DohertyWhite Digital Marketing For Startups May 2012

Digital Marketing forStartups How to use Digital Marketing to Generate Leads and Acquire New Customers 26 May 2012 Michael White

Outcomes from today’s seminarDigital marketing is essential to promote your business… 2

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups  How to generate leads, drive sales and increase revenue using Online Marketing  Today when people want to buy something the first place they look is the web, whether they’re looking for shoes, a car or a house or a technology product  You need to make sure they find you when they come looking for your type of product  You need to make sure that when they find you they take an action that’s useful e.g. subscribe, buy, register ...  We’re going to look at the overall approach and the tools you use Product?

Outcomes from today’s seminarAt the end of today you should know … 1. Why Digital Marketing is important for startups 2. How you can get started 3. A structure you can use – start, middle, end 4. How to prioritize what you should do first 5. Practical examples – Google ads, blog email, Facebook etc. 6. Where to look for help 4

About Us We help technology companies generate leads online and convert those leads to sales. We provide consultancy on: • Online marketing – we help you with SEO, Google ads, email, social media • Website design – we design and implement search optimized sites • Marketing content – white papers, videos, presentations, blogs, images, product guides • Social Media – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Slideshare We are developing a SaaS system to support: • Marketing automation – online lead generation, capture, score, nurture, allocate

About Us What we do Generate more leads at the top of the sales funnel using online marketing – email, Google pay-per-click, social media and PR Use simple techniques to filter and process these leads more effectively so you generate more sales

About Us • Co-founder and Director of DohertyWhite since 2010 • Enterprise Ireland mentor to 25+ early stage firms • Ex Head of Marketing at Singularity – helped double revenue in 2 years, won the Irish Software Association Sales Achievement award 2008, 3 Gartner Magic Quadrants • We’re also a startup - building our own software system – Enterprise Ireland client, Propel Michael program White • Senior Product Manager at Siemens (electronic security products) 2001 to 2005 • Also Senior Business Analyst with Elavon, Management Consultant with Deloitte & Touche, Product Manager with Marrakech, Implementation Manager with Misys Corporation (Kindle Banking Systems), software developer with AIB Bank • Trinity College Dublin Computer Science (1990), Post-Grad Dip. Computing (2004)

1 Online Marketing Strategies for Customer Acquisition

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups Your priorities as a startup 1. Confirm someone will buy your product / service 2. Build the first version of the product (prototype) 3. Get your first customer

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups First - What is Marketing? Make something people want, then sell it to them ? Me My potential customers • 1. Make sure your product meets the needs of your target customers • 2. Promote that product effectively to those customers

Digital Marketing Strategies for Startups What is Digital Marketing? Press ads Radio Direct Mail Offline PR Marketing Website Online Google ads Social Media Email

Why is Digital Marketing important? Because this is the way businesses buy today In a survey of 4000 B2B buyers in the US, 80% of those buyers said they found the vendor, not the other way round. Source: MarketingSherpa – “B2B Technology Marketing Benchmark Survey 2008” • Buyers are doing most of their initial research online before initiating conversations with vendors and are better informed at an earlier stage. • This means that by the time your sales people are aware of a prospect they will already have visited your website, downloaded your product information, looked at competing websites and checked out the product category on blogs and social networks • Were moving from a focus on traditional techniques like press advertising, mail shots and cold calling, to techniques based on websites, online ‘pay-per-click’ advertising and ‘content-based’ marketing. 12

Why is Digital Marketing important? Because your website is the top source of leads outside of personal connections Source: DemandBase and Focus.com 2011 Survey of B2B IT and marketing professionals 13

Why is Digital Marketing important? Because your website is the top source of leads outside of personal connections Source: BuyerSphere Report 2011 (survey of B2B buyers in Europe) 14

Why focus on Digital Marketing? Sources of information used by US engineers for a specific recent purchase Source: MarketingSherpa – “B2B Technology Marketing Benchmark Survey 2008” • This is true for technology buyers in particular – they search online both at the research phase and during vendor selection • Will they find you, and will they find you compelling when they do? How will you compare with the other firms they find?

