Motarme workshop for NISP - Digital Marketing for Technology Startups. Introduction to building a repeatable Customer Acquisition Process using the web, search engine marketing, paid ads, email and social media. Describes a 7 step framework for clarifying your value proposition, targeting customers and then bringing those customers to your website and blog. Workshop for NISP Connect.
4. 4
“ We have seen for ourselves how a solid
strategy has helped to drive traffic to our
site and generate sales leads.”
“ We have seen for ourselves how a solid
strategy has helped to drive traffic to our
site and generate sales leads.”
Caolan Bushell
Business Development Manager
Mergon Group
Barry Rooney
Chief Operations Officer
Siemens ITSS
“Motarme delivered real,
measurable results in a short
timeframe – sales and contacts from
our target audience at Tier 1
companies.”
“Motarme delivered real,
measurable results in a short
timeframe – sales and contacts from
our target audience at Tier 1
companies.”
Joe Lynch
General Manager
IMEC Technologies
“Generating leads online is now a
central part of our sales strategy.”
“Generating leads online is now a
central part of our sales strategy.”
About Us
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This is the way businesses buy today
A survey of B2B buyers
in Europe found that
websites, web
searches and email
made up 3 of the top 4
information sources
when carrying out a
purchase
Source:
2011 BuyerSphere
survey
A survey of B2B buyers
in Europe found that
websites, web
searches and email
made up 3 of the top 4
information sources
when carrying out a
purchase
Source:
2011 BuyerSphere
survey
12. 12
12
• Buyers are doing most of their initial research online before initiating conversations
with vendors and are better informed at an earlier stage.
• We're moving from a focus on traditional techniques like press advertising, mail shots
and cold calling, to techniques based on websites, ‘content-based’ marketing and
automated marketing.
• Survey of 4,000 B2B technology
buyers in the US
• 80% said they found the
vendor, not the other way round.
Source: MarketingSherpa
• Survey of 4,000 B2B technology
buyers in the US
• 80% said they found the
vendor, not the other way round.
Source: MarketingSherpa
This is the way businesses buy today
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13
More of The Buying Process Happens Online
Savo Group Research Study 2012
via PepperGlobal.com
• 41% of Business Buyers said they engaged with sales only after their initial research
was conducted
• 25% said they initiated contact after they had already established a preferred list of
vendors
Source: DemandGen White Paper “The New BtoB Path to Purchase”, 2012
of the buying process is completed
before talking to a vendor.
of the buying process is completed
before talking to a vendor.
58% –
70%
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Increase Lead Generation, Increase Sales
Generate more leads at the
top of the sales funnel using
Digital Marketing
Generate more leads at the
top of the sales funnel using
Digital Marketing
Use simple processes to
categorise and nurture these
leads so more of them convert
to sales
Use simple processes to
categorise and nurture these
leads so more of them convert
to sales
€ $ £
1
2
16. 1616
ABC, 1234
Bring
people to
your
website
Bring
people to
your
website
TrafficTraffic
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
SubscriptionSubscription
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
RetentionRetentionConversionConversion
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register or
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register or
download
17. 17
17
A: Your Value Proposition
What value do you deliver?
How quickly can I see the value?
Why is your product better than competitors?
Why is it better than what I do at the moment?
Value Proposition:
Why should I buy something from you?
18. 1818
B: Your Target Buyers
What do they want?
What do they like and dislike?
Where are they (countries, languages)
What industry sectors?
What types of organisation? Size, location ...
What are their typical roles or titles?
Where do they hang out online?
Who are your buyers?
19. 1919
C: Your Acquisition Process
Bring
people to
your
website
Bring
people to
your
website
TrafficTraffic
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
SubscriptionSubscription
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
RetentionRetentionConversionConversion
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register or
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register or
download
20. 20
4 Key Steps for Customer Acquisition
20
Traffic Conversion Subscription Retention
Bring
people to
your
website
Bring
people to
your
website
TrafficTraffic
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
SubscriptionSubscription
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
RetentionRetentionConversionConversion
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register or
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register or
download
21. 21
4 Key Steps for Customer Acquisition
21
Bring
people to
your
website
Bring
people to
your
website
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
TrafficTraffic ConversionConversion PurchasePurchase RetentionRetention
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Step 1: Drive Traffic to Your Website
