This is an updated, shortened & interactive version of a lecture I presented one year earlier. The audience was startup company founders participating in TheHive@Gvahim, an incubator in Tel Aviv, Israel. The companies' marketing targets are a very broad range, including B2B enterprise, B2C, SaaS and social enterprises. The lecture included mini-assignments for participants to do for a few minutes between lecture segments.

1. Marketing for Early Stage Start-ups
Rebecca Steinberg Herson
Presented to: TheHive@Gvahim Startup Incubator
January 3, 2012
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Copyright © 2012 Rebecca Steinberg Herson

2. A bit about me
http://re.vu/rebeccaherson
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3. So this is marketing…
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4. What we’ll discuss today
 Getting to know your customers
 Segmenting your market
 Increasing your influence
 Calls to action
 Promotion
 Identifying what’s working (calculating ROI)
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5. Your Solutions Solves A PAIN.
Who Suffers from this pain?
Getting to Know your (potential) Customers
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6. Your Customer is Not You
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7. How to get to know your customer
 Old days
 Focus Groups
 Phone surveys
 Analyst Reports
 Trade Shows
 Today
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8. Market Surveys
 Use surveys to
 test product ideas
 confirm your instincts
 refine your message
 discover new potential customers
 Google docs - its completely free
 Can be edited collaboratively (whoever you allow)
 Lots of available designs, or embed in your own web page or blog
 LinkedIn Polls
 Survey your own network for free
 Survey specific demographics for a fee (~$1/response)
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9. Learning @ LinkedIn
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Copyright (c) 2010 Rebecca Steinberg Herson

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Copyright (c) 2010 Rebecca Steinberg Herson

12. Jump in to Social Media
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13. Identify key people in your industry
 Search Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook for relevant people, groups,
comments, companies
 Follow, read their tweets, check their blogs
 Retweet relevant content – people appreciate it and it builds
your credibility
 Tweet your own thoughts – be authentic
 Join relevant groups on LinkedIn, Facebook
 “Lurk” for a while before you jump in – think cocktail party
 Then, start discussions (LinkedIn)
 Correspond with people who enter the discussion
 DM influencers (Twitter)
 Reach out to people – they are people, and most want to help
13 Become part of the conversation

14. Trade Shows – a concentrated learning
tool
 If you attend, do your homework
 Check on twitter what people are saying about the event, tweetups
planned
 Review all the exhibitors and speakers – who do you want to talk to?
Do you want to meet the exhibitors or the attendees?
 Most of the people in the booths are sales reps – is that who will be
most useful for you? Some companies also send executives, but they
don’t hang around waiting for visitors; you need to book an
appointment
 The Press are also there. Don’t bother with them unless you already
have a customer they can talk to
 Look up the people you want to meet on LinkedIn and memorize what
they look like – you just might run into them in a hotel lobby
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15. Identify 3 ways you can learn more
about your customers
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16. Segmenting Target Markets
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17. Identify your ideal customer(s)
Build marketing personas
 Customer company size / end-user demographic
 Vertical industry – finance, medical, retail,
automotive, etc.
 Geographic location
 Who is my potential buyer? What is his/her job title?
 Who are my influencers? What are their job titles?
 What is the total addressable market?
 Who competes in this market already?
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18. Segmenting the market
 Different segments will require different marketing
strategies
 May require slightly different product features
 Try to limit yourself to the quickest acting segment at
first – for first customers
 Later, focus on the most profitable segment
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19. Think of three ways you could
potentially segment your target market
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20. Increasing Your Influence
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21. Why you need a blog (or FB Page, or
Vlog, or Tumblr, or Twitter feed, or…)
 It’s the second thing people will look at when they want to
understand you and your company
 (the first is your LinkedIn profile)
 Great for SEO
 It becomes your own media channel - who needs
ComputerWorld anymore?
 Gives you more credibility with the mainstream media –
you can become a source for them
 Gives you something to tweet, for people to retweet, and
for them to comment on – gets you into the conversation
 Of course, you need to have something to say
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22. Start your blog (or X…)
 Blog can be your own personal blog, that is, if you have enough to say
on your own
 If you open a company blog, you will have more options for
contributors
 Facebook pages have lots of blog-ish options; main drawback: not
searchable
 Be authentic
 Talk about issues in the industry
 Comment on newsworthy items
 Offer advice
 Blog at least 2 months before you want to publicize it
 This ensures you know what you’re getting into and can maintain it
 You will have archived content from day 1
 If you’re vlogging, include keyword-heavy descriptions for each video
 Include CALLS TO ACTION in your blog or near your posts
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23. Think of 5 ideas you can
blog/vlog/tweet about
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24. The Call to Action
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25. Calls To Action
 Sign up for our newsletter
 Visit our web site
 Download this white paper
 Enter this contest
 Meet us at this event
 What do you think about X? Tell us in the comments
 Register for our free version
 View this webinar
 Answer our survey
 Call our hotline… operators standing by
 ……
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 BUY!!!