Why focus on Digital Marketing? Because this is a natural progression of how sales work 1950s to Sales teams find and persuade the buyers 1990s Buyers start to search online, find product 1997 information from multiple vendors 2006 Buyers confer with each other via online networks 2009 Sales now use online tools to prospect, generate and qualify leads Marketing Automation 16

Digital Marketing for B2B is Different from B2C • The difference isn’t always clear cut • But generally these differences are true B2B B2C Higher value e.g. > €10k Lower value e.g. < 1k High consideration - more evaluation Lower consideration – evaluation is faster required Perceived risk – so reducing this risk is Low risk important for buyers Complexity of product is greater e.g. large Generally less complex – clothes, food, software system, machinery – so need to tickets (but exceptions e.g. cars, laptops, educate buyers on features, differentiators some software products) Longer, multi-phase sales cycle – can be up Immediate – transaction occurs quickly (e.g. to 18 months purchasing consumer goods, books) Multiple participants on buyer side (e.g. One buyer financial manager, users, IT dept) Executive involvement – may require sign- Buyer decides for themselves off from senior staff or head office Branding / emotional appeal less important Branding / emotional appeal very important 17

But for both B2B and B2C, buyers find you online … • In B2C, you use online marketing to bring someone to your site so they will purchase something directly, right now Buy Now • In B2B, you use online marketing to bring someone to your site so they will register for White something (a white paper, free trial ...). Paper • Once you have their contact details, you set up a Download regular communication with them to build up their interest, qualify them as sales opportunities and persuade them to buy later 18

The overall approach Understand who you are targeting (your buyers) – what are their 1 roles, which companies do they work for, where are they, what is important to them, how do you connect with them? 2 What are you selling – what does your product and service do for them, what is your value proposition for these buyers? ? How do you compare with competitors – which ones are worth 3 focusing on, how do you differentiate from them? Generate ‘content’ – based on your understanding of the 4 buyers, create information that your target buyers will find useful e.g. Case studies, white papers, research surveys, how to guides ... Drive traffic to that content using PPC, email, SEO, PR, social 5 media 6a B2C – Sell your product(s) now 6b B2B - Capture contact details in exchange for your content Build a relationship with those people over time via your content, 7 website, social media and email so they learn and understand your 19 proposition, answer their concerns and select you as their best choice

The overall approachExample • Siemens project – acquire customers for a new consulting service • Value proposition – reduced capital costs, reduced operational costs, ease of access to IT systems • Buyers – CIOs, Directors of IT at top 500 companies in Ireland with more than 300 staff • Content – created a white paper called “Migrating to Microsoft in the Cloud” • Drive traffic – used targeted email offering the white paper, plus Google ads and PR • Capture details – 265 contacts with targeted profile after 4 weeks, 25 leads, 10 prospects Visitor gets white paper Email and google ads Website registration page Siemens gets contact details of visitor

If you remember one thing … Web traffic + Content = Customers 21

2. Your Value Proposition 22

Three steps to acquire customers A B C “What are you selling?” “Who are you selling to?” “How will you sell?” Your Value Proposition Your target buyers Your acquisition process You need to look at this first – no point running a perfect marketing campaign for a product that’s not going to sell 23

What is Your Value Proposition A “What are you selling?” Your Value Proposition If you can’t demonstrate superior value then customers will choose based on price 24

What is Your Value Proposition A B C “Who are you selling “How will you sell?” “What are you selling?” to?” Your Value Proposition Your target buyers Your acquisition process Answer these questions  Why should I buy something from you?  What value does your product provide to me?  How much is that worth to me – money, time saved, other benefits?  How quickly can I see the value your system delivers?  Why is your product better than other similar products?  Why is your product better than what I do at the moment?  Can you show me examples of your system delivering value?  Focus on the results you produce rather than what you do 25

Value Proposition  1. Why should I buy something from you?  2. “What do you want to be famous for?”  3. How do people describe you when you’re not in the room?  Who is this for?  What is the need it addresses?  How do you solve that need / problem?  Is this unique to you? (This isn’t a deal breaker)  Your unique capability produces what result for me?  What impact will it have ? (Money, time saved ...)  Can you give me an example (I want evidence)?  How long will it take?  What about the obvious alternative? (Do nothing, manual, competitor)  Is this value proposition sustainable (i.e. will it still be true next year?)  “What results you produce for me” rather than “What you do “  Can you describe this in a few sentences on a web-page or when talking to a prospect? E.g. Motorway billboard (= your website) 26

Value Proposition  List out what you think you can do that makes you unique  Then go ask your existing customers what they think is the unique value you provide 27

Value Proposition and The Market  Are you selling the right product for the market, sectors and buyers you are targeting?  Are you monitoring the environment in which you operate and the impact this may have on your product, your customers and your to-to-market approach?  E.g. Increased use of iPads/smartphones, SaaS, regulatory changes, competitor acquisitions, new standards Feature gathering and product definition 28

