This presentation goes into the basics of how startups can create messaging that resonates with their target customers.

1. Messaging 101 for Startups
April Dunford @aprildunford

2. A Definition of Marketing
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3. Messaging is Important
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4. Why is it So Hard?
Based on this
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5. Why is it So Hard?
Effects all this
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6. Before You Start
1. Know your audience
2. Know yourself
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7. Know Your Market: Market Segments
Your market is not everyone
B2B Segments can be described by company
size, company type, company growth/stage,
spending, etc.
B2C Segments can be described by geography,
age, income, employment, hobbies, etc.
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8. Know Your Market: Personas
Go beyond market research data
Describe the flow of a day, skills, attitude,
environment, goals, fears/anxieties,
experience, etc.
Techniques for gathering information: fly
on the wall, interviews, apprentice/master
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9. Know Yourself: Your Market Category
Important and not always obvious. The first
step to getting people to understand what
you do.
The category is the frame of reference that
customers will use when evaluating you,
Categories can be described by value you
deliver, problems you solve, competitors in the
market today, etc.
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10. Know Your Market: Your Value
What problem do you solve for
customers?
How do customers describe the
value that you deliver?
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11. Know your Market: Your Competitors
What type of customers love them and why?
What type of customers hate them and why?
Where does your offering overlap (from a
customer’s perspective)?
How is your offering clearly superior (from a
customer’s perspective)?
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12. Good Messaging Answers 3 Questions
Answer these questions:
1. What the heck is it?
2. Is it for me?
3. Why buy it from you?
(In this order!!)
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13. Paris Hilton Marketing
beautiful but
makes no
sense
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14. What You Do?
Netflix – Watch as many
movies as you want for one
low monthly price.
SalesForce.com – the world’s
favorite CRM software as a
service.
Wikipedia – A free
encyclopedia built
collaboratively using Wiki
software.
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15. You do WHAT?
Sun Microsystems –
Innovative products and
services that power the
network economy.
Sterling Commerce – helps
companies optimize and
transform their dynamic
business network to
accelerate revenues and
reduce costs.
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16. Step 1: What the Heck is it?
Keep it brief
Use simple language
Put it front and center
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17. Segmentation is not a Dirty Word
Market to Everyone, Sell to No One
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18. Explicit Targeting is Powerful
ThinkGeek: Selling geek t-shirts
for programmers, linux hackers,
and open source geeks.
VS
Customink: your t-shirt expert for
teams, schools, companies and
individuals.
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19. Go Deep – The Janna Example
CRM for Investment
bankers:
• Use cases, day in the life of a
banker
• Demos, example data
• Whitepapers, articles, opt-ed
• Sales Enablement: the IB
dictionary
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20. Step 2: Is it for Me?
Be explicit about who you target
Use their language
Go as deep as you can
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21. Why Buy from You?
The terrible secret they don’t teach you in
engineering school
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22. Why Buy From You?
The terrible secret they don’t teach you in
engineering school:
Customers Don’t Care about FEATURES
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23. Why Buy from You?
Value Features
Make sales more productive Integrates customer data from
any source, show relationships
between customers.
Deploy new applications 20% Extract and transform data from
faster heterogeneous sources
Resolve IT issues faster Monitor cpu and memory usage
in real time.
Pay off your debt sooner View all account information in
one place, graph spending
patterns.
Sharper, more realistic images Megapixels
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24. Step 3: Why Buy it from You?
Value not Features
Focus on Differentiators
Get Specific
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25. Bonus Points: Tell a Great Story
Memorable
Stories are the vehicle for your
messaging between people
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26. Thanks!
@aprildunford
aprildunford@gmail.com
RocketWatcher.com
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