Marketing Your Startup Page 2

  You can go a step further by conducting a touchpoint audit: looking at all of the places a customer or potential customer interacts with your brand. You may see that things have changed since you created a certain type of signage or made a decision, and that it’s time to update those manifestations of the brand.

  A great brand structured for growth, like most things in a company, should be assessed regularly, Cinquina says. Only you can determine how often you believe that needs to be, but it’s worth determining what works for you. This will help inform where to refresh, tweak, and measure. By measuring success, revisiting goals, and discussing improvement strategies, you may find that even small tweaks can go a long way. For some, that means quarterly, for others annually.

  THE BRAND OF “YOU”

  “ For better or for worse, our company is a reflection of my thinking, my character, and my values.”

  RUPERT MURDOCH

  Now your company has a brand. But should you? Many people these days expect to interact with a human—not a faceless company. As a company founder, you are the company. So how can you make sure your brand pushes your goals and the company’s goals forward?

  It’s become commonplace these days for entrepreneurs to feel they need a personal brand, but developing a personal brand isn’t for everyone. It isn’t for introverts, and it isn’t for people who can’t take a little public criticism—which will happen, inevitably, if you’re publishing your opinions.

  To cultivate a personal brand that will work in concert with your business brand, there are a few tenets to live by. First, focus on a few of your most-promising market segments, says executive coach, trainer, and consultant Rita B. Allen in her book Personal Branding and Marketing Yourself—areas where you can really stand out. You’ll get the greatest payoff of your time if you’re focused.

  Next, know your marketplace and stay a part of it. Stay up to date on your industry, and stay visible within it—becoming a source of information. You should become someone people contact when they want advice or information in a certain area. You can do that through social media, of course, which is critically important for personal brand-building. But don’t stop there. Attend networking events and maintain contacts. Keep a database of those contacts.

  No matter who you’re talking to and in what forum, when it comes to personal brand-building, who you are speaks louder than what you do, says Nicolas Cole, founder of Digital Press, a content marketing and influence agency.

  There are a lot of entrepreneurs out there. There are a lot of keynote speakers. There are a lot of marketers, and digital strategists, financial planners, brand executives—and what makes some of them stand out has far more to do with the way they present themselves than whatever it is they “do.” You do that through your voice—the distinctive flavor you deliver in speeches or even tweets. You also do that via your style—think Steve Jobs’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s iconic, oft-discussed sartorial choices. Plus, don’t forget your mannerisms. Whether you’re the type to maintain unrelenting eye contact or you’re a hugger, those choices will become part of your personal brand.

  Most important, Cole says, be consistent. Consistency rewards both you and your audience, because it constantly reinforces those elements that comprise your brand. Consistency, Cole says, is how you attract more and more people, for a true following.

  It can be tough to keep up. Not to mention addicting: Just ask all those people who obsessively track follows and retweets. A million followers won’t make your product great. Don’t let your devotion to your own brand come at the expense of what you actually create in the form of your company.

  Five Places to Incorporate Your Brand Identity

  Your company has spent a lot of time defining and creating your brand and identity. You may have paid a design company to create a logo or a new name and a custom color scheme and paid a web designer to create a website that matched your logo.

  But your designer does not define your brand identity. You want that identity to shine through every single day, and become woven into the fabric of your business. Here are five ways to bring your brand into your business, every day, from John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing.

  1. Business Cards. This seems like an obvious place to start, but some clients and customers will first meet your employees inside or outside the office. Your business cards must not only include your logo and colors, but reflect the quality of your product and your business. Flimsy paper cards, while effective at distributing information, will reflect poorly on your brand.

  2. Emails. You should create and use a uniform email signature for all employees. This creates immediate credibility for every employee who may have contact with a client with whom they have not previously interacted, and it helps your emails stand out in inboxes.

  3. Workplace. Regardless of your industry, you will probably have clients and customers in your workspace. Your location and your logo on the wall are not the only things that have an impact on clients. The sounds, smells, and cleanliness of your workplace can also affect their view of your company.

  4. Forms. A lot of businesses use forms to gather information on their clients and customers. While it may be easy to simply throw something together in order to gather the information needed, it is worth it to spend some time designing the forms so they fit with your logo and branding. This goes for online forms, too.

  5. Talking Points. Everyone knows the importance of great customer service. Bad customer service often results in bad reviews and negative referrals. But sometimes, a small component of your customer service can be what makes you stand out. For instance, Gates, a popular BBQ restaurant in Kansas City, has their employees ask, “Hi, may I help you?” to every one of their customers. While this seems standard, their cashiers are so consistent about doing this that it has become a part of their brand. Their logo now proudly features the phrase “Hi, may I help you?”. Their business became so well known for something so simple that it became a major part of their brand.