Value Proposition and “The Whole Product” “Whole product” Not just the technology, but the surrounding services  Are you selling the “whole product”  This is the “stuff” that surrounds your technology such as training, videos, online help, good support, partner technologies, integrations 29

Value Proposition – NOSE framework  Tom Sant’s NOSE framework is a structure you can use to help sell your Value Proposition  Describe your value proposition using this 4 step format  Need - what is the need the customer is experiencing today?  Outcome – what could tomorrow look like if things could be improved, what great results could be achieved?  Solution – what is your solution?  Evidence – can you show evidence of where you’ve done this before?  Search for ‘Tom Sant’ on Google to get other presentations and resources on value propositions, effective sales communication and writing proposals. 30

Understand Your Buyers 31

Understand your buyers A B C “What are you selling?” “Who are you selling to?” “How will you sell?” Your Value Proposition Your target buyers Your acquisition process 32

Understandproblem The your buyersWhy can’t I market to everybody? • People are tempted to try to market to all potential users • You worry that if you focus on one group or one geography you will exclude the others • This is wrong for a couple of reasons: – Limited promotional budget – you have a fixed amount of money to spend on promotion. Concentrating that spend on a clearly defined target group will produce better results than spreading it thinly across multiple potential target groups – Trying to be all things to all people generally doesn’t work when launching a new product. If you designed a car that tried to appeal to young families, men in their 20s and elderly women, you would end up with a mishmash that appeals to no-one. The same is usually true with technology products. You should focus your product and promotion on one or two sectors for your launch. 33

Understandproblem The your buyers Define who you are targeting Use some logic when picking your first target customers Use “Personas” as a tool to understand them Talk directly to customers to find out what they need Don’t make assumptions without verifying them Don’t be smarter than your customers 34

Understandproblem The your buyers “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself” Peter Drucker 35

Who Are Your Target Buyers? A B C “Who are you selling “How will you sell?” “What are you selling?” to?” Your Value Proposition Your target buyers Your acquisition process Who are your buyers?  Where are they (countries, languages)  What industry sectors? TIP:  What types of organisation? Size, location ... Use “Buyer Personas” as a way to  Any specific target companies? analyze your target buyers. These are  What are their typical roles or titles? summary descriptions of your most  How does your system relate to their job? common target buyers based on interviews (phone or in-person) with a  What are their key concerns/drivers/goals? sample of customers and prospects.  What are their demographics?  Where do they hang out online?  What sources of information do they use? 36

Understand your buyers • Who you are targeting – what kinds of organisations? • Who are your favourite customers? • Answer these questions and develop an “ideal customer profile” • Industry sector e.g. Pharma, Finance, Government, Medical Device • Location – Ireland, UK, Germany, US etc. • Size – staff numbers • Size – revenue • Particular characteristics that make these companies attractive • Understand the buyers within those organisations - “Buyer Persona Analysis”. • A description of a ‘typical’ person in that role at your major customer e.g. Finance manager, sales director, MD ...

Understand your buyers Ideal customer profile – current customers Think of one of your favourite customers • Why are they ideal? - Size, revenue, long-term relationship, good interaction, they value your product and service .... • Sector, Organisation size, Location • Top 5 roles e.g. Who is usually your champion/ economic buyer / technical evaluator / purchasing / users • Budget • Why do they buy from you? • What objections do they bring up? • Why do your customers stay with you? • When do they buy from you – “Trigger events” – e.g. new senior manager appointed, new product announced ...

Understand your buyers Buyer Personas • A way to ‘step into the shoes’ of your prospective buyers • Similar to “design personas” used by web designers, and aligns with Agile approach to user centred product design • ‘Personas’ are aggregate descriptions of 4 to 5 typical buyers you are going to meet on a regular basis – your ‘imaginary friends’ • Some common ‘types’ e.g. General managers, sales managers, day-to-day users • Interview sample buyers in each sector you target e.g. Compliance Manager, Sales Manager, HR Manager ... • What are their key concerns and drivers? How do they describe their job? • Where do you fit into their overall picture? Are you a big part of their typical day? • What is their “compelling reason to buy” your products and services? • What would stop them from buying your services? • What do they read, where do they gather information, who influences them?