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Copyright (c) 2010 Rebecca Steinberg Herson

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Copyright (c) 2010 Rebecca Steinberg Herson

28. 28 “If you share our vision, let’s work together”

29. Amazing, rich content.
Where is the CTA?
Where is the elevator
pitch?
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Copyright (c) 2010 Rebecca Steinberg Herson

30. What are 5 different calls to action you
can use to market your solution?
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31. Marketing Promotion
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32. Promotion
Social
Networking
32 MIT Sloane School Marketing Management Course Lecture

33. Value Proposition, Elevator Pitch
 The unique value you offer to your customers
 Boil it down into a very short, medium and long
statement
 Literally try saying it in the elevator – it’s hard
 Test it out on others, especially outside your company
 Polish this before you start officially
promoting, to maintain consistency
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34. Elevator Pitch Template
From: http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/30/startups-give-us-your-best-one-sentence-pitch/
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35. Public Relations
 Keep track of articles that cover your industry – these are
most likely the journalists you will want to contact when
the time comes
 Journalists look for newsworthy stories:
 Timely
 Conflict
 Unexpected
 Meaningful
 Craft your “pitch” based on what you’ve learned about the
journalist – what kinds of stories does s/he write?
 Try for the less obvious publications – you may find
coverage easier to achieve
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36. Trade Shows/ Conferences
 You don’t necessarily have to exhibit (expensive!!) – try
visiting the first time, and making appointments – great
research tool
 Apply for speaking engagements even if you don’t exhibit
 Check with the organizers if they have any matching-type
services to bring relevant people to you
 Request the press list in advance and reach out to relevant
journalists before you get there
 Tweet that you’re going; update your LinkedIn profile;
Facebook
 Don’t expect the relevant leads to show up just because
you are there. You need to bring them to your booth
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37. Qualifying Show Visitors
 Majority of visitors will be tire-kickers
 Come up with 3 questions that immediately lets
you know if the visitor is qualified
 Track the answers with the visitor’s business card
(badge scanner or staple the card to a lead sheet
with the 3 questions pre-printed)
 Send a follow up email to everyone who attended,
highlighting your key positioning statements
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39. How to Know What’s Working (ROI)
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40. How to Measure What’s Working?
 SALES (of course)
 What if you’re not selling? Divide your pipeline into specific stages,
and track opportunities as they progress
Traditional Enterprise Product: Social/ SaaS:
1-Qualified suspect – meets our 1-free trial registrant
criteria 2-spent time on site/app
2-Initiated contact 3-populated personal profile
3-Interest expressed – potential 4-asked support question
opportunity identified …
… 8-signed up for 1 month paid
9-Verbal commitment to purchase 9-extended for 1 year paid
Closed Won
Closed Lost
Stalled/Postponed
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41. Sample Pipeline by Lead Source
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12 Trade Show
London
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Twitter
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6 Google Ads
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Webinar on
2 Security
0 Articles
Stage Stage Stage Stage Sold
6 7 8 9
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42. Interim Results, Prior to Sales
For each lead source calculate:
adjusted revenue = ∑ (Expected deal size x % likelihood to close)
Temporary ROI (until deal closes)= [(adj. revenue - cost)/cost]*100
 For cost, include your time – if you spend 3 days at a trade show
this adds to the cost of the show
 Likelihood to close is (typically) based on sales stage – stage 6 =
60%; stage 7 = 70%, etc.
 In in long sales cycles, a lead doesn’t even become an
“opportunity” until it hits stage 4
 You can start by tracking in a spreadsheet; eventually you’ll need
a CRM system / lead nurturing system
 Enterprise sales: each account will have multiple contacts, further
complicating your record keeping
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43. Measuring Conversion Rate
4700
Email blast sent
1175 Invitations Opened 25% open rate
94 Unique page views 2% of invited
41 Respondents 44% page conversion
58 Attendees Attendees > respondents indicates WOM
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44. Iterate, Iterate and Iterate Again
 Build in feedback models
 A-B testing
 Track opens, clicks, event attendance, registrations, etc.
 Do it better the next time
 Adjust your message
 Adjust your demo
 Adjust your home page
 Adjust your marketing channel
 Try to improve the # of leads coming into the funnel
 Track and improve your conversion rate at every step in the
funnel
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45. What conversion rates are
meaningful for my business?
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46. That first (second or third) customer
 Revenue is important, but in the early stage these are even
more important:
 Feedback that can help improve the product
 Testimonial - a customer approves a quote for your web
site or other marketing materials
 “This product is great because it solves such & such
problem…”
 Case study – customer goes on the record with before/
after data and quotes
 Reference – customer agrees to talk to other potential
customers, journalists or analysts about how great you are
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47. Useful Marketing Resources
http://bit.ly/marketing-resources
Highly recommended reading:
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48. Thank You!
Rebecca Steinberg Herson
rherson@gmail.com
054-444-2372
http://il.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaherson
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