniques such as direct

prospecting, press coverage and printed material. Yet, according to the Buyersphere

report from Base One of 2011 (a research carried out on more than a thousand B2B

decision-‐makers in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Belgium)105, supplier websites,

web searches and emails constitute primary sources of information for business buyers

in Europe. The results suggest that a strong web presence (especially in search

engines) is important for B2B businesses. Figure 24 illustrates the full results of the

report.

105 Base One. (2011). Buyersphere report 2011: The annual survey of changing B2B buyer behaviour.

95

INFORMATION SOURCE % INFORMATION SOURCE % Supplier websites 68 Online events/webinars 21

Web searches 65 Offline events/seminars 18

E-‐mails from suppliers 45 Facebook 15 Industry press (print) 40 Blogs 12 Word of mouth 33 Twitter 12

Direct mail 31 Linked In 10 Press advertising 27 Other social media 10

Figure 24: Percentage of business buyers using medium as source of information106

Based on these results, Social Media appears to be of much lesser importance in the

case of B2B activities. Nonetheless, a good content strategy through social media can

attract positive attention and build pre-‐awareness among the prospected business

clients. For example, AppTweak, uses social media to relay valuable information

focused on its domain of expertise. The startup tweets the latest App Store

Optimisation news and posts blog articles with helpful ASO tips to attract the

attention of businesses interested in the topic and draw-‐in prospects.

Regarding the most important social networks used by B2B marketers, LinkedIn comes

in first position (as opposed to Facebook for B2C). This supports that B2C and B2B

startups should consider Web 2.0 approaches differently. Linkedin is a great channel to

distribute content in a formal way to relevant business groups and to build

professional connections. Facebook comes in second position. Although this may seem

surprising, B2B marketers advance that Facebook is a very effective medium to target a

specific audience. Facebook is also a less solemn medium. AppTweak for instance,

despite being mainly present on Twitter, uses Facebook to give a more human touch to

the startup by posting lighter content such as pictures of team-‐building activities.

However, Facebook is not always relevant. Sortlist, drastically reduced its Facebook

communication efforts after realising that its clients were very active on Twitter but

barely used Facebook. In short, businesses have to identify which medium their clients

use the most frequently so as to intercept them in their daily activities. This highly

106 Base One. (2011). Buyersphere report 2011: The annual survey of changing B2B buyer behaviour.

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depends on sector of activity, explaining the more equal distribution of favoured social

platforms among B2B marketers (Figure 25) – as opposed to the favoured social

platforms of B2C marketers (Figure 23).

Figure 25: Most Important Social Networks to US B2B Marketers107

A further distinction can be made among B2B startups between those who have a few

clients of high value and those who have numerous clients. In the first case, Social

Media Marketing is of lesser importance and direct contact remains crucial in the

process of building a strong customer relationship. For example, Take Eat Easy

(B2B2C), only uses social media for its B2C communication. Restaurants are

approached based on a direct prospection. This ensures that the restaurants fulfil the

high quality standards advanced by the platform. On the other hand, many B2B

companies have an infinite number of clients, making direct prospection impossible

(e.g. Sortlist and AppTweak). In this case, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media

Marketing and Web Analytics are more appropriate.

D.3 In a word

The marketing opportunities opened by Web 2.0 depend on the startup’s sector of

activity. For B2C startups, a presence in search results is not relevant for all products

or services. Social media facilitates the creation of brand communities, however

privacy issues limits its suitability in certain situations. Concerning B2B startups, a

strong web presence is often of high importance and investing in Search Engine

Marketing techniques seems more relevant than Social Media Marketing techniques.

107 Stelzner, M. A. (2014). 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Social Media Examiner.

34%

31%

16%

11% 3% 3% 2% LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

Blogging

Google+

YouTube

Other

97

Nevertheless, a good inbound marketing strategy can attract valuable prospects

through social media. As a result, it is essential for a startup to identify which

strategies are best suited for its activity in order to to effectively benefit from them.

98

Conclusion

In conclusion, when considering the question “Web 2.0: a marketing opportunity for

startups?” the answer appears to be “Yes, but…”.

Web 2.0 offers new marketing possibilities that come at very affordable prices, slashing

marketing costs and reducing barriers to entry for startups. No upfront costs are

required to build a social media profile or start a blog and one can set-‐up an advert on

search engines with just a few dollars. As a result, these media appear as inexpensive

alternatives when compared to other more traditional channels such as television or

print advertising. Therefore, they are believed to mitigate the resource poverty that

constrains startups in their development, making startup fostering self-‐fundable.