Understand your buyers Example Buyer Personas Examples: IMEC customer driven by EPA breaches, Mergon customer focused on med device certification, Rocudo and Facebook usage

Understand your buyers Buyer Process Scenarios • Take the Buyer Personas • Based on real conversations with customers and prospects, walk each ‘Persona’ through an example sales process • Plot out the interactions, the points where the persona is likely to ask for assistance or information, and who/where they get that assistance from • Document the kind of information they need at each point • Identify who they interact with during the decision process • Identify what 3rd party sources they consider important e.g. Forrester, Gartner

What content will interest your Buyers? “Bait” Content Strategy  Digital Marketing is like fishing – you need the correct bait to attract your fish  Different buyers have different information needs at each stage of the buying process  So, if you identify 3 to 4 typical buyers – General Manager, Sales & Marketing Director, Head of Compliance ...  Develop content that meets the information needs of these buyers at different stages of their buying cycle  This will be used as online “bait” to bring them to your website Information Needs Types of content Customer Awareness: Consideration: Decision: • Case studies Type Exploratory Deeper Final steps • Research Information • Education e.g. User FAQs, tours Product guides Tutorials slides and tutorials • Tours and Economic buyer Overviews Webinars, Analyst white papers, reviews, case overviews ROI examples studies • How to tips …. …. …. …. • News • Thought leadership 42

Understand your buyers Target and prospect lists

Your Website –The Foundation for Customer Acquisition 44

Your Website1 2 3 4 Persuade them to Convince them to Bring people Persuade them to sign-up for a Free renew each year – (traffic) to pay for your Trial or download retain your your website service content customers Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention 1 2 3 4 Traffic Conversion Purchase Retention 45

Your WebsiteYour web-site The most important marketing tool you have Your best sales-person 24/7/365 A sales lead generation machine  Home page is the most Drive visitors to your site important page Get them to take “Most wanted action”  Structure, text  Drive your visitors to take an action  Provide downloads and prominent ‘buy now’ offers  Look at competitor sites for comparison  Make most of the page ‘clickable’  Use ‘personas’ to guide design  Implement on well known CMS – e.g. Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal

Your WebsiteChecklist “Outside In” – make sure your website reflects your target customers Design for Search – Mobile – Social Value Proposition is clear Easy to find information Clear “Calls to Action” - CTAs Trust – make it clear you are trustworthy Evidence – proof that you can do what you say you do Measure and analyse traffic and visitor behaviour Competitor analysis – look at their websites, keywords, messaging, value proposition

Your Website 1. The WebsiteWhat to include on your site  Have you adequately provided this information on the site?  Have you described what you do, who you target, case studies, about us biographies ...

Your Website Have plenty of “bait” on your site B2B - Documents, presentations, content that people will want to download Ask for their email address and name in return for downloads B2C - special offers, buy now (if B2C online sales) In both cases, product videos are a great promotional tools

Your WebsiteRedesigning an existing site Define what you want to achieve by the redesign Measure current figures for visitors, sales, leads Audit your site – list all existing pages, incoming links to your pages, documents ... http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ will list the pages on your site http://www.seoprofiler.com/analyze/yoursite.com and www.seomoz.org/linkscape to check how many sites link to you Make sure none of these pages and links are lost when you move to the new site Use “301 redirects” to ensure links to old pages are redirected to the corresponding new page e.g. www.mysite.com/oldpage -> www.mysite.com/newpage Measure the performance of the new site e.g. using Google Analytics Test different versions of a page – what’s known as A/B testing – to see which one works better with your visitors

Your WebsiteRedesigning an existing site

Your The Website 1. WebsiteWebsite recap Reflect your buyer in the web-page design (‘outside in, not inside out’) – use “Buyer Personas” Make it easy for visitors to accomplish goals e.g. find information, contact you (put your number on the home page), get you to contact them (call back button), search Think about your “Most Wanted Actions” – what do you want them to do? If you want them to do something (go to a section of the site, download content, buy something) then make it obvious and easy Keep your website design and structure simple and easy to navigate Use conventions where possible e.g. ‘home’ at the top left and on company logo Provide ‘bait’ on each page – downloadable content If you are doing a redesign, make sure to carry over your existing “web assets” – pages and links Monitor your site with Google analytics or similar system

Your The Website 1. WebsiteWebsite resources “Don’t make me think” by Steve Krug HubSpot (www.hubspot.com) – search for “Science of website redesign” and “Website Design Tips and Tricks 2010” Jakob Nielsen, Usability Bulletin www.use-it.com Personas – “About Face: the essentials of interaction design” by Alan Cooper et al MarketingExperiments.com – provide regular statistics on website tests “The Art of SEO” by Eric Enge, Rand Fishkin et al – advice on good website design for search engine optimization

