Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 26, 2010

Every time I see a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. The founder explains that the product is so “buzz-worthy” that usage will spread rapidly through word-of-mouth only, meaning people loving it and recommending it to their friends.

Viral 141

Viral Cost Marketing SEM 141

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Except the "strategy" is a tirade of drivel I've heard so many times I can lip-sync as the words spew out the founder's mouth: "We're going to A/B-test AdWords campaigns until we discover our hook.". We're putting a 'Retweet' button inside the product to encourage viral growth.". We're better than everyone else at SEO.". "A

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Developers 261

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Why Product Managers Wear Sneakers - Steve Blank , September 2, 2010 I gave a talk last night to the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. Except they won’t be called Product Managers.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191

ConversionXL

APRIL 29, 2013

In this article we’re going to dive deep into a discussion about creating content for your autoresponder campaign. We’ve talked about ReOptimizing your autoresponders and creating effective drip campaigns before. Identifying The Starting Point of Your Auto-Responder Campaigns. Viral/ Emotional State.

Campaign 130

Campaign Email Framework Clickthrough 130

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

Technical Review 220

Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review Business Model 220

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2010

He stood up, grabbed the mic and gave a heartfelt overview of his experiences in experimenting with new technologies to build relationships with his audience, get feedback on his product quality and to market his music all the way to the top of iTunes. To stay the crowed was “wowed&# was an understatement. This was in the 90′s.

Entrepreneur 356

Entrepreneur Los Angeles Norway Audience 356

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 10, 2020

Make sure you integrate video production into your company’s marketing plan. If you manage to get your video production and marketing right, you can dramatically boost your conversion rate. You can’t expect someone who has no idea about your offer to immediately purchase your product or service. Helps In Building Trust.

Video 246

Video Marketing Social Media Mobile 246

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 25, 2011

In the book, you’ll learn about the different aspects of rewards systems, levels of social engagement and experience progression that can not only be applied to frivolous games or useless mobile apps, but also leveraged for building products and services, as well as marketing campaigns.

Mobile 172

Mobile Technical Review Software Review Web 172

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

But, increasingly, the Apple hype-fests are a marketing—not a product—showcase. For product launches, long-term success relies on cornerstones of marketing research and execution, like a strong value proposition and full-funnel campaign. Yet while product launches are a risk, they’re not as risky as you think.

Product 110

Product Campaign Acquisition Social Media 110

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 10, 2011

Photoshop is a great illustration of a product designed to this extreme. (A Build your product specifically for them, even if that means confusing and abusing everyone else. If your product really is good, they’ll give you money and tell other power-users (birds of a feather already forum and Twitter together).

Software Review 232

Software Review Technical Review .Net Design 232

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, November 7, 2008 Using AdWords to assess demand for your new online service, step-by-step If you want to build an online service, and you dont test it with a fake AdWords campaign ahead of time, youre crazy. Turns out, there was aboslutely no demand whatsoever for that particular product.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 21, 2013

This guide is intended to ensure that your small business doesn’t miss out on any of the customers who can be reached by a thorough marketing campaign: Digital. Social media can also be an important and useful part of your marketing campaign, particularly if your business exists only online.

Marketing 153

Marketing Startup Technical Review Viral 153

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Remember the whole controversy over Facebook’s Beacon product where a guy bought an engagement ring for his wife and it was published to a stream and ruined the surprise ? So my gut says this will be a youth-oriented product. It is a platform to help brands building viral marketing campaigns.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

Occam's Razor

SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

A Facebook employee (FBe) gave a talk about measuring ROI/Value of Facebook campaigns. In the second part of the talk a large client joined FBe on stage to make the case for Facebook campaigns. Client posted a video of a soon to be released product on their Facebook brand page. Attribute it all to the Facebook campaigns.

Metrics 165

Metrics Advertising Marketing Social Media 165

The Next Web

DECEMBER 4, 2013

Along with building a product and a company, you need to build social momentum and buzz. Product and culture . Any brand wants to promote a culture and an experience to some extent, but in early stage-startups, an innovative product drives reputation. Startup Example: Coin. Strategy Adopted: Referral-loop.

Social Media 158

Social Media Media Viral Startup 158

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

But truthfully both Dana and I are more aligned with the lean startup principles and believe you only go FAT when you’ve really proved out your product / market fit. Interesting that Booyah is led by a former game producer, Keith Lee, who formerly launched very large products for Blizzard Entertainment. Total raised: $29.5mm.

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Growth Hacking isn’t viral marketing (although viral marketing is part of it). Growth Hacking comes to solve a very common problem in consumer startups: getting to the first x thousand/million users quickly once the product has launched and the hype has passed. Measure where you see the higher number of sign ups.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

If you don’t know, Ring offers home security products that started with a video doorbell, then video floodlights, outdoor stickup cams and now in-home security features that innovate in-home security alongside outside protection. We were CONVINCED Dropcam (then Nest) wouldn’t mobilize a competing product quickly if it did sell?

Security 247

Security Los Angeles Silicon Valley Video 247

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 15, 2019

This strategy of IBM started to fail once the market was filled with clones and fakes of their products. Recently, McDonalds shifted from plastic straws to paper straws after a twitter campaign went viral on how they use 1.8 They focused on IT and computing services to reach their goals and build their business back.

