Three Main Marketing Types Concept / Idea Elevation • Broad / Market Making • Success = ??? 2. Brand Positioning • brand associated with concept • success is hard to measure 3. Direct Response • Product in Front of Ideal Customers • Success = They Take Appropriate Action (sign-up, purchase, trial, etc.) Getting your product in front of your customer. I’ve got a Dirty Little Secret Stick around… I’ll share it at the end Partnerships • Intermediaries (VARs/Distributors/Affiliates) • Joint Ventures (co-marketing, offers, etc.) • Integrations Advertising • PPC/CPM • Display Networks • Content Amplification • Billboards on the 101 Content • Blogs • News • Webinars (SPOILER ALERT!) • Whitepapers • Books (e or otherwise) • Data • Apps • Community Outreach • Cold Emails • Cold Calling • Direct Postal Mail Virality • Use-based (communication, social networks, etc.) • Invitation-based • Referrals (incentivized invitations) • Powered By / Widgets Don’t START with Tactics. That’s where most people go wrong. Start with your Customer! Do this first. Why Focus on an Ideal Customer? • FOMO is telling you NOT to do this. • You must know your Ideal Customer Better than they Know Themselves “Always enter the conversation already taking place in the customer’s mind.” - Robert Collier (c. 1937) Ideal Customer Define ➔Find ➔ Compel ➔ Convert There is no Universal definition of Ideal Customer • This is a living, breathing “definition”… Ideal Customer - Situational Definition Ready Willing Able Profitable Expansion Potential Virality Who’s your Less-Than-Ideal Customer? Ideal Customer Find Talk to your Customers & Prospects Not all Competitors are the same How to Find your Competitors’ Customers Ask the Customers of your Competitors Look for Patterns • In bad-guy hacking, this is called the "Watering hole” attack… Do they read this magazine, or listen to that podcast? The patterns will start to give you insights into how to get in front of your audience or what distribution channels you’ll use Speak directly to your Ideal Customer Based on the channel, the IC, the situation, offer, etc. And once hooked, the secret to getting them to take action When you do what we covered today: • You don’t have to test as much • Testing really is only for optimization • Trial and Error goes away • Even “ugly” designs and bad copy (relatively speaking) can work when highly-targeted.

1. Lincoln Murphy
Distribution Hacks
5 Simple Steps to Get In Front of Your Ideal Customer

2. Dan McGaw - KISSmetrics - @danielmcgaw
!
Dan is the Director of Marketing at KISSmetrics, where he
get’s the opportunity to help the best marketers in the world
measure their marketing and business efforts. Prior to
KISSmetrics, Dan was VP of growth at Code School, where he
helped the company grow to over 500k users and $400k+ in
monthly revenue.
Lincoln Murphy - Sixteen Ventures - @lincolnmurphy
!
Over the past 7 years, Lincoln Murphy, Managing Director of
Sixteen Ventures, has helped 300+ SaaS companies - as well as
thousands more through his writing, workshops, and
speaking - accelerate their growth by optimizing the
Customer Lifecycle, from customer acquisition to retention.
He’s been featured in Fast Company, Inc., VentureBeat, and
GrowthHacker.tv.

3. @lincolnmurphy #distrohacks
Follow-me and join the conversation

4. @danielmcgaw #KISSwebinar
Follow-me and join the conversation

5. 1 Se ing the stage
Define
Find
Compel
Convert
2 Ideal Customer
3 Q&A
Table of Contents
2 Distribution

6. WATCH WEBINAR RECORDING NOW

7. Se ing the Stage
3 Types of Marketing,
a brief History Lesson, and Tactics!

8. Three Main Marketing Types
We’re focused on #3 today…
1. Concept / Idea Elevation
• Broad / Market Making
• Success = ???
2. Brand Positioning
• brand associated with concept
• success is hard to measure
3. Direct Response
• Product in Front of Ideal Customers
• Success = They Take Appropriate Action (sign-up, purchase, trial, etc.)