Google Ads 54

Google Ads1. The Website  Quick way to get traffic to your site  Tell Google which search terms you want to be found for  E.g. show my ad when someone searches for ‘industrial fuel pumps’  Only pay if someone clicks on my ad  Create specific ‘landing’ page for the ad  Avg. 50c per click, can set maximum daily/weekly budget  Can lock down by geography, time, day

Google Ads 1 Keyword analysis Your ad text Why we’re great 2 Ad text Call us now! www.mywebsite.com 3 Landing page Campaign set-up – budget, geography Name Keyword analysis – what are people searching for Email Ad text – variants Download Bids and cost-per-click Bid management Broadmatch, exact match, negative keywords Keyword insertion

Google AdsKeyword selection Think about how visitors search for your product or service Thousands of ways people search for things, but usually fall into a category :  The actual question they have e.g. “how do I fix a broken pipe”  The answer to the question e.g. “plumbers in Galway”  A description of the problem e.g. “broken water pipe in kitchen”  A symptom of the problem e.g. “flooded kitchen”  A description of the cause e.g. “frozen pipes”  Producer parts or brand names e.g. Bosch, Philips For each product, think how people might search for it, using the above as a guide Use Google’s free Keyword Tool to help generate more keywords Sort by “volume of searches” and “level of competition” Break them into groups of 20 to 30 keywords and put them in Ad Groups

Google AdsWriting your ad To get started, search for your targeted terms and monitor what ads are displayed Draft 4 to 5 versions of the ad to begin with Run multiple versions of your ads, monitoring which ones work the best

Google Ads design 2. Landing pageConvert your visitors! – Landing Pages  Rule #1: Avoid unnecessary distractions – push visitor to your “Most Wanted Action”  Be consistent with the ad or email that brought your visitor here, including keywords, logos and other images  Spell out your Value Proposition and the benefits of this particular offer and have a clear call to action  Remove any unnecessary navigation  Try to keep registration fields to a minimum e.g. Name and email  “A/B” test 2 versions of landing page to see which works best  Use Google analytics to monitor conversions

Google Ads design 2. Landing pageMonitor and improve your ads Click through rate Average cost per click

Google Ads design 2. Landing pageGeneral approach Choose your topic “themes” - the main things you want to get found for e.g. Web Design, Digital Marketing, Compliance, Video Learning Generate keywords under each theme – the more the better – using Google keyword tool Structure your keywords into “Ad Groups” of 30 to 40 Create multiple text ads per ad group Monitor  “impressions” per keyword i.e. How many times the ad is shown  Clicks per keyword  Clicks per ad  Cost per click  Clickthrough Rate (CTR) per ad

Google Ads design 2. Landing pageGoogle ad resources  “Advanced Google AdWords” by Brad Geddes  “Optimizing landing pages for lead generation” – HubSpot  Unbounce.com – landing page optimization tool  Google WebSite Optimizer  WiderFunnel.com  WhichTestWon.com  ConversionScientist.com

Social Media 63

Social Media • Why will people share your status updates? • What do you want to happen when they do?

Social Media – BlogBlogs• What? Basically like a website that you can easily edit and update• Why? Draws more traffic to your web-site, leads, sales• Can form the basis for your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter marketing• Allows readers to provide feedback• Can paste in YouTube videos, SlideShare slides Tips • Decide who you’re targeting • Mix of entries – news, opinion, video, photos, informative • Set a schedule e.g. once a week • Use images and video • Basic, medium and rich posts, light & heavy • Strong headlines

Social Media – BlogWhy start a blog?

Social Media – BlogHow do you start a blog? • Check out Blogger and Wordpress – both are free • Now also have Tumblr • Keep posts short – 200 to 300 words • Write about how you do your job, how to use a product, trends in your sector, “top 10 tips” • Long enough to cover everything important, short enough to keep people wanting to see more • Put in images and videos, otherwise visually boring • Have a “Call to action” at the end – offer people something, get them to do something

Social Media – FacebookWhy should you care about Facebook? • 800 million plus users worldwide • 1.5 million plus in Ireland • 60% female, 40% male • 37% over age of 35 Facebook users by age

Social Media – Facebook • Over 1.5 million active users in Ireland • Lots of your customers • 2nd most trafficked website • Get found, promote your stuff, connect with others • Get started: Set up a personal page first • Connect with friends, join groups • Set up a business page second • Put links to your Facebook pages on emails, web-site, …. • Encourage people to “Like” your page • Set up and promote events • Test Facebook ads