Beyond the budgetary aspect, the marketing opportunities offered by Web 2.0 are also

perfectly in line with today’s popular lean startup methodology. The methodology

emphasises on the importance for entrepreneurs to accurately define their market.

Search engines, Social Media and Web Analytics constitute powerful targeting tools in

this respect. Moreover, by capitalising on user search queries, extracting users’ social

media profile information and tracking their online behaviour, entrepreneurs can fine-‐

tune their communication according to each specific market segment. As a

consequence, marketing is no longer perceived as disruptive by consumers but consists

in creating quality content that draws the attention of a particular interested audience.

Besides providing cost-‐effective hyper-‐targeting tools, Web 2.0 applications also offer

startups a very flexible and reactive environment to test their business model in a lean

way. In this respect, landing pages, online mock-‐up adverts and A/B testing methods

constitute great means to scalably test different messages, audiences and solutions.

Moreover, the participative aspect of Web 2.0 facilitates real-‐time feedback gathering.

Consumers can dynamically exchange with startups or with each other online through

social media, reviews, blogs or online communities. This favours value co-‐creation and

product co-‐development. Consequently, the learning cycle is accelerated and startups

99

can more rapidly adapt their vision to market needs without having to commit to a

certain path. Substantial sunk costs are avoided while ensuring better market success.

Once Product-‐Market fit is achieved, startups have to scale. Again, Web 2.0 offers

unprecedented opportunities in terms of growth. Presence in search results extends

exposure to a global market. Social media grant automatic mechanisms and easy

sharing methods that spread content virally (the famous “Like” or “Retweet” buttons).

Word of mouth is further amplified by exploiting users’ extended online network or

capitalising on the potential of online influencers. Together, these elements help

startups jump the leap from early to mainstream market.

Yet, there is a “but…”. It is precisely the fact that these technologies are affordable and

accessible to all that limits the opportunities they represent for startups. As the

barriers of entry are lowered, competition is intensified and the Internet has rapidly

become a winner-‐take-‐all environment. Therefore, whilst the technologies can be used

amateurishly in early development phases, marketing strategies such as Search Engine

Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Web Analytics have to be carried out

professionally if a startup wishes to achieve a leading position and reap results. Specific

know-‐how and expertise is required to appear in top organic search results, to execute

a fruitful search advertising campaign, to implement a credible communication

strategy, to build and animate a community of engaged customers, to produce valuable

content and to retrieve decisive insights from big-‐data. Consequently, Web 2.0 has

further pressurized the importance of building a cross-‐functional team in the art of

startup success. Startups who fail to invest in the necessary competences will fail to

harness the growth potentialities offered by Web 2.0 marketing strategies. This

markedly mitigates the financial advantage these strategies are believed to present.

In addition, the marketing strategies introduced by Web 2.0 must-‐have strategies and

startups that improperly implement them hinder their success probability. Indeed, the

pre-‐eminence of the web in users’ lives makes it an essential channel to integrate in the

marketing mix. Presence on social media and search engines is indispensable to

100

respond to empowered, demanding consumers who expect to be involved in

businesses’ activities.

Finally, one must keep in mind that Web 2.0 marketing techniques come as

complements of the traditional methods. Multi-‐channel communication is imperative

therefore, although the web appears as the most cost-‐effective marketing strategy in

the early stages of startup development, investment in other channels is inevitable. In

this respect, it is essential for a startup to carefully pick the most appropriate

communication mix according to its activity, strategy and customer profile, so as to

optimise resources while keeping in mind that not all Web 2.0 solutions are applicable

to every situation.

In a word, Web 2.0 has opened amazing opportunities for entrepreneurs to test and

enhance burgeoning ideas. The process of hypothesis testing is facilitated, ensuring a

leaner go-‐to-‐market itinerary. However, the fierce competition online results into an

elitist distribution system in which only a handful of leaders receive the bulk of user

attention. Therefore, investment in the right competences is indispensable and

mitigates the cut-‐rate aspect of Web 2.0 marketing strategies. As a result, startups are

urged to pursue a niche domination strategy so as to optimally concentrate their

resources and gain top position in their market area.

As the interactive web becomes an omnipresent marketing channel, the Internet is

already shifting towards new horizons. In a few years time, the mobile Internet will

overtake the fix Internet, giving rise to a whole new panel of marketing practices. This

introduces the emergence of Web 3.0, one of artificial intelligence in which smart

objects communicate with powerful software that can manipulate, structure and

interpret data from numerous sources in such a way that human intervention is no

longer required. Further marketing opportunities will be unveiled and their impact on

entrepreneurship constitutes a thought-‐provoking field for future research.

