Ian Lurie @portentint

ian@portent.com

BE SIGNIFICANT NOT ANNOYING

INTERNET MARKETING FOR STARTUPS

This is a somewhat annotated version of the presentation I gave at a SURF CEO meetup in December, 2012.

portent.co/sigannt

Yes, like this, no ‘m’.

The link, finally correct after 3 typos and an unknown number of silly mistakes.

In which I tell a tale of Compuserve spamming, and why being significant is real marketing – being annoying is not.

YOUR CAREER IS ABOUT MARKETING

No matter what you do, if you’re starting a company, you’re a marketer. Your products, your presentations, etc. are all about communicating value – significance – and that’s what marketing is.

This is not marketing.

In which I tell the story of how Bicycling Magazine taunted me publicly in 1992. Yes, I tend to carry grudges for a while.

buybuybuybuybuy

This is what it’s like when Bicycling.com pukes a popup ad in the middle of a page. This has nothing to do with marketing. It’s harassment/browbeating.

‘NUFF SAID

MARKETING: COMMUNICATING TRUE VALUE & SIGNIFICANCE TO YOUR AUDIENCE.

MARKETING IS ABOUT BEING SIGNIFICANT

NOT SIGNIFICANT

I haven’t even read a page on this site yet, and they’re spamming me with a signup request. I don’t think so.

Mashable, on the other hand, doesn’t mess around. I searched, I clicked, and there’s my article.

Bicycling, you guys just make it way too easy. Seriously, though: This particular popup is worthless to me, even if I didn’t hate popups. I’m a bike mechanic, for God’s sake. Why are you bugging me with advice on how to apply handlebar tape? Seriously?!

Check out this post from Bikerumor.com. Straight-up info. And no popups. Thank you. They went straight to my Google Reader list.

I refuse to annotate this. It’ll take too long. Hopefully it makes sense on its own.

IT’S SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY

Marketing: Simple, but not easy.

STEP 1: MAKE CONTACT

Step 1: Make contact. You have to actually get found.

On Google, I find stuff. If I already know I want a Di2 group, I can find it.

If I have no idea, though, I ask in social media. This is where I can discover new stuff.

Of course, some answers are more helpful than others, aren’t they, @jcolman? Phhbbbbt.

Now, armed with what I learned from my social media friends, I can go find what I want.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012

Search Social

91%

66%

From http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Search-Engine-Use-2012.aspx

Search, though, is the dominant force. It’s kept growin, with 91% of users saying they use a search engine every week. Social media? Not so much.

0   10   20   30   40   50   60   70  

Social  

Ads  

Search  engines  

Channels  used  for  purchase  decisions  

E-consultancy data. Hmmm. Where are you spending most of your money? On search, I hope.

0%   10%   20%   30%   40%   50%  

Always  

Frequently  

Occasionally  

Rarely  

Never  

PPC  Natural  

WHERE PEOPLE CLICK: SEARCH

A lot more people click on organic results than PPC results.

BUDGET ALLOCATION BY CHANNEL

Yet far more marketers say they’re putting most of their budget into PPC than any other channel. And Social Media, which generates even less, gets a sizable chunk, too. Why? I don’t know. Rand Fishkin gets a great look on his face when he tries to explain this – he thinks it’s ridiculous, too – like he just ate a lemon that went bad. Me? I just get heartburn.

70% OF CLICKS 22% OF BUDGET

30% OF CLICKS 43% OF BUDGET

Why? Someone, please just tell me why?!!!!

80% OF CLICKS 3% CONVERSION RATE 40% OF BUDGET

10% OF CLICKS .6% CONVERSION RATE 50% OF BUDGET

Whhyyyyyyyyyyy….!?

OK, let's get the seo in

here

OK, let's get the seo in

here

If nothing else, make sure you get the SEO folks involved while building your site, not the day before launch. The results otherwise may be, uh, disappointing.

MORE <> BETTER

And in social media, understand that more is not better. Sometimes…

…it’s better to just shut up.

FOLLOW THE GOLDEN RULE. ALL THE TIME.

In which I tell the story of Carmel Limousine in Manhattan, who earned my eternal enmity with godawful service three weeks ago. Treat everyone you ‘meet’ in social media as an important person, and as you’d want to be treated. Never know when you’ll piss off someone with 14,000 Twitter followers.

STEP 2: BE SIGNIFICANT

Really, it all comes down to this. Once folks find you – once you’re visible, you have to matter. And you have to matter even if I’m not buying right then.

KNOW WHY.

If you want to really nail this, understand the ‘why’ of your business. I’ve read this book 3-4 times now. You only have to read it once.

Etsy’s why – to me anyway – is to connect cool people and cool stuff. So they write about that, a lot. That makes them significant to me, even if I’m not buying a thing.

Sometimes, significant means writing stuff that isn’t directly about you or your brand. It means writing things that appeal to folks who aren’t even potential customers yet.

Significance also means delivering.

MEH.

And ‘delivering’ doesn’t mean a big fat ad right in the middle of the stuff I wanted to read. Does this ad actually generate any money?...

MEH.

Ford gets it. They have all sorts of fun stuff, and I don’t have to be car shopping to want to read it.