Social Media – Facebook 1. Set up and fill-in your Personal Profile 2. Set up Facebook Business Page (not Group and not Personal page) 3. Put links on your website, email signature, press ads 4. Encourage people to ‘Like’ you 5. Find other pages that have high numbers of your target customers, “Like” them and post to their wall 6. Post videos, make offers, upload photos – keep up a steady stream of content on a frequent schedule e.g. aim for every 2nd or 3rd day

Social Media – Facebook Make sure you have the “follow” and “like” buttons on your site and blog comments – and “like” is more important

Social Media – Facebook Who are you targeting? What are your goals in using Facebook for your business? • Sales • Conversions • Facebook “Likes” • Traffic to your website / blog • Email subscriptions Set specific targets • Increase sales by XX% • Grow Facebook likes by YY% Implement Facebook Marketing Activities • Welcome page • “Like” button on your website and blog Monitoring • Facebook insights • Google analytics • AllFacebookStats

Social Media – Facebook Facebook  Try Facebook ads  Can specify targeting criteria  Includes location, age, birthday, sex, workplace, education and interests  So, could run ads to women only in 30 to 40 age bracket in your area to test the resultshttp://www.facebook.com/marketing

Social Media – Facebook Resources• SimplyZesty – www.simplyzesty.com – excellent source of information on Facebook and other social media marketing• Hubspot - “Facebook marketing update Spring 2011”• Hubspot – “Facebook page marketing 2011”• Who’s Blogging What – “The Facebook Page Marketing Guide 2010”• Hubspot – “Small business cases studies – social media”• Larry Chase Web Digest for Marketers – “Social media marketing guide – 12 key tools”

Social Media – Google+Why should you care about Google+ ? • 160 million Google+ users in a year • Will have a growing impact on SEO results • Is being adopted rapidly among technology workers • Hangouts feature allows new ways to interact with customers • Update your profile • Create a page for your business • Start posting • Add follow buttons to your blog and website • +1 things you find interesting

Social Media – YouTube Why? To draw online traffic, and to sell to people 24 hours a day Video yourself talking about your product or service Relate to your business – e.g. “how we used the product” Video a customer talking about themselves and working with you Home-made is good Sign-up on YouTube (2 minutes and its free) Post it on YouTube, and customize your YouTube page Link to YouTube from your website, blog, Twitter ….

Social Media – LinkedIn What? • Professional network • 250,000 users in Ireland • 75 million worldwide Why? • So people can find you • So you can find prospective customers – ‘prospecting’ • So you can promote events How • Create your personal profile • Connect to people you know • Join Groups • Get staff to create their profiles and connect • Create company profile • Fill out company product and services

Social Media – LinkedIn

Social Media – Twitter • What: Listen, Tweet, Respond • Why?: Traffic to your website, inbound links, leads, sales • How: 140 character “tweets” • E.g. press release headline • Can also insert links to stuff you like/find interesting • Follow others e.g. customers, influencers • Make your tweets useful e.g. links to web-site, video, news item • Tweet about good stuff your business is doing • Customer service

Social Media – Twitter How to get started• Create your personal account• Look for people to “follow” e.g. someone in the same business, a supplier, commentator, partner• Tweet about special offers, news, discounts• Link to your blog – tweet all your posts• Link to press releases – tweet all your releases• Link to your Facebook and LinkedIn Accounts• Put “Follow us” buttons on your email, website, blog• Check out what happens on Google analytics – e.g. can see people clicking on Tweet, coming to blog, then coming to your website• Use Hootsuite or other tools to manage Twitter• Can use Hootsuite to track competitor feeds or monitor for particular phrases e.g. “help with CRM wanted”

Social Media – SlideshareWhat• Free storage area to put up slide presentations, word documents, PDF documents• Really useful for anyone involved in professional services• Can collect leads from people who download your content• Can place stuff here and link to it from your blog• Can also record voice over on your slides then post it here, then link to your blog or website – good for recording a sales pitch or product demo

Email Marketing 82

Email marketing  Do not spam  But do regularly email contacts who have ‘opted in’ to communications  91% of internet users use email  Cost effective, broad reach  Great way of building up regular communications with existing customers and prospects  Should be based around offering something that is genuinely of interest to recipients

Email marketing Email Email System (e.g. Constant Contact or Vertical Response) sends personalized email to each recipient and User writes records who opens, the email deletes, opts out1 text and 2 uploads list Reply Visit to of your recipients 3 website to email system Download Inbound Marketing Guide NOW!