101

Appendix

A. Appendix 1: The abuses of Search Engine Marketing

A.1 Google Bombing

Google bombers manipulate the page rank system to tarnish the reputation of a page

by linking it with deteriorating keywords. When many pages link towards the same

page using the same keywords, the pointed page may appear in results of these

keywords even if they don’t appear on the page itself. Firms have to protect themselves

from such negative links that can seriously damage their reputation. Sébastien

François, Partner and Operations Director from Universem, a specialised digital

marketing agency, recounts the story of a client who was going through a crisis and

suffered from bad press links. The firm had to undertake a series of SEO and SEA

techniques to protect its brand image and mitigate negative word-‐of-‐mouth. Sébastien

François advances that these techniques are simply the adaption of PR online

communication. They fulfil the same role: inform stakeholders of what the firm is

doing to tackle the issue.

A.2 Black hat techniques “Black-‐hat” techniques are practices that violate the guidelines published by search

engines. They can occur on-‐page or off-‐page. On-‐page black-‐hat techniques consist in

providing content that is only destined to be read by the search engine while users are

directed to a completely different area. Concerning off-‐page techniques, the influence

of backlinks in determining a site’s relevancy has led to the creation of a link market

where specialised firms sell links to clients willing to raise their rankings. Such

practices are of high risk and can result into serious penalties or cause a site to be

blacklisted from search results. As Google states: “Google may temporarily or

permanently ban any site or site authors that engage in tactics designed to distort their

rankings or mislead users in order to preserve the accuracy and quality of our search

results.”108 Web marketers have to be aware of such techniques as they directly affect

the rankings of legitimate sites. Moreover, firms should be extremely precautious when 108 Malaga, R. A. (2008, 12). Worst Practices in Search Engine Optimization. Communications of the ACM , 51 (12), pp. 147-‐150.

102

outsourcing their SEM to an agency as some use such practices in order to deliver

strong results. Sébastien François relates the case of a client that had entrusted its SEO

to another consultant firm and was victim of black-‐hat practices. As search engines

unveiled the fraud, the firm suffered from a rank lowering so strong that the company

didn’t even appear in the search results of its own brand name. This dramatically

affected the company’s traffic and sales. The firm had no other option but to do a big

AdWords campaign on Google to appear at least once in sponsored results.

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B. Appendix 2: Further details on the new 2.0 competences

B.1 Content Strategist The content strategist, as its name suggests, is responsible for defining the content

strategy of a firm. This involves identifying the appropriate media to reach target

audience, setting the social media objectives, establishing a content plan and

measuring return based on defined KPIs.

B.1.1 Identifying the appropriate media

There are numerous different types of Social Media, each one with its own specificities

that directly influence user characteristics and behaviour. To choose the most relevant,

a firm has to take into account both its activity and its customer profile. For example,

Pinterest – a visual network through which people create and share collections of

photos – is a very promising media for a company active in the fashion industry. In

terms of targeted audience, a firm has to identify which networks potential customers

use so as to intercept them in their daily activities. In this respect, it is helpful to define

personas and, for each profile, single out the media that is the most relevant.

B.1.2 Setting objectives and content plan

Social Media can be used for many purposes: increase brand awareness, motivate

actions from consumers (share photos, take part in contests etc.), strengthen brand

likability, enhance customer experience etc. Consequently, a company has to set

formal objectives that reflect the essence of its Social Media presence. The objectives

will directly affect the strategy to adopt and enable the company to assess failure or

success of its Social Media communication. Once the goals are clearly defined, the

content strategist can establish a content plan. This consists in defining guidelines for

the content producers. Posts have to be consistent and follow a general code of

conduct while being adapted to each channel. For every medium, it is important to set

the right tone and agree upon post-‐type, post-‐frequency and post-‐intention. For

example, Starbucks mainly uses Facebook to post attractive product images, videos,

surveys and coupons. Response to user comments is low. However, on Twitter, the

firm mainly focuses on responding to mentions and customer service queries making it

a more interactive medium than the Starbucks Facebook page. Starbucks also has a

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thriving Pinterest account through which it shares fantastic images almost entirely

from third-‐party sites. The objective is not to push images of the brand or its products

but rather invite users in a cosy coffee universe109.

