2. INTRODUCTION
‣ Working with Fueled, Makeshift, Transferwise, Grouper + State
‣ Director of Audience Development at General Assembly London
‣ Member of #10’s Tech City Advisory Group
‣ Writer at Wired UK, The Daily Beast & The Next Web
‣ Mentor at BBC WorldWideLabs, Seedcamp, Ignite100
‣ Community Member of Sandbox, Summit Series & ICE
COURTNEY BOYD MYERS (@CBM)
FOUNDER, AUDIENCE.IO & 3460 MILES
2
3. AGENDA
‣ Setting the Foundation
‣ The Many Facets of Marketing
‣ Building an Audience
‣ Tools of the Trade
‣ Media & PR
‣ Q & A
3
4. 4
FIRST RULE OF MARKETING:
!
MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS
DON’T MARKET A SHIT PRODUCT
5. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 5
‣ Vision: The company’s long-term,
aspirational business goals. What's the
change you want to make in the world?
!
‣ Mission: The company’s purpose and reason
for being. What are the big first steps to
make that change?
!
‣ Values: How will you make those choices,
changes and first steps?
MISSION, VISION + VALUES
6. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 6
VISION: To become the
world’s largest community for
dreamers.
!
MISSION: To create the
world’s best app that helps
people remember and record
their dreams.
!
VALUES: Curious, Data-
Driven, Exploratory, and
Secure
7. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 7
“Many companies try to dive into driving
awareness for their product or service
before they figure out who they are, what
they stand for, and what they are driving
for. At Eventbrite, we set out 6 years ago
to democratize the ticketing industry
through innovative products and top
notch support. The great news is that
through all the growth we’ve had – in
customers and in company size – these
are still our primary areas of focus.”
-Julia Hartz, Co-Founder of Eventbrite
8. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 8
MESSAGING
Text
It’s is the one thing you want to tell people about your
startup.
!
-It needs to be compelling (NO BS!) and different from
your competition.
Source
9. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 9
MESSAGING
Text
It’s is the one thing you want to tell people about your
startup.
!
-It needs to be compelling (NO BS!) and different from
your competition.
!
!
Text
A fun online world where kids can adopt their very
own monster, go on adventures, play games, solve
puzzles, be creative, and communicate with their
friends.
11. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 11
MESSAGING FOR A TWO-SIDED MARKET
12. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS & PR FOR STARTUPS 12
STARTUP MARKETING
‣ L
If you are a marketer working at a startup, today you might be
strategizing about a new campaign, and tomorrow you’ll have to go
open Adobe Illustrator and change the copy on a flyer that you’ll
send to be printed at Staples later. In the morning of the next day
you might be trying get ahold of the editor of the lifestyle section of
the Seattle Times and in the afternoon you are creating 7 ad
variations for a Google Adwords campaign, and that same night you
and the CEO will be having dinner with the VP of Marketing of a
large consumer company and you’ll be discussing a two-year
strategy roadmap and bringing product vision ideas back to the
team the next morning.
!
-Marcelo Calbucci, the co-founder & CTO of EveryMove
13. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 13
PRODUCT AS MARKETING!
• Hotmail’s growth was almost entirely due to a “Get your free email at Hotmail”
sentence at the bottom of every email.
!
• Airbnb reverse-engineered Craigslist to let users post listings automatically
despite no public Craigslist API.
!
• Allowing users to embed videos was key to the success of YouTube and Vimeo.
!
• Slideshare included a plain-text link in their embed code, driving traffic back to
their site to get an SEO boost to boot.
!
• Dropbox incentivized referrals by giving free extra storage space – a strategy they
claim accounted for 60% of their growth.
Source
18. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 18
EMAIL MARKETING
How do I get users to sign up for my mailing list?
!
•Start by scraping you inbox. Your friends will forgive
you + they can always unsubscribe.
•Grow your user base through strategic partnerships,
events and sweepstakes!
!
What kind of content should I send?
!