Email marketingBuild your recipient list – 80% of the work First, build your list of recipients – existing contacts, add a ‘sign up for newsletter’ form on your site, collect details at retail outlets Research customer websites See if you can send email to an association’s membership list Next, design and write your email From Address and the Email Subject – this is how people decide to open or delete the email so give it some thought Keep the subject line short – 9 words or so Keep text in the email short too, not too many paragraphs, use the word ‘you’ as soon and as often as you can Offer something useful and/or valuable e.g. “free white paper”, “big discounts” etc. “Call to action” – if you want recipients to do something, tell them Test every element Run email through spam filter before sending

SEO 86

Why SEO is important:• Business buyers as well as consumers search online when looking for products and services• 85% of those buyers find what they want via search engines• If they can’t find you, they will find a competitor• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search (ads) are the two main tools to ensure you are found• You should understand the basics of how search engines prioritize search results• Then you can decide what to do about it – do nothing, do it yourself or hire someone to help 87

Why is Search Engine Optimization important? Because most people (75%) click on the ‘natural’ search results rather than ‘paid’ ads 25% of clicks go to the 75% of clicks go “paid” to the “natural” advertising or “organic” results you search results see at the top you see at the and right- left hand side of hand side of the search Google and results pages Bing search pages 88

Why is Search Engine Optimization important? Because when people do search, they usually don’t look past the first results on page 1 Most people (64%) click on the first 3 results on Google page 1 • 42% to the first result • 12% to the second • 9% to the third Less than 10% click on pages beyond page 1 Source: SEOBook and SEOMoz 89

Search Engine Optimization • Search Engine Optimization is the process you use to appear higher in the search engine results pages for searches relevant to your business • It is based on first understanding how people search for terms related to your business - keyword analysis • You then use that understanding to update your website, interact with social media and seek links so you can push your business higher up on the search results Keyword Analysis Content on your Website settings pages Links (incoming, outgoing Social media and internal) 90

Search Engine Optimization • People take different routes when searching for your kinds of products and services • You need to understand which kinds of searches are best at bringing your desired buyers to you online • You should analyze each major ‘search route’ into your site so that you can increase that traffic Search route 2 91

Search Engine Optimization • You want to get found without paying Google all the time • ‘Organic’ or natural search results • How do you get to the top? Optimize your site ‘on page’ Good ‘content’ – information A site that people find useful Seek links to the site Promote your site and business on social media

Search Engine OptimizationSignals that Google uses to decide which page to show for a queryOverall, it looks at relevance and popularity.The list below is from an SeoMoz.org poll of SEO companies – 9 most important factors 1. Keyword use in title tag 2. Anchor text in inbound link 3. Global link authority of site 4. Age of site 5. Link popularity within the site’s internal structure 6. Topical relevance of inbound links 7. Link popularity of site in topical community 8. Keyword use in body text 9. Global link popularity of sites that link to the site

Search Engine OptimizationThe Long Tail • The most popular keywords account for 18.5 % of search traffic • They are the most competitive terms – it is usually hard to get a new web page onto the top of page 1 for these terms • However, over 70% of searches are for less common terms – these are the ‘long tail’ keyword phrases • Usually these terms are 3 words or longer and are more specific e.g. “1996 green 3 series bmw” rather than “bmw” • Targeting these ‘long tail’ keywords is a good way to get more traffic to your site Source: SEOMoz.org

Search Engine OptimizationThe Long Tail Home page Search Search Search Search term 1 term 2 term 3 term 4

Search Engine OptimizationThree main tasks in SEO “On Page” – configure settings and place content on your website “Off Page” – Link Strategy – encourage other sites to link to you Social media – has an increasing effect on your rankings in the results pages WWW WWW WWW WWW WWW On page Off page Social media

Search Engine Optimization First step – KEYWORD ANALYSIS – what terms do you want to be found for? Start similar to Google PPC keyword analysis – use Google keyword tool But – you have to pick smaller selection of keywords to focus on Sort by search volume (high) and level of competition (low) Pick top candidate phrases for your key phrases Optimize specific pages for particular terms More pages, more terms you can optimize for

Search Engine Optimization‘On page’ optimization – 5 settings per page, plus regular use of yourtarget keywords on an optimized page with relevant content 1. Page Title 2. URL 3. Header tags 4. Text, internal links, bold 5. Page description text