22
Bring
people to
your
website
Bring
people to
your
website
TrafficTraffic Content
Pay-per-
click
Search Engine
Optimization
Social Media
Email
Marketing
23. 23
Step 1: Drive Traffic to Your Website
23
Bring
people to
your
website
Bring
people to
your
website
TrafficTraffic
1. Content Production
1. What are your customers interested in?
2. Text based documents – white papers, case studies
3. Image based – infographics, presentations, photographs
4. Video
5. Blogs – mixture of text, image, video
2. PPC
3. Search Engine Optimization
1. Keyword analysis & selection of best keywords to target
2. On page SEO – update website structure and settings
3. Off-page – Link Building
4. Social Media Marketing
1. Identify influencers
2. Actions for LI, G+, FB, Twitter, Slideshare, YouTube
5. Email
6. Paid Online Advertising (non PPC)
1. Display
2. Syndication
Steps for Increasing Web Traffic
24. 24
4 Key Steps for Customer Acquisition
24
Conversion
ConversionConversion
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register or
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register or
download
25. 25
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
ConversionConversion
Step 2: Convert Those Visitors
25
Content
Free Trial or Demo
Typically you can get people to register for 2 reasons –
to trial your product or to access content
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Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
ConversionConversion
Step 2: Convert Those Visitors
26
Reflect your target
customers
Social proof and
Trust Anchors
For more, see Motarme Guide to B2B website design on
www.slideshare.net/motarme
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Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
ConversionConversion
Step 2: Convert Those Visitors
27
Use Landing Pages
to convert traffic
Clear ‘Calls to
Action’
28. 28
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
ConversionConversion
Step 2: Convert Those Visitors
28
1. Clear Value Proposition – why they should sign-up today
2. Home page design – reflect your buyers , provide proof
3. Landing pages – funnel traffic to particular pages on site
4. Clear “Calls to Action” – offer something of value
5. A/B Testing – split test your main landing pages
6. “Nurturing” and Lead management
7. Analysis of Visitor Behavior – who, where from, what …
8. Removal of “Friction” – all the reasons a visitor might not want to
complete the action:
• Worried if website is legit
• Don’t want spam emails
• Don’t want to be hassled by sales calls
Steps for Increasing Conversions
http://www.widerfunnel.com/conversion-rate-optimization/the-six-landing-page-conversion-rate-factors
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Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
ConversionConversion
Step 2: Convert Those Visitors
29
7 Principles of
Conversion
Centered Design
30. 30
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
ConversionConversion
Step 2: Convert Those Visitors
30
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Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
Persuade
them to sign-
up, register,
download
ConversionConversion
Step 2: Convert Those Visitors
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1. Sliders
2. Visual confusion
3. You’re not where they’re
looking
Design
1. Sketchy testimonials
2. No product/company reviews
Social Proofs
1. Rounding numbers
2. Trust badges
3. Inconsistent messaging
4. Offers disappear
Trust Issues
1. Not fixing what matters
Conversion Killer
http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-
optimization/10-conversion-killers-and-the-
hacks-to-fix-them/
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Persuade them
to pay for your
service
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
PurchasePurchase
Step 3: Persuade them to purchase
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1. Demonstrate value early and often – within minutes, hours, not
weeks
2. Encourage use – especially with web based products, the more
they use, the harder it is to leave.
3. Call them – don’t try to automate too much at the start – talk to
your prospects so you understand what they like and what they
don’t like
4. Keep entry price point low – have a low price for getting started
(with option to ramp up the price with usage/time)
5. Make it easy to buy – accept payements online, make sign-up
process as simple as possible, remove any unneccessary steps,
test with your customers
Persuade Visitors to Purchase
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Step 2: Convert Those Visitors
33
Automated Follow-up – AKA “Lead Nurturing”
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
Persuade them
to pay for your
service
PurchasePurchase
20
EmailEmail
NewsletterNewsletter
Case
study
Case
study
EmailEmail
Nurture track 1
30
EmailEmail
White
paper
White
paper
WebinarWebinar
CallCall
Nurture track 2
40
CallCall
EmailEmail
WebinarWebinar
ebookebook
Nurture track 3
34. 34
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
Convince them to
renew each year –
retain your
customers
RetentionRetention
Step 4: Retain Your Customers
34
1. Never stop selling to your customers – constantly remind them of
the value you provide
2. Monitor their usage – if their activity slows up, or their account
becomes dormant get in touch quickly to see how you can help
and encourage them to reactivate
3. Survey customers on a regular basis to see if they are satisfied and
to identify causes of dissatisfaction
4. Dedicated “renewals” team – for larger companies, have a
dedicated ‘renewals’ team
Retention
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• What does success look like?
• How many positive responses indicate demand?
• Rules of thumb – email open rates of 15% or above; 4% to 8% registration rates (for B2B); up to 30%
conversion rates for B2C; CTR above 1.2% on adwords campaigns
• Can you extrapolate from test – do you have some predictable, repeatable traffic?
