These are the slides of my talk at the Startup Product Summit last week in San Francisco. Some say "good products don't need marketing". But from researching the problem you plan to solve to building the initial community around your product and evangelizing your market, content is involved all the way. So how can startups and small product teams be efficient and impactful with their content strategy?

1. Reach Escape Velocity through
Lean Content Marketing
Guillaume Decugis
Co-Founder & CEO, Scoop.it
@gdecugis

2. A Myth in Silicon Valley:
“good products don’t need marketing”

3. Advertising is not Marketing
• Advertising can blur the lines when trying
to assess product/market fit
• It can help you scale but only if it is
sustainable
Marketing, however, is different

4. If Marketing didn’t matter, then why this?

5. “We don’t do Marketing because we’re a
lean startup”
“We see Lean Startup methodology being used
inappropriately as an excuse to not take sales and
marketing seriously”
Marc Andreessen on GigaOm
http://gigaom.com/2012/12/03/marc-andreessen-not-every-startup-should-be-a-lean-startup-or-embrace-the-pivot/

6. What can you market as a startup?
• Product Launch
• Product Update
• Product New Release
• Product …

7. Problem with that? Diminishing returns
“Scoop.it is Tumblr without the blogging”
Private Beta Launch
“Anyone’s a magazine editor with Scoop.it”
Public Launch
Scoop.it, Rolls Out Big New Redesign To Help Businesses
& Pros Increase Their Visibility Online

8. You must market more than product
launches to reach escape velocity

9. Solution?

10. Content Marketing?
• Define your space
• Educate
• Engage
• Be the resource people point to
• Build brand loyalty
“Content Marketing is the practice of publishing
content relevant to your brand to gain greater
visibility in search results and in social channels”
JD Lasica, Social Media Biz

11. Framework for Lean Content Marketing
• Content Marketing works…
• …but can be time-consuming & costly
• There are multiple ways to do it right: need
to iterate & learn
• Content doesn’t have to be fat/costly to be
effective

12. 4 Lean Content Strategies
that worked for us

13. Leverage SlideShare’s natural
distribution to share your vision

14. Guest post to get distribution
for your ideas

15. Answer Quora questions
that relate to your field
Blogging… but for an existing and savvy
audience

16. Content Curation
• Great starting point
• Leverage what you
already do: read
• Express your
expertise…
• … but also develop it
• Helps you indentify
original topics for
content creation

17. Product Launches
Content Curation
Leveraged Content Creation
(Quora, SlideShare, Guest Posts)
Your Blog
Your Brand (in orbit or…
on the moon)
Now go shoot for the Stars!

18. Thank you!
Guillaume Decugis
Co-Founder & CEO – Scoop.it
@gdecugis
Join us!
Talk / meet on Lean Content : http://meetup.com/leancontent
Read on our blog : http://blog.scoop.it