B.1.3 Measuring return

Measuring return is about keeping track of all the Social Media used in

communication, determining appropriate criteria and tools of success assessment,

confronting results with fixed objectives, and adapting consequently. Impact of social

media presence on sales is unclear and complex to monitor. Therefore, measurement

systems are of crucial importance as they ensure that online activity is relevant and

effective. In this respect, pertinent KPIs should be determined and regularly reviewed.

Effective KPIs should take into account the following aspects110:

• Content consumption (who reads the content)

• Content engagement (who interacts with the content)

• Content sharing (who spreads the content)

• Content loyalty (subscriptions, regular users)

Most social media sites provide their own tools with relevant indicators. However,

these remain imprecise. For instance, the number of Facebook likes or Twitter

followers only indicates the number of potential readers. Nothing guarantees that

users actually read the posts. Moreover, when activity is spread across various media, it

is difficult to have a global view and compare results from one channel to another. It is

the content strategist’s role to measure and optimise Social Media return.

B.2 Community Manager

A community manager is responsible for building and managing the company’s

community. The position is a time-‐consuming one that requires expertise. Community

managers have to produce adequate content, engage with users, relentlessly scan the

Internet for new content or brand mentions, participate in numerous overlapping

conversations and react to comments and feedback. Community management is a

109 Moth, D. (2013, 03 06). How Starbucks uses Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Consulté le 07 14, 2014, sur Econsultancy: https://econsultancy.com/blog/62281-‐how-‐starbucks-‐uses-‐pinterest-‐facebook-‐twitter-‐and-‐google#i.1kv0aqn15ale7t 110 Tuten, T. L. (2008). Advertising 2.0 : social media marketing in a Web 2.0 world. Westport: Praeger.

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human-‐to-‐human activity. Therefore, human resources are indispensable and

interactions cannot be automatized since the objective is to create authentic and long-‐

term relations with users.

B.2.1 Animating the community

A community is not just about size; it is about member activity. Community managers

have to cultivate customer interest and frequently publish engaging content to

animate the social profile, page or blog. The challenge is to get users to feel involved

and motivate them to interact. Engagement enables to create a bond between user and

brand, and ultimately aims to convert the user into a brand ambassador. In this

respect, it is important to constantly ask users for their feedback. Users appreciate

participation and Social Media makes it easy for them to share their opinion.

Engagement also increases exposure as engaged ambassadors spread the message

(share of post, retweets etc.) and social sites’ algorithms attribute higher reach to

engaging content.

To appear animated, Social Media communication has to be frequent. Depending on

the media, content has to published on a weekly, daily nay hourly basis. Community

managers spend a good portion of their time scanning the Internet for relevant articles

and newsfeeds to share. Fortunately, affordable tools exist. To cite a few:

• Buffer is an application that enables to schedule posts. This is particularly useful

for micro-‐blogging sites such as Twitter where postings are frequent (around 10

a day). Buffer has the advantage of generating a special link that tracks the

number of clicks and thus enables to monitor user attraction.

• Hootsuite is a social dashboard that helps coordinate multiple network

activities.

• Klout is a site that helps firms find interesting articles based on a set of

keywords. For each article, insights on the user interest they generate are given.

• Mention enables firms to be alerted and locate mentions of specific keywords.

These tools come at very interesting prices that go up as the demand grows. For

instance, Buffer is free up to a certain number of postings per month. For an average of

106

250 tweets per month, a company will pay around 10$/month. To be complete, the

community manager should also have a list of relevant websites that are closely related

to company domain. His role is then to fetch the most pertinent content from all over

the web and share it in a timely manner to the community. With the content in hand,

the community manager then has to adapt it according to the media. One does not

express himself the same way on Twitter (short and to-‐the-‐point) as he does on

Facebook (visual and media enriched) or on a blog (in-‐depth).

Spreading brand message through influencers and ambassadors is another key task of

the community manager. He is constantly tracking buzz content to capitalise on the

virality of Social Media. Yet, making a buzz is not so simple. Content has to be funny,

authentic and play with user emotions. It is extremely difficult to find such media

while remaining consistent with brand domain. Moreover, there is always a risk of a

buzz turning into a bad buzz. Virality is unpredictable and results from a combination

of factors that are difficult to grasp.