Small Business 196

Small Business Software Review Technical Review Viral 196

crowdSPRING Blog

OCTOBER 16, 2011

Just like small businesses, freelancers must engage in marketing, manage payables and receivables and other accounting tasks, perform HR functions, direct production, and plan strategy. 5 great viral marketing campaigns (and what small businesses can learn from them!). What is a freelancer if not a small business? Managing HR.

Small Business 118

Small Business Technical Review Software Review Startup 118

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

A great product enables customers, developers, partners, and even competitors to exchange their unique currencies in combinations that lead to financial success for the company that organizes them. In a previous post , I covered the three main drivers of growth: Paid, Sticky, and Viral. And this is true outside of games.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 5, 2012

Luminaries like Robert Scoble (author of “ Naked Conversations ” and godfather of blogging ) have caused spikes in web traffic through highlighting particular products. While marrying targeted influencers with product brands seems like one made in heaven, Klout isn’t empty of controversies. Nuff said.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Singapore Algorithm Social Media 160

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

In today’s market ( 8,000 martech products alone ), it’s easier to attract the right customer with material they value than it is to chase down and convert a prospect who isn’t ready to buy. If your product was developed to solve a real-world problem, your ideal customers already exist. Like SEO, demand generation is a long game.

Demand 124

Demand B2B Distribution Channel 124

crowdSPRING Blog

DECEMBER 15, 2010

Small businesses and startups face many challenges when marketing their products and services. Yet products and services rarely sell themselves – small businesses and startups must find ways to let their potential customers know about those products and services.

Lean 129

Lean Small Business Marketing Startup 129

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

Business Model 120

Business Model Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review 120

ConversionXL

MARCH 6, 2019

On Facebook, an ideal customer may log on to see photos of a new nephew, not to check out a 30-second demo of your SaaS product. This post focuses on deployment rather than production, but here are high-level takeaways from those posts: Quality = attention span. Direct Sponsored Content campaign with video not published elsewhere.

Video 129

Video B2B Technical Review Campaign 129

The Next Web

AUGUST 19, 2013

Simply put, the return on investment on your product or service is LTV minus CAC. For some businesses that makes sense; for example, most social gaming products have CAC 70 to 85 percent of their LTV. You need money to acquire customers, so you’ll need a pretty special product or service to convince investors. LTV ­ CAC = ROI.

Belarus 137

Belarus Viral Channel Startup 137

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

There was a backlash against the Plaxo spamming yet it paved the way for everybody who came after them to get users to drive viral adoption and we’d throw up our arms and say, “oh boy, here goes another social network that my friends are going to spam me about&# mentality that made it acceptable for everybody who came afterward.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Internet Technical Review 318

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

The science of how temperature and lighting impacts our productivity | The Buffer – [link]. The science of how temperature and lighting impacts our productivity | The Buffer – [link]. Why Your Marketing Campaign Sucks | TechCrunch – [link]. Why Your Marketing Campaign Sucks | TechCrunch – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

View from Seed

MARCH 22, 2016

Your product launch. Your crowdfunding campaign. Reporters are hyper-sensitive to hyperbole, and they won’t take you seriously if you oversell your product or services. Your crowdfunding campaign hit it out of the park. Identify what about your story or your product is unpredictable, and build from that. .

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage San Francisco Startup CTO Hire 120

Mike Michalowicz

FEBRUARY 11, 2013

Give away your product or promotional item on Twitter. Ask a question about a product on your website or blog. Spend weeks listening to them; you’ll be amazed what they will tell you about their concerns, their ideal products, their current frustrations with their vendors. Twitter Giveaways. The first person to answer wins.

Small Business 167

Small Business Marketing PR Social Media 167

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

You can use this to your advantage to sell more products. In this article, you’ll learn how TikTok Ads work and how you can create campaigns that grab attention and turn interest into conversions. And the type of products this audience is into is equally as diverse. Ads are a natural part of the experience. billion views.

Customer 102

Customer Viral Audience Campaign 102

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Are your campaigns driving conversions? Similarly, understanding that awareness is growing across the industry might prompt AirHelp to team up with a similar company (a non-competitor, but a relevant industry leader) to launch a dual campaign. Brand tracking is how you measure if those efforts are paying off. Brand consideration.

Metrics 157

Metrics Marketing Campaign Audience 157

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Cohort analysis can be done for revenue, churn, viral word of mouth, support costs, or any other metric you care about. Also, cohort behavior often reflects the use of the product over time. For replenishable products, if most people place their next order on the fifth week, that’s when they run out of it.

Retention 126

Retention Analytics Campaign eCommerce 126

ConversionXL

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

I use a more restrictive definition: A growth team is a product tech team that’s focused on acquisition instead of core product features. Design, Product, Marketing, and Sales get pissed that you’re not in sync. Take product positioning. Our new email subscribers would receive email campaigns for different products.

Conversion 133

Conversion Technical Review Channel Engineer 133

Women Entrepreneurs Can

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

User-generated videos have enormous potential for sharing and to go viral. They also offer your products and services original viewpoints from authentic consumers, giving your brand credibility. The following Pamper’s “ Love, Sleep, and Play ” campaign included curated UGC videos from real moms of their babies. Image Source.

Software Review 94

Software Review Social Media New Zealand Silicon Valley 94

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 30, 2014

Your business plans are in place, perhaps you have sought out and won investors, and gotten a foothold in the market with your product. Properly designed and produced videos are an amazing way to build strength behind any marketing campaign. Viral Video Marketing. Your company, your product, is your baby.

Video 78

Video Widget Software Review Entrepreneur 78