9. Product Price
Promotion Place
Evolution of the Traditional Marketing Mix
Product Price
Promotion +
Place
Product Price
Distribution
Se ing the Stage

10. Distribution
Ge ing your product in front of your customer. Period.

11. I’ve got a Dirty Li le Secret
Stick around… I’ll share it at the end

12. Tactics of Distribution
Including, but not limited to.
• Partnerships
• Intermediaries (VARs/Distributors/Affiliates)
• Joint Ventures (co-marketing, offers, etc.)
• Integrations

13. Tactics of Distribution
Including, but not limited to.
• Advertising
• PPC/CPM
• Display Networks
• Content Amplification
• Billboards on the 101

14. Tactics of Distribution
Including, but not limited to.
Content
• Blogs
• News
• Webinars (SPOILER ALERT!)
• Whitepapers
• Books (e or otherwise)
• Data
• Apps
• Community

15. Tactics of Distribution
Including, but not limited to.
• Outreach
• Cold Emails
• Cold Calling
• Direct Postal Mail

16. Tactics of Distribution
Including, but not limited to.
• Virality
• Use-based (communication, social networks, etc.)
• Invitation-based
• Referrals (incentivized invitations)
• Powered By / Widgets

17. Don’t START with Tactics.
That’s where most people go wrong.

18. Start with your Customer!

19. Distribution
Do this first.

20. Why Focus on an Ideal Customer?
• FOMO is telling you NOT to do this.
• You must know your Ideal Customer Be er than they Know
Themselves

21. Why Focus on an Ideal Customer?
• “Always enter the conversation already taking place in the
customer’s mind.” - Robert Collier (c. 1937)
• Compelling > Convincing
• People don’t buy from you because they understand what it is you
do… but because you understand what they do!
!

22. Ideal Customer
Define ➔Find ➔ Compel ➔ Convert

23. Ideal Customer
Define

24. Ideal Customer is Situational
• There is no Universal definition of Ideal Customer
• This is a living, breathing “definition”… you’ll come
back to it o en
• It is specific to:
• Your Situation
• Your company / product / offer / campaign

25. Ideal Customer - Situational Definition
• Define the Situation
• Is this for your product, an offer, your business, a
new market?
• Define the Time Frame
• 1, 3, 6 months?
• Be Specific

26. Ideal Customer - Situational Definition
• Know where you are today in the context of this situation
• How do you know?
• What metric(s) are you measuring?

27. Ideal Customer - Situational Definition
• Know Where you’re Going (Situational Objective)
• How will you know if you’re successful then?
• How will you know if you’re on the right track along the
way?
• Land Grab, User #, Revenue Goal, etc.
• You may want to have an idea about what you’re willing
to spend to achieve the incremental bump in that metric
(CAC, for example).

28. Ideal Customer Profile
Inputs
• Ready
• Willing
• Able
• + Profitable
• + Expansion Potential
• + Virality

29. Ideal Customer Profile
Key Inputs
Ready
• They have a problem they need solved / opportunity to
take advantage of
• They know they have the problem / opportunity
• The problem / opportunity is acute … there’s a sense of
urgency you can take advantage of

30. Willing
• They’re ready to solve that problem by taking action
• They’re exploring options to solve that problem
• There’s a Catalyst: M&A, Investments, Bankruptcy, hiring/
firing, RFP, etc.
Ideal Customer Profile
Key Inputs
Ideal Customer - Define

31. Able
• They have the means to solve the problem
• They have the authority to solve the problem
Ideal Customer Profile
Key Inputs
Ideal Customer - Define

32. Profitable
• This means it’s cost-effective to get in front of them
• On-Boarding & Support
• Estimated Lifetime
• Buying Cycle / Process
Ideal Customer Profile
Secondary Inputs

33. Expansion Potential
• Up-Sell / Cross-Sell
• Potential / Front-load
• Immediate ASP Boost
• A high CHI/NPS is critical here
Ideal Customer Profile
Secondary Inputs
Ideal Customer - Define

34. Virality
• $1 CAC / 2 = $0.50
• Intra & Inter-Company
• WOM vs. Use-Based Virality
• Of course, ensuring they’re happy is key
• Network Effect = Built-in Social Proof
• Enterprise Dept vs. SME, Agency vs. Enterprise, etc.
Ideal Customer Profile
Secondary Inputs

35. Would Your Ideal Customer:
• Know they’re your ideal customer if they looked at your
site?
• Feel comfortable using your product or service?
• Feel like your service was designed for them?
• Tell their friends or co-workers about your product?
Ideal Customer Profile
Sanity Check #1

36. Who’s your Less-Than-Ideal Customer?
• Would they think they’re your ideal customer?
• Make sure you’re not going where they are!
• Then make sure you’re not actively a racting them
Ideal Customer - Define
Ideal Customer Profile
Sanity Check #2

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38. Ideal Customer
Find

39. • Don’t think like your customer… think about your
customer
• Know…
• how your customers try and buy products in your
category
• where they look for information
• who they trust
• how they consume marketing
Ideal Customer Characteristics

40. • Customer development
• Primary market research (stuff you do yourself)
• Secondary market research (stuff other people have done
that you get access to)
Ideal Customer Discovery Methods