B.2.2 Responding to users

Besides gathering and engaging with the community members, community managers

also have to interact with them. Being responsive is of utmost priority. This is true in

case of both positive and negative feedback. On the Internet, people share their

thoughts more freely, this implies that they also criticise more easily. The way a

company responds to negative feedback is determining. The focus is not to convince

the unhappy customer but rather to defend the brand in public. Genuine conversations

often turn unfavourable comments into positive customer interaction. For example111, a

blogger was frustrated by his Lenovo ThinkPad and started to complain about it on his

blog. Lenovo was notified about this and answered the blogger with a promise to

resolve the product issue. The blogger was impressed by the company’s rapid response

and shared his pleasure on his blog. The story was then shared with other bloggers and

resulted in a widespread conversation benefiting the Lenovo brand. It can also be a

fruitful learning experience as firms learn what dissatisfies customers and which

aspects of the product or service should be improved. Nevertheless, negative stories

111 Tuten, T. L. (2008). Advertising 2.0 : social media marketing in a Web 2.0 world. Westport: Praeger.

107

can spread like fire online, therefore quick response is vital. To assure real-‐time

reaction, companies have to constantly scrutinize the web for mentions of their name.

Web wake is yet another role of the community manager. Useful applications like

Mention.com alert clients when something is being said about them, enabling instant

intervention.

B.2.3 The Community Manager Profile

Being a community manager requires a collection of skills.

• Social: the community manager has to be open-‐minded and easily connect with

people. Although his communication is led from behind a computer screen,

people expect to engage with a person; therefore the community manager

speaks for the startup but in his name. He has to show a human aspect.

• Attentive: the community manager listens to what users have to say and he is

constantly on the lookout for new information. He is always up-‐to-‐date

regarding the startup’s domain of expertise and provides valuable content. His

creativity leads him to try new approaches to engage with readers. His high

connectivity also enables him to react instantly.

• Patient: the community manager is perseverant when building the community.

He takes time to understand the implicit rules of each medium and knows how

to use the right tools correctly. He is familiar with Social Media.

• Unafraid: the community manager should not be susceptible. He doesn’t fear

hollow posts that are left without response. Trial and error is part of the fine-‐

tuning process.

In a word, the community manager has to combine the adequate Social Media skills

with a deep knowledge of the startup’s mission, culture and objectives. This makes it a

difficult position to outsource. Community management is about long-‐term

commitment: content is regularly and consistently refreshed; links and relations are to

be maintained as dialogue is continuous and cannot be broken. The post cannot be

subjected to periodic mission contracts.

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C. Appendix 3: The Business Model Canvas Framework

The Business Model Canvas is a lean startup template that constitutes a powerful

strategic management tool. It was coined by Alexander Osterwalder based on his work

Business Model Ontology. The entrepreneur is encouraged to fill the canvas based on

the hypotheses he has stated. The template offers a quick overview of the startup’s

value proposition, infrastructure, targeted segment and finances and makes it possible

to redesign and challenge the initial business model.

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E. Interviews

E.1 Interviewed experts

Sébastien François Partners and Operations Director of Universem (Web Marketing Agency expert in SEM and Web Analytics) Interviewed on the 12th April 2014

Baudouin de Troostemberg Business Developer at SocialCom (Specialised Agency in social network communication for SMEs) Interviewed on the 22nd April 2014

Olivier Verdin Coach at Solvay Entrepreneurs (Training and coaching services for entrepreneurs) Interviewed on the 5th May 2014

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Damien Van Achter Journalist entrepreneur specialised in social media Interviewed on the 23rd June 2014

Laurie Galazzo Community Manager at AppTweak (startup that provides instant App marketing reports) Interviewed on the 27th May 2014

Philippe Biltiau Entrepreneur and Director of the Executive Master in Marketing and Advertising Interviewed on the 30th of Junefor 2014

E.2 Interviewed Entrepreneurs

Nicolas Finet Co-‐founder of Sortlist (Web platform that helps find marketing and communication agencies in major cities) Interviewed on the 16th April 2014

Marine André Founder of Bee Nature (Organic cosmetics made of natural bee honey) Interviewed on the 25th April 2014

Nicolas Debray Co-‐founder and managing director of Semetis (Digital Advertising Agency expert in SEM and Web Analytics) Interviewed on the 28th April 2014

Margaux Seghin and Nauscicaa Thedotos Founders of Ginger (Conceptual dating mobile application) Interviewed on the 14th May 2014

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Adrien Roose Co-‐founder and CEO of Take Eat Easy (online platform for home-‐delivery of quality restaurant courses) Interviewed on the 28th May 2014

Tanguy Goretti Co-‐founder and CEO of Djump (a social ridesharing mobile application) Interviewed on the 1st June 2014