How startups are
changing marketing
as we know it
Amrita Chandra
@amritachandra
www.shapeandsound.com

When I graduated from
university in the early
90s, the best jobs for
marketers were in big
companies. I was one of
the lucky ones,
managing to get hired by
one. Life was good.
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/dnguy3n

In order to rise through
the ranks I did what
every ambitious bigcompany person did at
the time – I went back to
school to get my MBA. I
was drawn to a place
known for fostering
entrepreneurs.

Even though I was
tempted to start my own
company, I chose the
safe route, continuing to
work for big companies.
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/Dave
Catchpole

At the time, working in a
startup or small
company seemed like
the cheap imitation of
the real thing. Doing
great marketing required
great budgets, which
startups didn’t have.
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/ll_bly_ca

In the late 90s,
things started
to change.

My first tech startup job
Source:
Wikipedia

Image
credit:
FlickrCC/Filiola
But even
back then,
you needed
money to
make noise.

Image
credit:
FlickrCC/Filiola
Ads
Buying lists
Direct mail
Custom
creative
PR agency
Trade shows

Eventually, the dot-com
boom turned into the
dot-com bust. It was a
terrible time to be a
startup marketer. It was
tough to find work and
budgets were tight.
Sucked to be
a startup
marketer
Source:
Wikipedia

A noticeable shift started
happening around 2007.
That set the stage for
how marketing is being
done today. A few
market changes lay the
foundation for startups
to excel at marketing.
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/t
Theatre

Shift #1:
The social web
created affordable
channels of
communication

Shift 2:
SaaS + cloud =
affordable marketing
technology

Shift 3:
Our expectations
around work
changed

Prestige
Corner office
Security
Stability
Impact
Remote work
Possibility
Flexibility
Resources
Resourcefulness

5
areas where startups are
transforming marketing
as we know it

#1:"
Customer
insights

Pressly is a startup that
makes a platform that
allows marketers to turn
various streams of
content into an
interactive experience
ideal for mobile devices.

When you sign up for an
account, you get this
message from Pressly’s
CEO. Try replying. It’s
really him on the other
end. He wants you to
have the best experience
possible using Pressly.

The CEO of TripLingo
blogged about the
importance of CEOs
doing front-line customer
support. He said he
mans their live chat
account so I thought I’d
see if he was telling the
truth… J

As Asigra’s head of
marketing I made a point
to talk to customers
every single day. In fact,
everyone on my team
did. We got customer
insights beyond anything
traditional market
research provided.

# 2:
Marketing
operations

Planning in short sprints
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/l
Robertson

Daily standup meetings
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/il
Crosby

(iDoneThis built
their company
around this)

Image
credit:
FlickrCC/_mdanys
Teaming up
marketers with
their design and
developer
counterparts.

Startup Zapier has a
distributed team, with
marketing sitting in a
different state than the
folks he works with every
day.

Startup marketers can
now access tools that
allow them to collaborate
in ways they couldn’t in
the past.

# 3:
Hiring

Getting a marketing job
used to require:
1.
2.
Degree*
Upward progression through
traditional marketing tracks
Demonstration of “stability”
3.
*bonus if from a good school

Startup marketing
job description

In other words:
1. Know how to get shit done
2. Have a great attitude

New roles inside startup
marketing teams
GROWTH HACKER
FRONT END
DEVELOPER
CUSTOMER
EVANGELIST
CONTENT
CREATOR

#4:
Measurement

In the old days we were
measured by how many leads
we generated, how many press
mentions we got, and how
much budget we secured.
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/M
Taylor

Today, this is a
typical dashboard
for a startup
marketer.

Startup marketers are
fluent in data analysis in
ways marketers weren’t
in the past. Here’s a blog
post from startup
Uberflip

Tools like Woopra,
MixPanel and
Kissmetrics give startup
marketers real-time
visibility into marketing
results. In the past this
was unaffordable or
unavailable.

That’s not to say that we no longer
need storytellers, content creators,
creativity…
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/fireflythegreat

But even those folks use data to help
them make decisions…
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/fireflythegreat

The availability and affordability of SaaS
marketing technology leads to frequent
experimentation
Image
source:
www.unbounce.com

#5:
Re-imagining
Marketing

Customer
Service
Marketing is now the sum of
all experiences someone has
with your company
Employee
Experience
Social Media
Interaction
User
Experience
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/GabPRR
Vendor
Experience

Buyers are communicating with other buyers
in ways marketers can’t control.

“In the absence of communication among
your customers, advertising rules.
But when customers talk to each other, it’s
the way customer experience works for
each one that counts.”
@Martha_Rogers
Founder, Peppers & Rogers Group
Author, Extreme Trust

This is marketing

This is marketing

Asigra took something
as “boring” as backup
and fostered a
community of customers
who felt like Backup
Heroes. They asked for
capes, we delivered!
This is marketing

This is marketing

Maptia moved their team to Morocco
…This is marketing
Image
credit:
FlickrCC/heatheronhertravels

This is marketing
37signals promote
remote working and give
their audience a glimpse
inside their employees’
work spaces.

Sugru tapped into the
passion of DIYers and
created a cult following
around their product.

Trying to out-spend your way to your customer is an arms race
that’s hard to win.
Instead, startups are perfectly positioned to:
Out-know
Out-teach
Out-inspire
Out-hack
Out-solve
Out-love
their way into the hearts and minds of people.
Just ask Johnny Cupcakes…

Thank you, HPX!
@amritachandra
www.shapeandsound.com

p.s.
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