41. Talk to your Customers & Prospects
• Current Customers
• Past (Cancelled) Customers
• Prospects that didn’t convert from your Free Trial
• Those in your nurturing/indoctrination process
• Don’t talk to Prospects about this (yet)… focus on
converting them
Ideal Customer Discovery Methods

42. Not all Competitors are the same
• Critical they share the same customers
• Same Product Category
• Immediately Adjacent to your Product category
• Same price/complexity level (or at least the same
customers)
Talk to Your Competitors’ Customers

43. How to Find your Competitors’ Customers
• They’re named in testimonials and case studies on the
competitor site
• They mentioned the app in their LinkedIn profile
• They ‘re a member of an app-specific group on LinkedIn
• They have a certification from the vendor
• Alexa…
Talk to Your Competitors’ Customers

44. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/service-now.com

45. Ask the Customers of your Competitors:
• about other competitors they may have evaluated (and
why they chose the one they did)
• who else they trust in the industry, (consultants, advisors,
analysts, etc.)
• what blogs they read, if they watch videos, etc.
• did they buy direct or through a distributor/VAR/app
store
Your Competitors’ Ideal Customer

46. Digging for Gold…
• You’ll learn about analysts, consultants, and associations
from whom you can buy secondary research. Protip: you
can also use them for primary research
• Look for associations your ideal customers belong to –
both industry-specific and wider-scope associations – and
events (local or national) they a end.
• Glean information from the event marketing sites… or
actually a end the event, too.
Infiltrate their Ecosystem

47. Look for Pa erns
• In bad-guy hacking, this is called the "Watering hole”
a ack… go where they are and where they’re most likely
to let their guard down because of an implied trust
• If everyone I talk to says they read XYZ’s blog or buys
research from ABC Firm, then I probably need to figure
out a way to piggyback on those folks somehow to get in
front of my ideal customer.
Social Engineering

48. Look for Pa erns
• Do they read this magazine, or listen to that podcast? Do
they go to this event or trust that consultant? Are there
ways to use that knowledge to get in front of my Ideal
Customer? Ads, Guest Blog Posts, Distribution Deals,
Email Drops…
• Does it seem like most buy through intermediaries such
as VARs or Distributors? Do they seem to use corporate
app stores? How can I get my app listed in those
corporate stores or be included in distribution deals with
VARs?
Listen first… act second.

49. • The pa erns will start to give you insights into how to get
in front of your audience or what distribution channels
you’ll use
• While sometimes the medium is the message, at the very
least it will dictate what the message looks like, what it
says, what the CTA is, etc.
• So there is no “best” distribution channel for all SaaS
apps… there are only “best” distribution channels for each
Ideal Customer type.
Look for Pa erns

50. Ideal Customer
Compel

51. Speak directly to your Ideal Customer
• “Always enter the conversation already taking place in the
customer’s mind.” - Robert Collier (c. 1937)
• Having an Ideal Customer in mind will dictate:
• the language, images, copy, and design you use
• the emotion you invoke or tap into
• the sense of urgency you can take advantage of or
produce
How to Cut Through the Noise

52. Based on the channel, the IC, the situation, offer, etc.
• Timely (Example: event planning SaaS)
• Congruent w/ catalyst
• Doesn’t have to conform to “rules” (except those of the
network/partner)
• How can we evoke an emotional response, even in a B2B
se ing, that’s congruent with the context we’re working
within?
• This gets their a ention and Compels them to Action
Medium is the Message

53. Ideal Customer
Convert

54. And once hooked, the secret to ge ing them to take action
• Continue the narrative from first touch to conversion
• Different engagement methods for different cohorts
(source a ribution)
• Know what steps need to be taken to move them to
conversion and orchestrate the process… don’t leave it up
to chance
• Ask for the sale; make them an offer!
Conversion Rate Optimization

55. Ideal Customer
Define ➔Find ➔ Compel ➔ Convert

56. 1. Define your Ideal Customer
2. Understand the conversation already taking place in
their mind
3. Figure Out the Best Way to Get In Front of Them
(channel)
4. Decide on the “hook” that injects you into that
conversation and get’s them to take action (tactic)
5. Continue the narrative through conversion (funnel)
Distribution Hacks - Review

57. When you do what we covered today:
• You don’t have to test as much
• Testing really is only for optimization
• Trial and Error goes away
• Even “ugly” designs and bad copy (relatively speaking) can
work when highly-targeted
The Dirty Li le Secret

58. Questions?
Lincoln Murphy
Managing Director
Sixteen Venture
@lincolnmurphy
Dan McGaw
Director of Marketing
KISSmetrics
@danielmcgaw
More resources at:
h p://sixteenventures.com/kissmetrics

59. THANK YOU