Mindshare is the degree to which a brand is top-of-mind in a category of products or services. In this presentation at the MIT Entrepreneurship & Innovation Bootcamp in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I spoke about strategies for building mindshare, using four startup case studies as examples.
At the bootcamp, I also coached a group of global innovators, entrepreneurs, and change-makers on the topics of startup PR and marketing to help them make headway into growing their companies outside of the startup pitch competition that took place within the one-week bootcamp. Learn more at: http://bootcamp.mit.edu/entrepreneurship/brazil/
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Mindshare for Startups: Building Thought Leadership & Community
1. JULY 28 – AUGUST 3, 2018
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
MIT INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
BOOTCAMP
Mindshare
Building Thought Leadership & Community
MIT INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
BOOTCAMP
2. JULY 28 – AUGUST 3, 2018
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
MIT INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
BOOTCAMP
Discussion Overview
• What is mindshare?
• Strategies for building mindshare
• Lessons from other startups
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Content Is My Life
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Content Is My Lifeblood
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Content Is My Hobby
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BOOTCAMP
MINDSHARE:
The degree to which
your brand is top-of-mind
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SEARCH ENGINE
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SOCIAL NETWORK
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TAXI APP
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PROFESSIONAL NETWORK
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COFFEE
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A BRAND
IN A CATEGORY
SYNONYMOUS
AS ONE OF THE BEST
PRODUCTS OR SERVICES
SUCH THAT IT BECOMES
WITH THE CATEGORY
THE AIM OF MINDSHARE
IS TO ESTABLISH
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Being Synonymous
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Adhesive bandages Facial tissue Lip balm
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Synonyms in Tech
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Just it.
Should we there?
I’ll it.
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HOW?
Strategies for
building mindshare.
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Many Marketing Channels
Website
SEO / SEM
Social Media
Email
Podcast
White papers
Ebooks
Media
Events
Sponsorships
Retargeting
Advertising
Videos
Infographics
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Bottom line: Understand your audience and what they need.
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Two Domains For Building Mindshare
Thought
Leadership
Community
Building
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Being the go-to opinion leader in
an area of expertise.
Gathering your target audience
around a shared goal.
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MIT INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
BOOTCAMP
Startup Case Studies
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Contently Oola Entrepreneur Kid
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Contently
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Case Study
• Audience: Marketers & Writers (two-sided market)
• Problem: Marketers need content creation help. Freelance writers
need more clients.
• Solution: A platform and marketplace for content creation, from
matchmaking to publication
• Strategy: Build out both sides of the market while becoming go-to
experts in content marketing
• Success: Works with top brands including GE, American Express,
IBM, Walmart, Facebook. Have a high-quality network of 100,000
freelancers spanning 60+ countries
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Key Strategies
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Contently
The Content Strategist
(marketers); The Freelancer
(writers)
01. BLOGS + SOCIAL + EMAIL
Freelance Writers Meetup (NY);
Content Conversations Meetup
(NY); The Contently Summit;
Contently Awards
02. EVENTS + CONFERENCES
An entire section on the website,
dedicated to helping marketers,
capturing leads. Plus, a trade
book co-authored by the
founder/Editor in Chief.
03. EBOOKS + GUIDES
A tool all writers need. But also an
industry standard-setting portfolio
that makes Contently network
applications and client matching
smoother.
04. WRITER PORTFOLIOS
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Oola
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Case Study
• Audience: Active women who wear modestwear
• Problem: Difficult to find stylish, modest activewear
• Solution: Performance-engineered, loose-fitting headcovers, tops,
and pants
• Strategy: Building an enthusiastic community of early adopters
• Success: Landed distribution in Qatar’s top sports apparel store
(Sports Corner) within first six months of launch
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Key Strategies
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Oola
Testing concept and building
early adopters with
crowdfunding. Raised 225% of
goal, a total of $33,790 raised
from 115 backers.
01. INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN
Doha-based, ladies-only athletic
events, such as Oola Run,
where women gather to exercise
(run, bike, walk, dance).
Opportunity to test and
introduce products.
02. LADIES-ONLY EVENTS
Coverage in Al Jazeera, The Gulf
Times, Doha News, Entrepreneur,
Sisters Magazine. (Ex: When Nike
launched sports hijab, Al Jazeera
requested comment from CEO Haya
Al Ghanim.)
03. MEDIA COVERAGE
Highlighting influencers and
commenting on relevant news and
trends in the modest activewear
community.
