This document provides information on zero budget user acquisition strategies. It discusses public relations (PR), inbound marketing, and outbound marketing tactics. For PR, it emphasizes the importance of strategic earned media coverage and building relationships with journalists, analysts, and influencers on Twitter. For inbound marketing, it recommends content creation tactics like blogging, thought leadership pieces, and guest blogging. For outbound marketing, it discusses drip email campaigns, account-based marketing (ABM), phone calls, and using various tools to find contact information and track email opens. International considerations and keeping in touch with current customers are also addressed.

1. User Acquisition
Zero Budget Ways to Acquire
New Customers

2. Agenda
PR
Inbound
Outbound

3. Hi, I’m Shira
(@shiraabel)

4. I’ve been doing
marketing in tech
companies for a long
time

5. I’m a mentor at 500
Startups, & was a
Founding Mentor at
Google Campus, and
Microsoft Ventures
Accelerator

6. And I have an MBA from
Kellogg School of
Management

7. I’m writing a
book!
Signup to be
notified here:
http://www.shiraabel.com/book

8. All About PR

9. Earned Media & PR
• Brings big numbers all at once
• Gives a spike of traffic
• Must be strategic
• May not be aimed at the target market (i.e. much of the time
TechCrunch isn’t the target market, but it’s what VCs read &
gives social proof)
• Has a strong trust rate
@shiraabel

10. Purpose of PR
Why are you doing PR?

11. Why do we need PR?
11

12. Do you have a product
to sell?
12

13. For your product to sell
people need to know it
exists
13

14. PR builds awareness in
a wide audience quickly
14

15. Why Do PR?
§ Looking to raise money
§ Hiring
§ Creating awareness in the market
§ Downloads of your app / Sales
§ Signaling to competitors

16. What is Earned Media
& PR
§ Blog posts that you write and submit for
publishing (how-to’s are great for this)
§ Coverage from any media (radio interview,
blog post, news article, etc)
§ Mentions from others that you didn’t pitch
§ Evangelists who are well known (imagine
Oprah mentioning you to her minions)

17. Why Earned Media &
PR
§ Exposes you to big numbers all at once
§ Gives a spike of traffic
§ May be strategic instead of pure growth
(e.g. TechCrunch might not be the target
market, but it’s what VCs read)
§ Has a strong trust rate

18. PR strategy
What is your goal?

19. Performance Measurement
• Is your objective SMART: specific, measurable, achievable,
realistic & time specific?
• What are your strategic initiatives?
• Build awareness
• Expand distribution (i.e. increase downloads)
• Get more funding
• Hire great people
• How will you measure (KPIs)?
• Traffic
• Sales
• Applications
• Interest from VCs

20. Your Goal Determines Strategy
If you want to raise
money, pitching to
mommy bloggers won’t
help. Unless one of
them just raised a fund.

21. How to do PR
Let’s get to the nitty gritty

22. Your List is Gold
Journalists Analysts Influencers
@shiraabel

24. How to Do Earned Media & PR
• Get to know media & bloggers on Twitter long before launch
• Give
• 2 weeks before launch ask if they would be willing to check
out your product (consider an embargo)
• Offer an exclusive
• Contribute an article
• I’ve heard of success from mass emails (luckiest woman I’ve
ever met – only case of success I know)
• KEEP YOUR ASK SHORT

25. Sample Email

26. Tools You Need
• Google Alerts:
• Who is covering your competition?
• Who owns your keywords?
• SimilarWeb
• What are your keywords?
• What is your competition focusing on
• Google Trends / Twitter Trends
• Trendjacking
26

27. Content as PR
§ Guest blogging
§ Webinars / Presentations with bigger
partners that give helpful industry
related information
§ Create an infographic for others to share
§ Guest contribute to a media publication

28. All About Inbound

29. Writing - What Do You Read?
• No one cares about your company
• People are busy
• They care about what they need for work or life
• Don’t waste their time
• Grammar and spelling mistakes lower trust by up to
50% - get another set of eyes to check your work
@shiraabel

30. Blogging
• Make sure it’s interesting
• Have a CTA at the bottom of the post leading
somewhere else
• Don’t have it be about you (see the first bullet)
• Blog regularly, so people come back
• Give helpful information
• Test whether 300 words or 1200 words are better for
your audience
@shiraabel

