Lean Marketing for Broke Startups

By: Marcus Lee, Project Director, @MarcusJulienLee

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries A book written in 2011 by this

guy Replace traditional marketing

with experimentation Definitely had online businesses

in mind “Validated Learning”

Try an idea Measure It Repeat what works Try something else

Your Product = Your Marketing

Job Opening: Growth Hacker (WTF?) Growth Hacking—How do I get more users?

Aaron Ginn defines a growth hacker as: “One who’s passion is pushing the metric through use

of testable and scalable methodology” I define growth hacking this way:

A marketing mindset that involves taking creative risks and testing them in order to accelerate product

Even though I think it’s more of a mindset then a position, some startups are actually hiring “Growth Hackers”

The Lean Marketing Funnel

Goal is to build a self-perpetuating marketing machine where the cost of growing your customer base is $0.00

Case Studies: Dropbox User Onboarding• 200 milllion users• Worth $4 Billion• Spent almost no

money on advertising• They tried. Would

be $400 per new customer on Adwords

• Invested in their user onboarding to make visitors into customers

1. Signup Driven homepage (above)1. Easy signup process

2. Making it social1. Sharing with simplicity2. Product referrals with

incentives3. Social Media – more

sharing, more data space

Case Studies: Upworthy Content Strategy Upworthy is making social

good videos go viral. Around 10M unique views per

month in the first year Attracting readers not

pageviews Test different content in

different locations Pop-ups that ask for social

follows 419% more FB likes

Make 25 headlines for every single story Can be the difference between

8,000 views and 474,000.

Case Studies: Tinder One of my favorite

grow hacks of all time – Tinder

Founders were at USC Held exclusive frat

parties where people had to download the app to get in.

Built a local following 1,000 users on a

campus>>>1,000 users around the country

Key Takeaway #1 The key to a successful business is not the

size of your marketing budget! Testing creative ideas Agility – Adjust and Adapt Measuring Actual Progress Knowing your customers

Key Takeaway #2 Be innovative in your marketing approach.

Don’t be afraid to take risks! Don’t copy any of the techniques! They probably

won’t work for you! However, these cases contain lessons about

consumers. Starting point for your marketing adventures.

Reid Hoffman – Founder of LinkedIn “Building a startup is like jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down.”