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  POSITIONING YOUR PRODUCT

  WE GO THROUGH OUR lives classifying things in our minds and categorizing them in relation to other, similar things. Cars, political candidates, even (maybe especially) dates. It’s human nature to subconsciously classify the things we encounter every day.

  That’s why defining your product’s position in the category it occupies—and how it’s different from that of your competitors—is critical. If you position your product well in the minds of your customers, that’s half the battle of getting them to think of your company when they’re ready to buy, says Jay Steinfeld, founder and CEO of Blinds.com.

  Effective product positioning involves not only how and where you advertise, but also what you say. In the crowded, price-driven blinds business, for example, almost every seller claims it’s the cheapest, Steinfeld notes. Yet, most of the time price alone isn’t enough reason for customers to choose one blind company over another.

  That’s why Blinds.com positioned themselves differently, Steinfeld says. Building on a belief that most people are more concerned about screwing up and choosing blinds that either make their homes look horrible or make themselves look like idiots for having chosen them—or both—they carved out a niche for themselves by offering online design consulting in addition to selling blinds. That positioning helps them stand out from big box stores and other competition.

  FIND YOUR TARGET

  With a clearly defined target audience, it is much easier to determine where and how to market your company. You can start by looking at your current customer base (if you already have customers). Why do your customers buy from you—do they have common characteristics and interests? It is very likely that other people like them could also benefit from your product or service.

  On the flip side, check out who your competitors are targeting. Who are their current customers? Don’t go after the same market. You may find a niche market that they are overlooking.

  Once you have a general
idea of who you’re already talking to and the crowded space you might want to avoid, write out a list of each feature of your product or service. Next to each feature, list the benefits it provides (and the benefits of those benefits). For example, a graphic designer offers high-quality design services. The benefit is a professional company image. A professional image will attract more customers because they see the company as professional and trustworthy. So ultimately, the benefit of high-quality design is gaining more customers and making more money.

  Once you have your benefits listed, make a list of people who have a need that your benefit fulfills. For example, a graphic designer could choose to target businesses interested in increasing her client base. While this is still too general, you now have a base to start from.

  GET SPECIFIC

  Figure out not only who has a need for your product or service, but also who is most likely to buy it. Think about the following factors:

  Age

  Location

  Gender

  Income level

  Education level

  Marital or family status

  Occupation

  Ethnic background

  CONSIDER PSYCHOGRAPHICS

  Psychographics are the more personal characteristics of a person, including:

  Personality

  Attitudes

  Values

  Interests and hobbies

  Lifestyle

  Behavior

  Psychographics help you figure out how your product or service will fit into your target’s lifestyle. How and when will your target use the product? What features are most appealing to your target? What media does your target turn to for information? Does your target read the newspaper, search online, or attend particular events? Who, or what, influences them?

  Want an example of strong product positioning? Take a look at Harley-Davidson. Here’s the company’s internal positioning statement:

  THE ONLY MOTORCYCLE MANUFACTURER

  THAT MAKES BIG, LOUD MOTORCYCLES

  FOR MACHO GUYS (AND “MACHO WANNABES”)

  MOSTLY IN THE UNITED STATES

  WHO WANT TO JOIN A GANG OF COWBOYS

  IN AN ERA OF DECREASING PERSONAL FREEDOM.

  EVALUATE YOUR DECISION

  Once you’ve decided on a target market, be sure to consider these questions:

  Are there enough people who fit my criteria?

  Will my target really benefit from my product/service? Will they see a need for it?

  Do I understand what drives my target to make decisions?

  Can they afford my product/service?

  Can I reach them with my message? Are they easily accessible?

  Don’t break your target down too far. Remember, you can have more than one niche market. Consider if your marketing message should be different for each niche. If you can reach both niches effectively with the same message, then maybe you have broken down your market too far. Also, if you find there are only fifty people that fit all of your criteria, maybe you should reevaluate your target. The trick is to find that perfect balance.

  You may be asking, “How do I find all this information?” Try searching online for research others have done on your target. Search for articles that talk about or to your target market. Search for blogs and forums where people in your target market communicate their opinions. Look for survey results, or consider conducting a survey of your own. Ask your current customers for feedback.

  Once you have all of the information, you can break it down this way to come up with a simplified positioning statement:

  For (target customer)

  Who (statement of need or opportunity),

  (Product name) is a (product category)

  That (statement of key benefit).