Execute and Assess
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Instrumentation
• Make sure you can see what’s going on
• Traffic volume, sources
• Lead volume, sources, quality
• Cost per lead, cost per sale (aka Customer Acquisition Cost - CAC)
Execute and Assess
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• Term coined by Sean Ellis, ex VP Marketing at Dropbox
• Using a combination of Marketing tools, product feature
changes, analytics and experimentation to drive growth
• Focus on User Growth
• Try to identify opportunities for “virality”
• Generally working with a restricted budget
• Skillset is part marketing, part product development, part
analytics
• Examples:
Growth Hacking
40. 40
• Resource: GrowthHackers.com
• Intro slide deck from Mattan Griffel -
http://www.slideshare.net/mattangriffel/growth-hacking
• Caveat: some of the approaches won’t work for B2B enterprise
Growth Hacking
42. 42
Resources
• MarketingSherpa – fantastic source of advice and information on B2B technology marketing –
www.marketingsherpa.com
• Great presentation “Building a Sales and Marketing” Machine from David Skok, Matrix Partners-
http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/slides-sales-marketing-machine/
• Neil Patel’s blog QuickSprout (www.quicksprout.com) has excellent information on getting found
on the web
• KissMetrics www.kissmetrics.com and ClickTale www.clicktale.com have great blogs
• Scott Brinker, Chief Marketing Technologist blog – www.chiefmartec.com
• Moz.com – great blog on SEO – also check out Bruce Clay www.bruceclay.com
• Growthhackers central resource - http://growthhackers.com/
• Unbounce - http://unbounce.com – tool to build landing pages that you can use when launching a
product
• Lincoln Murphy’s blog Sixteen Ventures - http://sixteenventures.com/ - advice on pricing for SaaS
• Sean Ellis’ advice on Product Market Fit for startups - http://www.startup-marketing.com/the-
startup-pyramid/
• Ryan Gum blog - http://ryangum.com/8-aha-moments-needed-before-marketing-your-
startup/
• Conversion rates - www.widerfunnel.com and www.conversionscientist.com and
www.Conversion-rate-experts.com
Links
43. 43
Books
Resources
Also
• “Crossing the Chasm”, Geoffrey A. Moore – classic guide to product marketing, good
intro to marketing for technologists
• “The Art of SEO” – gets going after about page 80
• “Advanced Google Adwords” by Brad Geddes
• “Web Analytics 2.0” by Avanish Kaushik
Hi, my name is Michael White
Today we’re going to look at how startup technology companies can use Digital Marketing to grow their business
I’ll start with a quick intro
We setup our company, Motarme, in 2011
We are building a web-based system for Marketing Automation which went live in September last year and since then we’ve been selling our first licenses.
We also provide consulting on web marketing for B2B technology firms
Our clients include Siemens, Atos and about 40 technology and software firms.
Before setting up Motarme I was Head of Marketing at Singularity, and prior to that I worked with Siemens, Deloitte, Misys Corporation among others.
And this are some client quotes
Startup companies have a few key goals at the start
– build your product,
- raise finance,
- get your first customers
- hire staff
Once you are confident that you have a product that
(a) meets a real customer need and
(b) a decent sized market, then your focus must switch
The key goal from that point forward is a Repeatable Customer Acquisition Process
The question is where do you start?
In this presentation I’ve boiled down the steps into a simple framework that you can refer to as you learn the ropes.
Before starting on the framework, lets step back and ask – why is online marketing important for startups?
Why can’t you use the traditional sales approach with phone calls, tradeshows and press ads?
Most people are familiar with offline marketing – tradeshows, press ads, television advertising
Digital marketing relates to the web – your website, email, social media, search engine optimization
The main reason to focus online is because for most businesses, their top sources of sales leads are now online
In a US survey, 80% of Business
We have define a simple framework to help you remember the key steps – ABC 1234
What are you selling
Who are you selling to
How will you sell
And “How” breaks into 4 stages
I’ll explain each step now
The first key step in selling any product is to make sure you can communicate its value
If you can’t explain to a customer why it’s good, then they won’t buy
You also need to explain why it’s better than doing nothing and (sometimes) why it’s better than a competitor product
You need to have a clear definition of who you are targeting e.g. “marketing managers in mid size software companies in the UK and Ireland” or “production managers in seafood processing firms in the North Eastern United states”
You also need to understand these buyers before you can market to them
How do you do that? Call them – phone 10 to 20 of your representative customers, ask them about what they want from a product like yours, what they currently use, what they think about competitors. Do not do this via email or a web survey.
The output of this is sometimes call either a “Buyer persona” or a customer research document.
In either case, it means you can step into the shoes of customers and understand what’s important to them.
Examples: what systems they use, what you need to integrate to, whether you need particular certifications, who usually makes the purchase decision
Once you’ve got a handle on your value proposition and your target buyers, you can begin to focus on you Customer Acquisition Process.
This is a 4 stage process.
Take your customer acquisition process and address it step by step
No. 1 – focus on traffic, that is problem number 1. You need to get to over 1,000 unique visitors per month to give yourself a chance to generate sales leads and sales. There is no point on focusing on the other stages until you get this one working.
No. 2 – Once you get visitors to your site, persuade them to register or sign-up – this is called “Conversion”
No. 3 – The third step is to get a percentage % of the people who registered to become paying customers
No. 4 – the final step is to keep your customers – it’s cheaper to sell to existing customers than to acquire new ones, so make sure you cover this step in your online marketing.
Driving traffic is based on having something of interest on your website – this could be text, images, downloadable documents, video
All of this is referred to as content.
Once you have something of interest, you use a set of tools to drive traffic to your site.
I normally start with Google pay-per-clicks ads purely for reasons of speed – you can achieve results in 24 hours.
Next, and more important in the long run, is Search Engine Optimization. This is a set of techniques and tools you use to make sure your site comes out on top of the search results.
After SEO comes social media – using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks to promote your message and bring traffic to your website
Email marketing is shown here at number 5, but in terms of speed it could be number 2. In this step you use email marketing systems like Mailchimp to send targeted messages to existing customers and to prospects.