There is NO BETTER VALUE IN MARKETING than great content. If write it yourself, it costs zero hard dollars. If you hire a fantastic pro to write it, it might cost you $500/article. If you do a video, maybe $2500. And each piece you produce is a permanent asset and authority builder. Plus every piece is a shot at a viral ‘home run.’ Spend $500 on paid advertising and see if you get that. I’m not saying ‘ignore paid ads.’ Paid ads – PPC or otherwise – are crucial. We always put them into clients’ marketing mix. But they generate a proportional, short-term return. You need to also invest in something that generates a long-term, potentially geometric return. That’s all this significance stuff.

ANSWER QUESTIONS

Another great way to build significance – to matter to your audience – is to answer their questions.

One easy source of questions: Google Suggest.

Running a Seattle real estate site? Here are your next 10 blog posts.

Quora. I’ve landed 2 great clients by answering questions here.

Significance, 3: Have a site that loads fast. K, even I’m feeling a little bad for picking on Bicycling this much, now.

MEH.

But if they ran Google Page Speed, they’d see lots of easy ways to trim a second or so off their load times.

Target: If I just want a pair of jeans, don’t make me use a whole configurator-whatsit. I just want 32-34 Levis. Can’t you just, I dunno, list the brands or something?

Or at least make the product grid so it doesn’t look like it got between Liam Neeson and his daughter in Taken?

Airbnb is brilliant at this. They establish significance by being so damned simple.

…and by anticipating my needs, without seizure-inducing screen crowding.

STEP 3: BUILD COMMUNITY

Once you demonstrate significance, it’s time to build ‘community.’ Which is a trendy term for what we used to call the ‘house list’ – aka the folks you can reach out to when you’re selling stuff.

THE HOUSE LIST

Bicycling, I’d stop if it weren’t so damn easy. How, exactly, do I subscribe to your blog if I find an article I like?

Ooooh. It’s this little 10 x 10 pixel chicklet at the top of the page, basically a continent away from the content that got me interested. Fail.

Side note: Significance can be bad, if you so piss off your customers that they create a Facebook page, purely to say how much they hate you.

The same day Carmel earned a spot in my Book of Grudges, Alaska Airlines showed why I love them so. Long wait for bags, so I tweeted about it at 12:15 AM.

I had a reply about 5 hours later. We exchanged a few more messages – they made sure I was taken care of. The baggage delay, by the way, ended up being Seatac’s fault. But @alaskaair was STILL there offering to help.

Probably part of why they have 220k likes as a relatively small airline…

While United Airlines spends their time growing their ‘United Airlines Sucks’ page.

Ahem. Getting serious: Part of building the house list is seeing to it that everyone converts. We offer free e-mail series on all manner of topics. Folks can sign up and get free learning. In exchange, we get to occasionally pester them about more free learning.

LAUNCHROCK

But you’re a startup, and you have no time for this. Your dev team is slammed, and so are you. OK. Use a tool like Launchrock to set up a quick ‘keep in touch’ page. It takes 2 minutes.

FACEBOOK CUSTOM AUDIENCES

Just cool. Learn about them.

Subscribe Facebook Ad

Don’t forget about other places to build your house list and community. Slideshare.net has been awesome for me.

Vimeo ain’t too shabby, either.

Or write a Kindle eBook and distribute it. It works.

STEP 4: CONVERT

I’m not going to say much here.

EVERYONE CONVERTS

Full Circle provides lots of conversion opportunities here: Sign up for their newsletter. Like the post. Tweet about it. Or yes, buy their service. Don’t make conversion an all-or-nothing proposition.

ASSUME TESTING

Assume you’ll be testing your site. Build in the flexibility, the resources and the time to do it. DO IT. Yes, it takes time. It will pay off 10-fold.

MAKE IT EASY

Make it easy for me to convert. I know, duh…

But it would take 15 minutes to code this so it’s a 1-step, not a 2-step process.

Love this lander from Cheezburger. Plus, their CEO does a wicked Gangam Style.

UNBOUNCE OPTIMIZELY

Easy testing tools that require zero development skills.

They provide nifty analytics.

…and nifty design tools.

THE INEVITABLE

Can you even prove it works?

If you ask this question, I don’t hate you. I just like capybaras. C’mon, look at this dude. The splayed toes. The knowing, zen-like pose.

MEASURE EVERYTHING

You can’t capture every bit of ROI, but you can capture a lot. Measure everything.

This fantastic report that Avinash Kaushik developed (and shared) lets me see how well content is driving conversion.

GETTING A BOOST

Don’t hesitate to give your marketing campaign a bit of a boost, too.

Use Followerwonk to find people to follow. Target your friend-making efforts.

OUTBRAIN.COM ADWORDS

STUMBLEUPON PAID DISCOVERY Use paid services to get your content introduced to the world.

BE CONSISTENT

DON’T QUIT

THIS

And never, ever, ever quit. Keep at it. Persistence is a great marketing advantage.

THIS ALWAYS WORKS

In 17 years I have NEVER seen this kind of marketing fail. I’ve seen folks quit 6 months into it. But I’ve never seen someone stick with it and get zero payback.

This is Portent’s traffic. Our inbound lead generation has been roughly proportional. We weren’t exactly starving in 2007-2008, but look what happened as we kept at it.

@PORTENTINT IAN@PORTENT.COM

PORTENT.CO/sigannt

COMMENCE HECKLING

The end.