31. Thought Leadership is Critical
• Blogging and guest blogging is one of the best ways to
do this
• Webinars / Presentations that give helpful industry
related information (think Crunched and its Growth
Hacker series)
• White papers (sign up to our newsletter and get this
white paper for free!)
@shiraabel

32. “A true unfair
advantage
is something
that cannot
be easily copied
or bought.”
- Jason Cohen

33. What’s Your Strategy

34. Example
Business
Objective
Improve Financial
Performance
Business Metric
Reduce Long-Term
Dependence on Ads & Lower
Overall Costs
Marketing Metric
Increase Relationship / Content Marketing –
Raise percentage of traffic from blog versus
ads

35. Example

36. Watch the Funnel
Acquisition – Learns About Product
Conversion – Signs Up OR Demo
Retention – Uses Product
OR Buys
Buys OR Expands
Account
WOM
(Sharing)
@shiraabel
Your content
depends on where
the person is in the
funnel

37. • PR (Media Kit recommended)
• Facebook
• Podcast
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Quora
• LinkedIn
• Blogging
• Newsletter / Email (highest ROI of all digital media)
• Google+
• Forums
• White papers / Case studies
• Peer review
• Seeding posts
• Infographics
• E-book
• Webinars
• Community
• Guest blogging
• Teleseminar
• Affiliate Marketing
• Game elements (e.g. leader board, 80% signed up,
awards for actions)
• SEO / SEM
• Pinterest
• Blog commenting
Sample Free Tactics (not in any
order)

38. @shiraabel

39. Communicating to an
International Market
• Americans spell correctly. However, the British
disagree. There are more Americans than British J
(localize your English – even when it’s for Australians)
• Spelling and grammar count – mistakes lower trust
levels in all languages and cultures
• Find someone from the culture you’re aiming to sell to,
who knows marketing – to do your marketing. OR – go
there & live for a bit. Understanding culture is critical.
@shiraabel

40. All About Outbound

41. Drip Campaign
• DO NOT BUY A LIST
• Build a list
• Goal: Engagement
• Cadence:
• First 3 emails – blog post lists, infographics, non-gated content
(just bring value)
• Next 3 emails – lightly gated content e.g. White paper, case study
• Next 2 emails – call to demo
• Last email – breakup (or just leave it open for awile)
• CALL THE PEOPLE WHO OPEN
@shiraabel

42. ABM
• Like Outbound, but more focused
• You need to know who the players are
• Targeted emails – these make it obvious you’ve done
your homework on them
• Do not send gated content (you should have their info
already)
• Send something IRL (books are always good, then a
swag notebook – but first don’t make it about you)
@shiraabel

43. Calling
• Do your research first
• People don’t call anymore, so there’s a chance you’ll
actually catch someone
• Call during work hours – not during their dinner
@shiraabel

44. Ads
• Also outbound, but not free – so I’m just mentioning,
but not diving in
@shiraabel

45. Email Hunter
Find the email of the person you want to connect to by using the Email Hunter Chrome
browser app
@shiraabel

46. Rapportive
Confirm the
email of the
person you
want to
connect to by
checking
names
through the
Rapportive
plugin.
@shiraabel

47. Boomerang in Gmail
@shiraabel
This helps
you
remember to
send that
follow up
email.

48. Boomerang in Gmail
@shiraabel
MixMax helps you
remember to send
that follow up
email, and has the
easiest meeting
scheduler I’ve ever
seen.

49. Signals
@shiraabel
Find out
when the
email you
sent was
opened by
the recipient.

50. LinkedIn
@shiraabel
Choose who you
want to connect to:
What groups is the
person in?
If you know the title
but not the whole
name – do a search
in Google of the
partial name and
title & you’ll get the
whole name.

51. Who Are You Looking For
@shiraabel

52. Google Search
@shiraabel

53. First & Last Name Found!
@shiraabel

54. Marketing as a Sales Tool
• Case studies show your ideal customer and how things
go when everything is perfect
• Connecting with individuals on social builds the
relationship, e.g.
• Object can showcase customers design work on its FB page
• LinkedIn group about industry – lead generation
• Social CRM on Twitter
• Email marketing reminds companies that you exist &
what you can do for them
@shiraabel

55. Social Media for Research
• What is the title of the person in the organization that
typically makes the decisions?
• Rapportive
• LinkedIn
• Who are the media people who cover your industry?
• Twitter
• FB
• Quora
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
@shiraabel