• Don’t always sell, sell, sell; also send emails that are
100% value-add
•Repurposed content from your blog or exclusive content
19. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 19
CONTENT MARKETING
• Content marketing is a cost
effective, smart and
scalable way to acquire
customers
• Content should include
educational, analytical
industry-related blog posts
mixed with fun, viral content
like infographics
• Content marketing should be
authentic and show your
company’s culture (culture
marketing)
20. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 20
CONTENT MARKETING!
!
• Remember to
capture as many
email addresses as
possible!
!
!
• Be educational. Tie it
back to your product
but don’t SELL
21. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 21
CONTENT MARKETING
• Content marketing can be
easily enhanced with
social media marketing
and syndication
!
• Your content marketing
should support your
company’s SEO efforts
22. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 22
GROWTH HACKING
Source
“When women do it, it’s
marketing. When men do it,
it’s growth hacking.” -
@Shanley
23. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS & PR FOR STARTUPS 23
COLLECT THE DATA
‣ L
•Do people even want your product?
•What do they think of your product?
•How are they using your product?
•Are they referring their friends?
•Who are your top users? Where do
they live? How many Twitter followers
do they have?
•How can you incentivize your power
users to share the service?
•How will you communicate with your
customers?
24. 24
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
!
MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS
•Market Research: Typeform
!
•Database Analytics: Wrangler
!
•Customer Support: Intercom
!
•Email marketing: Mailchimp
!
•Analytics: Google Analytics,
MixPanel, SocialRank
25. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 25
SOCIAL MEDIA BEST PRACTICES
•Improve your inbound
!
•Make more original content
!
•ENGAGE!- Like, Share, RT; Answer questions,
tweets, comments, etc.
!
•Be opinionated
!
•Throw a Party (Get to know people IRL first)
!
•Make your details public + up to date
!
26. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 26
PINTEREST - THE LONDONER
Great for:
• showing off products
• categorizing content
• building your brand
visually
27. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 27
INSTAGRAM
Great for:
• showing off company culture
• show-casing products in-action
• building your brand visually
28. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 28
YOUTUBE
!
!
!
•Viewed more than 12.5 million times
•instantly went viral + jointly conveyed the brand personality and the
benefits of the service deftly.
29. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 29
YOUTUBE
!
!
!
•50K video views; Press in Devour and EliteDaily
•$5K budget
30. 30
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
!
MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS
•Facebook
•Twitter/Twitter Ads
•Pinterest
•Tumblr
•LinkedIn
•Foursquare
•YouTube
•Instagram
•Mention
•Hootsuite
•Buffer
31. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 31
PRESS - ARE YOU READY?
!
“Patience is important. Media coverage is easier and
more effective once you have a killer product. If
you’re trying to create buzz too early, you’re doing it
wrong.”
-MICHELLE ZATLYN, CO-FOUNDER OF
CLOUDFLARE
!
32. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 32
BEFORE PRESS
‣Your product has been thoroughly alpha tested with
not only friends, family but a wide group of users so
you know it works
‣mTurk.com, followerwonk.com,
usertesting.com, betali.st
‣You’re familiar with the media landscape and can
name at least three journalists...
33. CROSSING THE POND
READ!
33
Blogs
‣Fred Wilson (A VC) — http://avc.com
‣Chris Dixon — http://cdixon.org
‣Paul Graham’s Essays — http://paulgraham.com
‣Hacker News — http://news.ycombinator.com
‣The Full Start - http://fullstart.com
!
!Newsletters
‣The Fetch http://thefetch.com
‣3460 Miles http://3460miles.com
‣Startup Digest http://startupdigest.com
35. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 35
SHOULD YOU HIRE A PR AGENCY?
‣ Internal vs Agency
‣ Doing it on your own
37. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 37
GETTING PRESS
‣ Tell a Story
‣ Be technically prepared
‣ Choosing Outlets
‣ Tech Press first?
‣ Think non-traditional
38. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS
WHAT’S THE STORY?
