Some thoughts and views on the elements of digital marketing for start-ups (B2B or B2C).

1. Srihari Palangala
March 2013
Views and thoughts expressed here are entirely mine and strictly personal.

2. • Your current challenges from a marketing perspective
Tight and constrained resources – time, budget, people
You need to find and laser target your product/service message & position to
the right segment (in India and/or across the globe)
Coupled with targeting, you want a medium that is ‘always on and fast
paced’ – and drives high inbound interest
You need to start engaging in active conversations to gather what your
prospects are saying about you
You need to closely track your spend – and turn up the dial in campaigns
where you seem to be making a dent
• If you said ‘Yes’ to one or more of the above, you are going to
benefit from this discussion
• This discussion will focus on using digital tactics for marketing. Offline
vehicles/tactics etc. will be a separate focus & discussion
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3. “Because the purpose of business is to create
a customer, the business enterprise has two--
and only two--basic functions: marketing and
innovation. Marketing and innovation produce
results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the
distinguishing, unique function of the business.“
– Peter Drucker
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4. 1. Positioning: Establish the sweet spot and differentiators for
your product among your core segment(s)
2. Trials: Make it easy for prospects to try the product and see
indicative results
3. Co-marketing: Build your interlock in the ecosystem
4. Market insight: Keep a keen eye on patterns observed in
prospect segments
5. Lead Gen: Prospects for the sales funnel
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5. • Content driven marketing (Drives Inbound, Self Selected audience largely)
• Company Website & Visitor Conversion
• Blogs
• Whitepapers
• Online Videos Time and effort;
• Social Generally low on $
• Search SEO cost though
• Online seminars
• Online forums
• Content on 3rd party sites
• Mobile (App)
• Reaching prospects (Advertising to prospects)
• Email
• Banner (Display)
• Search SEM Time, effort &
• Mobile (SMS) involves $ cost
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6. 1. A blogger had posted an online review about a competing product – we
immediately found this online
2. We were able to engage with the blogger and highlight our product differences
3. As a result, the blogger posted a review of our product as well and amplified
our message to his audience (all of whom are again relevant readers)
4. All this happened in 2 days! With <1 hour of effort from us. How would this have
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worked in an Offline world?

7. Content Marketing Awareness Lead Gen Nurture Thought
Objective  Collateral Leadership
Website X
Blog X X
Search SEO X X
Online Forum X X
3rd party X
Articles
Email X X
Social X X
Mobile (SMS) X X
Whitepaper X X X
Online Seminar X X
Banner X X
Search SEM X X
Online Video X
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8. Must Have Good to Have Nice to Have
B2B • Website & Visitor Conversion • Social (e.g., own LinkedIn, • Mobile (SMS or App)
• Blog Facebook, Twitter) • Contributing to Third
• Search SEO • Online seminars party website – content
• Email • Banner • Online videos
• Whitepapers • Search SEM
• Online forum engagement
(3rd party)
B2C • Website & Visitor Conversion • Blog • Whitepapers
• Social (e.g., own LinkedIn, • Online videos • Search SEM
Facebook, Twitter) • Mobile (SMS or App) • Contributing to Third
• Search SEO • Online forum engagement party website – content
• Banner (3rd party)
• Email
• These are broad guidelines for a marketing mix;
• You must determine the exact mix based on your specific
product/service and business 8

9. • B2B
• LP needs to provide information relevant to the
incoming segment traffic; Customize the
information highlighted on LPs
• Have 1 or 2 prominent calls to action on the LP
(Register Here, Download Trial etc.); Don’t go
overboard asking for Info when they register
• Monitor bounce rates of the landing page
• B2C Example: Salesforce page with
• It is more important to get the visitor to engage – ‘Contact Me’ as a CTA
e.g., on a travel portal, visitor could buy a ticket
without having to create a log-in
• Some form of ‘instant gratification’ is more
important (e.g., quickly finding what they are
looking for)
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10. Tactic Challenges Some things you could try
Website Conversion Build segment based messaging; Try A/B tests; Bring in
external credibility/references
Blog Creating relevant and interesting content; Engage the entire team to contribute – this is a culture;
Frequency of posts Discipline to 2 Posts/week
Search SEO Showing up among top results for keywords Get expert help on SEO; Are there related words you
can optimize for?
Online Forum Finding the right forums; Setup Google alerts; Learn Advanced Google search
Engaging with caution (avoiding backlash) really well! Don’t be pushy about your agenda
3rd party article This requires time! Make product marketing responsible for this
Email Low open rates (<8-10%) Try other formats – e.g., plain text; Pick different days;
Some vendors give great reports on email tracking;
Social Sustaining engagement Build a content roll out calendar; Stick to it!
Whitepaper Creating engaging content Hire techno marketers (i.e., your marketing person
should have a good technical background)
Online Seminar Driving the right audience Co-marketing; Try renting external databases
Banner Click fraud Pay per lead; Move away from CPM
Search SEM Conversion Improve your CTA; Try a different CTA
Online Video Expensive, if you engage external vendors 10
Record and build your own videos – tools available

11. • Traffic
• Visitors – New vs. repeat
• Source of visitors – by campaign, geo region & Internet domain
• Conversion – how many of the visitors gave you their contact info?
• Time spent and on what content
• Engagement
• Quality of interactions
• Influence – where are your links quoted?
• Patterns – what are your segments constantly talking about
• Leads or Trials
• Leads (and they should be integrated in to your CRM)
• Trials that you are driving
• Cost (when applicable)
• Cost per action by campaign
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12. • Build your persona slowly, do not be brash or impose yourself
(or your brand) online
• Invest the time to find the online influencers in your business; and
then build engagement with them; e.g. – offer to do a guest
post on their blog etc.
• Be ready for positive and negative comments – take them in
your stride and make corrections where necessary
• People are generally approachable and they help – so engage
when you are ready
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13. • My recommendation
1. Start with Online – build up your ‘Must have’ tactics
2. Add Offline when you have the resources
3. Then leverage your established Online presence to amplify your Offline
• There are benefits to Offline, which we will take up in a different
session; Offline includes
• Events, Tradeshows & Sponsorships
• Other media – TV, Radio, Print
• Tele-calling
• Contact discovery
• PR & building customer references
• Industry awards
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14. • http://in.linkedin.com/in/sriharipalangala
• spalangala@gmail.com
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