56. International Partnerships
• You’re in Europe – use it to your advantage – partner
with other European & Israeli companies
• Find companies in complimentary industries to do joint
partnerships with – e.g. A high end organic bed
company does a joint promotion with a high end
organic bedding (sheets) company – email lists are
combined & both companies & customers benefit
• Face to face is ideal, but Skype works wonders when
F2F is not possible
@shiraabel

57. Keep in Touch – Email
• Keep it short
• A/B test several subject lines
• Action-trigger emails have a higher opening rate
• Keep it relevant
• Appropriate landing page à funnel them in
• Let people choose what they want to be notified for
• DON’T BUY LISTS OR SPAM
@shiraabel

58. Keep in Touch – Notifications
• iOS 108 characters max
• Android – recommended 50 characters max (1-line on
the notification bar) * ht/ Danya Schwartz Bar-El
• Localize sending so user receives notification between
9-11am or 2-5pm (but test first)
• A/B test messaging for a couple of days then blast
everybody else with the winner
• In-app landing page – like all landing pages - fitted to
the message and the push campaign
@shiraabel

59. How You Say Things Matters
‘Researchers found that placing the following statement
at the end of an ad… caused their trust scores to jump
as much as 33 percent!’
“You can trust us to do the job for
you.”
@shiraabel

60. • Fear – Insurance
• Guilt – Mother’s Day
• Trust – Financial
institutions
• Value – Matching prices
• Belonging – Part of our
community
• Competition – Doing
better than the Jones’s
• Instant Gratification – I
want it now
• Leadership – Early
adopter & evangelist
• Trendsetting – What are
the leaders doing?
• Time – Save time
Get Emotional

61. International Markets
§ Americans spell correctly. However, the British
disagree. There are more Americans than
British ☺ (localize your English – even when
it’s for Australians)
§ Spelling and grammar count – mistakes lower
trust levels in all languages and cultures
§ Find someone from the culture you’re aiming
to sell to, who knows marketing – to do your
marketing. OR – go there & live for a bit.
Understanding culture is critical.

62. Connect!
@shiraabel
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shiraabel
http://www.facebook.com/shiraabel
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ShiraAbel/posts
http://www.instagram.com/shiraabel
http://www.pinterest.com/shira_abel

63. Your options according to
Yoda
Do.
Do not.
Try.

64. References & Reads
• All of the stock photos are taken from http://thestocks.im/
• THANK YOU’S: Heather Meeker from http://meekerquinn.com/
• http://uxmovement.com/forms/why-users-fill-out-less-if-you-mark-required-fields/
• http://dancounsell.com/articles/prompting-for-app-reviews
• http://agevik.se/post/72876032312/20-lessons-about-making-viral-apps-i-learned-the-hard
• http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/09/web-content-conversions/
• http://www.slideshare.net/startuplessonslearned/eric-ries-the-lean-startup-google-tech-talk
• http://www.slideshare.net/gzicherm/nir-eyal-hookedatgsummit
• http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas
• http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/socialization-of-your-personal-brand_28/
• http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2004/03/its_a_small_wor.html
• http://www.quora.com/Udemy/How-did-Udemy-get-11-000-courses-online-so-quickly
• http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Three-Wolf-Short-Sleeve/product-reviews/B002HJ377A
• http://www.amazon.com/BIC-Cristal-1-0mm-Black-MSLP16-Blk/dp/B004F9QBE6
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI
• http://www.macadamia-apps.com/app-launch-7-mistakes-to-learn-from/
• http://flowingdata.com/2011/09/18/yoda-pie-chart/
• http://blog.bitly.com/post/9887686919/you-just-shared-a-link-how-long-will-people-pay
• http://www.briansolis.com/2011/09/whats-the-r-o-i-a-framework-for-social-analytics/
• http://www.slideshare.net/setlinger/altimeter-social-analytics081011final
• Breakthrough Marketing Plans
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-the-roi-of-social-media
• http://ideas.deloitte.ca/blog/2011/09/social-media-going-beyond-roi/
• http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/20/the-10-key-mistakes-many-bloggers-and-writers-make/
• http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/03/01/the-10-best-facebook-campaigns/
• http://www.facebook-studio.com/
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-the-roi-of-social-media
• http://marketingfortomorrow.com/tag/marketing-tone/
@shiraabel

65. Thank you!