•“We’ve launched”
•Funding
•Trend Stories
•We’ve hit X # of users
•New features
•Acquiring
•Big, new hire
•Future plans
38
39. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 39
FINDING THE JOURNALIST
1. Do your homework
!
2. STALK
!
3. Get an introduction!
!
4. Invite them to a party!
!
5. Cocktail party rules apply
!
6. Give them a scoop!
40. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 40
WRITING THE PITCH
1. Be brief.
2. Craft an eye-catching subject line.
3. Don’t copy paste! Oh Hey Caroline at The Next Crunch..
!
4. Give a reasonable time frame.
5. Say why it's DIFFERENT
6. Avoid jargon like DISRUPTIVE, CURATED, HYBRID,
INNOVATIVE, GAME-CHANGING etc.
!
7. Give an offer if you can: Beta invites. App Codes. Exclusive
details, etc.
42. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 42
Courtney B of the deep blue sea,
Would you could you should you if
you please
When you’ve got a moment so free
Let known when you could lend
your ear to me?
43. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 43
Subject: Exclusive for TC: Launching XXX- make any blog look like a sexy iPad app
!
Hey Mike,
!
I’m George, the founder of XXX.
!
Launching XXX next week, on Thursday at noon EST and TC gets free reign on an exclusive before then. XXX makes any blog look and
behave like a native iPad app. We’re talking accelerometer aware column resizing, swipe to advance articles, touch navigation, home screen
icon support, and more. We’ve built somecool tech to make this happen smoothly, and it works with your existing layout...
!
PS- Would also be happy to do giveaways to TC readers. Thanks again and feel free to reach out if you have anymore questions
(skype,phone,etc. listed below).
!
Video Demo: http://vimeo.com/13487300
Live demo site (if you’re on an iPad): jasonlbaptiste.com
Feature overviews: http://padpressed.com/features
My contact info: George@xxx.com , Phone:xxx.xxx.xxxx, Twitter: @xxx, Skype: xxx
!
-George
#xxx.xxx.xxxx
You Should Check Out xxx.com
44. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS
GIVE WRITERS EVERYTHING THEY NEED
Provide external links (not
attachments) to:
•Awesome Videos
•Beautiful, High-Res Photos
•Company Facts: Founded Date,
Funding Details, # of employees,
Founder’s Names, etc.
Be Available!
!
44
45. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 45
AFTER THE PITCH
1. Follow up! - Appropriate time on this?
One week? 3-4 days?
!
2. Handling multiple outlets. Tell Multiple
Stories. And Don't be misleading.
!
3. Don't break your own embargo.
!
46. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 46
TIPS FOR YOU
-Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Is this on or off the record? What’s the story angle?
Do they require exclusivity?
!
-Don’t say “we have no competitors” -- choose your competitors are or the media will
choose for you.
!
- Put yourself in the mindset of the journalist. How will this story get them on
Techmeme or featured by their editors? Is it like stories the journalist has
written before?
!
-Be good to the journalist. Don’t just hit them up when you need them. They want
your scoops, tips, etc. since you’re on the ground in the midst of it all.
48. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 48
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
49. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 49
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
!
Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup
Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and
everyone in between
50. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 50
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
!
Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup
Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and
everyone in between
!
READ, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD READ.
!
51. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 51
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
!
Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup
Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and
everyone in between
!
READ, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD READ.
!
Tweet.
52. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 52
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
!
Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup
Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and
everyone in between
!
READ, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD READ.
!
Tweet.
!
Write.
53. MARKETING & PR FOR STARTUPS 53
RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS, RELATIONSHIPS
Get Involved
!
Make Friends with Founders, Investors, Journalists, Startup
Wannabes, Coworking Space Heads, the Cleaning Ladies and
everyone in between
!
READ, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD READ.
!
Tweet.
!
Write.
!
Be happy. But know it’s OK and TOTALLY NORMAL to be sad,
angry, frustrated, disappointed and insanely crazy too.