This document discusses leveraging viral marketing strategies. It defines viral marketing and outlines how marketing has evolved from promoting the past to promoting the future. Products are never finished and must continue delivering value now and in the future to build trust with customers. The new currency of commerce is trust. The document also discusses why startups often fail and introduces the "lean startup" philosophy of rapidly testing hypotheses with minimum viable products. It provides examples of startups that succeeded or failed using these approaches and outlines principles for viral marketing. Upcoming expert presentations will provide further insights into using social sharing and psychological triggers to grow customer bases.

1. Leveraging Viral Marketing
Strategies
January 17, 2012

2. Agenda
• Introductions
• (Viral) Marketing Defined: Lora
• Sarah Hodge: $0 Marketing Game
• Rob Ciampa: Video Killed the TV Star
• Bill Band: Social Goes B2B
• Laurel Ackerman: Sleep goes social

3. Marketing is Evolving
The Evolution of Marketing
• Up to 1980ies: Marketing the past
• 1980-1990ies: Marketing the present
• 2000+: Marketing the future
Marketing the future:
• Products/services are never finished
• Products/services never stand alone

4. 2000ies: What People Buy
• Promise that the brand will continue to deliver
now and in the future
• Trust = the belief that a brand is capable of
delivering now and in the future

5. The Relationship Era
3.27 million hits in Google
I love…. 2.7 million hits in Google
1.19 million hits in Google
21,000 hits in Google
not….
7,900 hits in Google

6. Building a Brand
The new currency of commerce = trust
Trust
Transactions
Source: Imc2: Brand Sustainability Map
6

7. Building a Brand = Value
Creation
Company: Customer:
Left-Brained Right-Brained
Revenue Validation
Profitability Coolness
Cost savings Reputation
Effective process Empowerment
Marketing response rate Accomplishment
% of gross margin Community
Customer sat. scores Justice/ Fairness
Source: Paul Greenberg @pgreenbe, CRM at the Speed of Light

8. New Business Model =
Customer Love
• Deliver WOW through service
• Embrace and drive change
• Create fun and a little weirdness
• Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded
• Pursue growth and learning
• Build honest and open relationships with
communication
• Build a positive team and family spirit
• Do more with less
• Be passionate and determined
• Be humble

9. Why Startups Fail
“Startups fail
because the dog
won’t eat the
dogfood.”
Jeff Schwartz
Bain Capital Ventures
August, 2006
Source: Mike Troiano @MikeTrap, Holland Mark
©2011 HOLLAND-MARK. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

10. “Lean Startup” Philosophy
• Most startups fail because they waste $$ building and
marketing a product that not enough people want
• Instead, actively test customer needs and formulate
hypotheses about business model
• Then launch early with a minimum viable product (MVP),
i.e., smallest feature set needed to test a hypothesis
• “It’s not a test if you can’t fail”
• Pivot when a hypothesis is disconfirmed
• i.e., revise hypothesis then rapidly test it with another MVP
• Repeat process until hypotheses are fully validated and
you have product-market fit
• Don’t test revenue models or scale aggressively until
you have product-market fit

11. Examples
• Used a video of a non- • Started as a platform for
existent product to gather gathering support using
feedback “tipping points”
• Formulated hypotheses • Customers told them that
about features and tested the idea was too abstract
them rapidly and unfocused
• Changed marketing • The company almost ran
approach and feature set out of money
when hypotheses were • Found that only one
disconfirmed by market aspect was working,
feedback group deals

12. Examples
Payment system for PDAs
Massively multi-player game
Video-dating site
Automated email recommendation service
Podcasting (as Odeo)

13. Defensible Position
To define the defensible place for your company:
• What are your competitive advantages?
• What existing set of solutions/ways of doing
things will you be replacing?
• Where can you bring sustainable differentiation?
• Who has a stake in your success?
• How can you gain access to the market?
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14. Viral Marketing Principles
• Product-market fit
• Passionate, driven teams
• Your edge = your unique shtick
• Shareability = coolness, customer
empowerment, accomplishment and community

15. Next: Expert Insights
• Sarah Hodges/RunKeeper: using social sharing
and psychological triggers to build a 7 million
following
• Rob Ciampa/ Pixability: riding the video wave –
from B2C to B2B, when timing is everything
• Bill Band/ Forrester: the social B2B sale
• Laurel Ackerman/Zeo: on crossing the early
adopter chasm

16. The Experts
• Sarah Hodges, Director of Marketing,
RunKeeper, @sarahhodges
• Rob Ciampa, VP of Marketing, Pixability,
@robciampa
• Bill Band, Vice President, Forrester, @waband
• Laurel Ackerman, VP of Marketing, Zeo,
@laurala
• Lora Kratchounova, Principal, Scratch Marketing
+ Media, @scratchmm