Search Engine Optimization‘Off page’ optimization – get other sites to link to you A link: www.dohertywhite.com Links should be from other good sites To get links, provide information/content that people think is valuable and should be sharedIdentify a target list of sites you’d like to link to you Who links to you now? Who links to your competitors? What sites are top for the search terms related to you? What standard directories are there - irelandlookup.com, localpages.ie, europages.ie What associations are you a member of e.g. the Chamber

SEO 2. Landing page designSEO Resources “Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide” – Google “SEO Quick Guide” – DohertyWhite (lists other reources) “Learning SEO from the Experts” – Hubspot “Introduction to Search Engine Optimization” – Hubspot “The Art of SEO” - Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin and Jessie Stricchiola QuickSprout (Neil Patel) – good advice on driving traffic SEOMoz.Org – Blog updates, “White board Friday” seminars Bruce Clay – respected SEO expert

Analytics 101

Analytics Metrics , Analytics and Reporting  Having identified objectives you should identify corresponding metrics and report on them  Use Google analytics to measure and report on website traffic numbers, bounce rates and traffic sources (among other metrics)  Google adwords provides reports on impressions, click through rates, cost per click  Monitor leads generated, what they downloaded, their IP address etc  The email marketing systems will provide reporting on bounce rates, open rates, click through rates per email campaign  We can generate SEO reports that show traffic per keyword, relative improvement over time, competitor ranking for selected keywords etc.  Combine the key metrics into a one-page weekly summary so you can easily plot your progress against the top 5 to 10 objectives e.g. Traffic, leads, lead quality, email response rates etc. 102

Putting It All Together 103

The overall approach Understand who you are targeting (your buyers) – what are their 1 roles, which companies do they work for, where are they, what is important to them, how do you connect with them? 2 What are you selling – what does your product and service do for them, what is your value proposition for these buyers? ? How do you compare with competitors – which ones are worth 3 focusing on, how do you differentiate from them? Generate ‘content’ – based on your understanding of the buyers, 4 create information that your target buyers will find useful e.g. Case studies, white papers, research surveys, how to guides ... Drive traffic to that content using PPC, email, SEO, PR, social 5 media 6a B2C – Sell your product(s) now 6b B2B - Capture contact details in exchange for your content Build a relationship with those people over time via your content, 7 website, social media and email so they learn and understand your 104 proposition, answer their concerns and select you as their best choice

The overall approachThe tools you use 1 Revise website 2 Generate content 3 Launch Google 4 Email 5 Generate PR based on buyer to attract visitor pay-per-click Marketing and online PR analysis, add registrations ads landing pages 6 Post to Corporate 7 Launch Search Engine Hardcopy Mail to Telemarketing 8 9 Blog and Social Optimization selected contacts qualification of Media activities warm leads 105

How do your promote your SaaS system? A B C “What are you selling?” “Who are you selling to?” “How will you sell?” Your Value Proposition Your target buyers Your acquisition process 106

How do you sell to those buyers? A B C “Who are you selling “How will you sell?” “What are you selling?” to?” Your Value Proposition Your target buyers Your acquisition process 1 2 3 4 Convince them to Bring people Persuade them Persuade them to renew each year – to your to sign-up for a pay for your retain your website Free Trial service customers Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention 107

Key Points:• Understand your buyers• Be clear about the value you deliver• Get good at online marketing• Use content as ‘bait’• Keep cost of sales low – use web and phone• Measure performance of your process• Continually improve conversion rates 108

Outcomes from today’s seminarAt the end of today you should know … 1. Why Digital Marketing is important for technology startups 2. How you can get started 3. A structure you can use – start, middle, end 4. How to prioritize what you should do first 5. Practical examples – Google ads, blog email, Facebook etc. 6. Where to look for help 109

Recommended reading Books • “Lean Startup”, Eric Ries • “Crossing the Chasm”, Geoffrey Moore • “Innovators Dilemma”, Clayton Christensen • “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, Peter Drucker • Harvard MBA course on startups – recommended reading • http://platformsandnetworks.blogspot.com/2011/01/launching-tech-ventures- part-iv.html?spref=tw • Building a sales and marketing machine – Dave Skok – • http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/slides-sales-marketing-machine/ • Brad Feld, VC, author of “Do more faster” – www.feld.com

Outcomes from today’s seminar Web traffic + Content = Customers 111

Thank YouEmail michael.white@dohertywhite.comMobile +353 86 383 8981Phone +353 7491 16689Twitter @michaelgwhitewww.dohertywhite.com

DohertyWhite Digital Marketing For Startups May 2012

by DohertyWhite

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