Smarketing

How to Market your startup on a Shoestring

Agenda

• Entering the market on a shoestring• The problem with sales• The problem with marketing• Smarketing: for “fast start” market entry• Components of smarketing• Case Study

About me• Provide content marketing services to

technology and other companies• Sales Exec. Almost 20 years• Start-ups, Vignette Corp, Pervasive

Software, Video Equipment• Re-invited myself 3 years ago: from

salesguy to content marketer

Entering the Market on a shoestring

• U.S. Software Mkt Largest in the world– 2008 Global SW Market: $303.8 Billion– U.S.: 42.6 % of this (Wikipedia)

• Most start-ups are risk averse• Too big• Hyper-competitive• Complicated

The problem with sales

The problem with sales• Cold-calling doesn’t work anymore• Leads that come in from marketing suck• Hard to establish trust/rapport• Sales methods in use today are out of

touch• Everybody knows everything• Sales people are “weak”

The problem with marketing: It takes too long!

Source: Hubspot

What is Smarketing?

• “Smarketing is the new one-person marketing/sales/web 2.0 hybrid: sales people acting like marketers; marketers acting like sales people, using content and sales 2.0 tools to generate leads”

What is Smarketing?

• Use of compelling, relevant content to serve as absentee sales people

• Implemented by sales people or marketing people

• Requires sales 2.0 mind-set• Also requires Sales 1.0 mind-set

How sales and marketing are similar

Sales Marketing

Opening Pitch Catchy Title

Empathy with customer Knowing your audience

Dig for pain Presentation of problem

Present a solution Show benefit

Explain how it works Proof points

Ask for the order Call to action

The real purpose of marketing

“The object of advertising is to sell goods. It has no other justification worth mentioning.”

Raymond Rubicam, Young & RubicamExcerpt from “The Copywriter’s Handbook,” Bob Bly

That’s kind of like like sales people, right?

Smarketers are like a one-man band!

Why smarketing?

• Content fulfills prospects’ need to research

• Content can be passed around inside and outside company

• Allows “soft-sell” approach• You can target specific decision-makers• Get faster results

Components of “smarketing”1. Start blogging even before market entry

2. What do you actually sell?

3. Define target market, loosely

4. Get your website right (trash the traditional)

5. Create your buzz piece

6. Create basic Social Media presence

7. Identify your prospects via social media

8. Analyze your LinkedIn connections

9. Have something to invite people to

10. Soft email

11. Warm cold-calls

12. Innovative content tools

Start blogging before market entry

• Dharmesh Shah, CTO/Co-Founder Hubspot: http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/12875/Startup-Marketing-ABCs.aspx

“Many startups today have a blog, but most of them do not start blogging until after they have launched a product.  One of the smartest things the HubSpot co-founders did was start blogging before HubSpot had a product to sell, helping to build an asset ”

I started blogging at LatinITMarketing.com 3 months before launching my services; I already had an audience

What do you actually sell?

• Interview customers:

With customer KPI Online– They thought they were seling“Business

Intelligence”

Clients said: they were looking for:–Faster reports and dashboards, not BI–Stop Wasting Time with

Spreadsheets

What do you actually sell?

• Think like Apple–Jobs: Apple does NOT do market

research–100% centered on customer-

centered innovation, but…

Think like Apple

Steve Jobs “I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do. So you can’t go out and ask people, you know, what’s the next big [thing.]”

Henry Ford: "If I had listened to my customers I would have invented a faster horse.“

USP

• What is your relevant differentiator?– Overt benefit + Dramatic Difference: sales– High Dramatic Diffence: 50% probability of

success according to Merwyn. Doug Hall, “Jump Start your Business Brain.”

• What if there’s NO differentiator?1. Stress an underpublicized difference

2. Dramatize a known difference differently

3. Dramatize a product name or packaging. Bob Bly, ‘The Copywriters Handbook””

Define target market, loosely

• Look at your track record so far (in your own country, in U.S.)

• Look at about 2-3 niches• Never know which one is really going to

respond

Legal Services Firm

• Food Distribution Firm• Hispanic Business

Get your website righttrash the traditional

• What will you do for me?• Who is it for?• How does it work?• Why your product/service?• What does it cost?• How can I try it?• CALL TO ACTION!• Make it like a landing page• Who’s behind it?

Create your “buzz piece”

• Foundational content• New concept• Resolve an industry problem• Bold Benefit• Non-commercial: advertising that’s too

good to throw away• eBook, White Paper, Web App, Video,

Top 10 List, Case Study

Create your “buzz piece”

InfoLink

Integrated Product Support: Your New Competitive Weapon in the High Stakes B2B Technology Marketplace

Create your “buzz piece”

IESoft

How Small Food Distributors Can Reclaim Control of their Business: the Surprising Outsourcing Solution

Create your basic social media presence

• LinkedIn Profile / LinkedIn Group?• Facebook Fan Page• Twitter Account• YouTube Channel• Don’t overdo it!

Identify your prospects via social media

• Google• LinkedIn / LinkedIn Groups• Tweepsearch• Twitter Search• Google Alerts• Jigsaw

Analyze your LinkedIn Connections

• List your LinkedIn Contacts on one column

• Identify your target companies• The intersection of contacts with target

companies can show you where to focus your efforts

Have something to invite people to

• Product webinars• Guest speaker webinars• In person talks• Case study presentations

Soft Email / Cold-Call

• “Who would you recommend?” or “Permission to connect?”

• Never a direct solicitation• Short and sweet• “buzz piece” offer in signature of email• Offer to help• Offer to send valuable content/demo

Innovative Content Tools

• Tokbox or Kineticast

Not so new anymore: • Webex or Gotomeeting• Ustream• Slideshare• Etc.

Innovative content tools

Sonny Johns, Smarketing Practitioner@sonnyjohns @kashmoo

www.kashmoo.com

Case Study: My Friend Sonny Johns

Sonny Johns and Smarketing• Lean startup: no marketing staff/budget • Uses: Twitter (personal and Kashmoo),

LinkedIn, Google Alerts• Twitter: “Thank you for following me”• LinkedIn: Cruise the Groups; look for

flooring CEOs, etc. free news,• GA: “flooring retailer,” “flooring dealer,”

“flooring sales jobs”• Send intro email / cold calls• “Permission to connect” emails.

How to contact me

Fernando Labastida, Latin IT Marketing

Twitter: @flabastida

Facebook: http://facebook.com/flabastida

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/flabastida

Tel: 512-945-9273

Website: http://latinitmarketing.com

Email: fernando@labastida.com