  Unlike (competing alternative)

  (Product name) (statement of primary differentiation).

  Defining your target market is the hard part. Once you know who you are targeting, it is much easier to figure out which media you can use to reach them and what marketing messages will resonate with them. Instead of sending direct mail to everyone in your ZIP code, only send it to those who fit your criteria. Save money and get a better return on investment by defining your target audience.

  Five Tips to Writing an Effective Mission Statement

  Once you determine who you’re talking to, it’s time to get deeper.

  Knowing your customers inside and out isn’t a new philosophy; marketing greats have preached it for decades. But the way you collect and synthesize that information has evolved. And this is not a one-and-done process. Staying in tune with your customer has to be ongoing and iterative.

  1. Developing personas is a good place to start when trying to get inside your customer’s head, says Jeff Pruitt, CEO of strategy, branding, and design company Tallwave. If you have customers already, start getting conversations going with them.

  2. Don’t limit this to just your most loyal customers, either. For the most accurate data, you’ll want to canvass a real cross-section of customers: the net promoter or raving fan; the power-user who always provides quality, actionable feedback to the dev team; the mature, fully implemented customer who doesn’t say much, but will likely never leave; and even those who, let’s face it, aren’t all that happy with your brand. Describe those people in as much detail as possible.

  3. It’s also important to note that the customers you either lose after a sale or during the sales process can provide valuable information as well. There’s a reason they’re leaving, and a reason they’re picking another company or product. This insight will tell you a lot about your ideal customer profile.

  4. The more of this information you can gather directly from the customer, the better. Even if you don’t have all of the answers, fill in as many blanks as you can. You want this persona to be as real in your mind—and your sales team’s mind—as possible.

  5. If you don’t have customers yet, get out there and talk to as many people as you can who are willing. More important than the number is to actually listen, and try to understand where customers and potential customers are coming from. Rational or emotional, the buying decision often comes down to a gut feeling—if you can capture that, you’re well on your way.

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  HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU SPEND?

  DEPENDING ON YOUR POINT of view, marketing can either seem like a waste of money, or an essential expense that can generate much-needed revenue. Both perspectives can be right. In large part, finding your company’s spending sweet spot will depend on how effective your marketing is.

  While you may encounter times you’re willing to spend more—during a product launch, for example—and other times when you need to rein it in, knowing a few basic numbers can give you a helpful perspective to frame your marketing spend.

  It helps to start with your customer acquisition cost (CAC). That’s the average cost of acquiring a new customer. Determining your CAC is easy: Add up all your sales and marketing costs for a specific period of time and then divide by the number of new customers landed during that period.

  If you spend $100 and acquire 10 customers, your CAC is $10.

  What’s a good number? That’s harder to answer. It really depends on your industry and business model. It’s also important to understand how CAC fits into your overall operating budget. The leaner your operation overall, the more you can afford to spend to acquire a customer. Plus, the longer you hang onto customers in general, the more you can justify on each new customer acquisition. That’s a customer’s lifetime value, or LTV, which can be defined as the profit your company can expect to generate from a customer, multiplied by the typical amount of time you hang onto the customer (e.g., x number of years).

  Once you’ve built a little history you can start to spot customer retention and spending trends. Then the math gets a lot easier: Determine what the average customer spends over a specific time period and calculate the return on your original customer acquisition cost investment.

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nbsp; There’s more you can learn from tracking. A rising CAC means you’ll need to start cutting costs or raising prices—or do a better job in marketing and sales. A falling LTV can be more troubling: It means you may need to spend more on marketing, but it also indicates that you’re failing to leverage the most important and least expensive customers you have: current ones.

  MARKETING ON A LIMITED BUDGET

  As a startup, you walk a fine line with your marketing spend. We’re telling you that you won’t succeed unless consumers know your products and services exist (which takes a heavy marketing and advertising investment). But let’s be real—you probably don’t have a large budget, and spending too much on a launch campaign can doom you from the start. The trick is to find that sweet spot that should allow you to reach a large audience with a conservative budget.

  Over the years, that sweet spot has changed—and it’s different for each industry and type of business—but the concept remains the same. Word-of-mouth marketing has always been a startup’s best chance of success when working with a limited budget. The Internet has only intensified that trend, and accelerated the way that word of mouth travels.

  Social media has made it possible for small startup businesses to reach millions of consumers with the click of a button: Just consider the fact that adults now spend five and a half hours a week on social media, and just under half (45 percent) of U.S. adults use Facebook for news.1