04. BLOGS + SOCIAL
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Entrepreneur Kid
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Case Study
• Audience: 5-8 year olds; Parents and teachers who want to teach
children entrepreneurship
• Problem: Children do not have access to quality entrepreneurship
education at young ages (5-8)
• Solution: A suite of products (starting with children’s books) that
teach youth entrepreneurship
• Strategy: Tell child entrepreneur success stories in order to
inspire future child entrepreneurs
• Success: Pre-sold >1,000 books on Kickstarter ($20,010 raised
from 226 backers in 27 states and 13 countries)
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MIT INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
BOOTCAMP
Key Strategies
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Entrepreneur Kid
Beta list of 50 parents and
entrepreneurs who became
early advocates through input
on manuscripts and illustrations
01. BETA READERS
Google is a common tool for
parents and teachers seeking
entrepreneurship education
resources. From our name to
blogging to social and Amazon
distribution, we are optimizing
for search.
02. SEO + BLOG + SOCIAL
Targeted speaking opportunities at
youth entrepreneurship camps,
entrepreneurship classes, and
entrepreneurship-related teacher
trainings
03. SPEAKING
Creating standards-aligned lesson
plans for easier implementation in
classrooms
04. CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
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LESSONS:
What can you learn
from these case studies?
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Lessons Learned
1 2 3Focus on audience needs. Meet them where they are. Provide immense value.
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CHALLENGE:
Dominate mindshare.
Become synonymous.
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Email me at hi@ericaswallow.com.
Tweet me @ericaswallow.
udemy.com/startuppr
Promo Code: MITRIO
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Photo Credits
Side 12: Oriijoy, Ocean Light
Slide 26: Chung Ho Leung, Note Taking
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Editor's Notes
Today we are discussing Mindshare. How do you capture the hearts and minds of your audience when there’s so much noise in the world? We’ll be talking about building thought leadership and community.
- Started my career in marketing @ The NYTimes (Was there I learned about the power of storytelling and journalism, the importance of information)
Fascinated by media, became an editor at Mashable, where I led supported content. My role was to help enhance advertiser click through rates with content that’s more relevant for their target audiences. (Example: We worked with BMWi, the electric vehicle arm of the car manufacturer BMW, to create the Global Innovation Series focused on innovations in urban planning and transportation.
I later became the Director of Community at a media startup, Contently, where I was in charge of building one side of our marketplace between journalists and content marketers. Journalists were my focus. I’ll share that case study a bit later.
I now apply my media and marketing expertise to education, the sector dearest to my heart.
Meanwhile, I consult with all kinds of businesses on their content and digital media strategies, through my agency Southern Swallow
Let’s go through a few examples. I’m going to say a category, and you shout out the first company that comes to mind…
Google
Facebook
Uber
LinkedIn
Starbucks
- What all of these companies you’ve named have in common is that they’ve achieved dominance of mindshare, the degree to which they are top-of-mind in a particular category
- As startup founders, it’s important that you develop a strategy for your own companies to achieve dominant mindshare in your respective categories
- You and your roommate are heading to dinner, but neither of you know the address. You might suggest… Just Google it.
- You’re at the door, ready to leave, but you’re really not in the mood to drive, and taking a train will take too long. You turn to your roommate: “Should we Uber there?”
- It’s a cold day, and you’ve had a runny nose. On the way out, you reach into the Kleenex box to get a tissue, only to find you’re out of Kleenexes! No worries, you say, “I’ll Amazon Prime it.”
There are many marketing channels, and often founders think about marketing channels like Pokemon: “Let’s collect them all!” Let’s do it all.
A better approach is understanding your audience and what they need. So far in this bootcamp, you’ve learned some valuable strategies for starting up, around:
Defining your target audience
Deeply understanding their problem
Determining the value you bring to them
The big marketing question: How will you reach them? How will you get your solution (product or service) into their hands?
Thought Leadership example: If your startup is focused on cyber security… being a thought leader would entail Bloomberg calling your CEO for comment when there’s a big data breach
Community Building example: Your target audience turns to you in order to get advice from other consumers in your category. For example, you may have a children’s clothing company, and as a part of your community building, you run a parenting support group on Saturdays, where moms and dads bring their children to play together and share parenting war stories. The next time one of those parents has a question about teething or diaper rash, guess who they’ll be turning to… likely someone in your community, thanks to your work. They will associate that problem-solving, that value to your organization. That is where WOM starts.
1. Marketing is essential. It is not an after thought or a nice-to-have. It is the means by which you reach your audience and generate demand. Contently clearly understands what marketers and writers need, and they built their product and marketing programs around those needs.
2. Each case study started with audience, problem, and solution. From there, we discussed channels. With Entrepreneur Kid, we know exactly where to go to reach teachers and parents. We make budgeting tradeoffs based on where we think we’ll have the most success.
3. To start, your product must have a phenomenal Unique Value Proposition. And every marketing effort must also support that proposition… Oola provides modest activewear where there is very little competition, and they also add to the value they provide by giving women options (through their events) for exercising. Must be a “must-have” not a “nice-to-have” solution.