How start-ups can succeed in their marketing

Part - 1

In a survey of 3200 start-up's by Startup Genome among the startups

that failed

70%

30% 70 % failed because of premature scaling

What does that mean?

Start-ups scaled earlier than their market! None of the failed start-ups

crossed 1,00,000 user mark

How can your start-up avoid this self-destruction?

The answer lies in having a relevant and realistic marketing plan!

Plan strong

Top 3 mistakes start-ups make with marketing plans

Assumption Vs Analytics Copy Vs orginal Product/service centric Vs Customer centric

Start-ups today rely on ‘maybe’ and ‘I-feel-so’ factors rather on validated data. If you have a ‘great’ product your greatest proof is number of sales.

Assumption Vs. Analytics

Optimum features naturally attract the prospect to try and buy, this is iterative by people telling people

Start-ups are building products/services that no-one’s going to buy… Sad! But yes

this can change.

Epic failure

Involve the customer in the building process, here the simple process, get-

up and get-out to where they are! .

Ask – Survey – Listen, listen, listen

Allow people to test, get real users/consumers not test-groups, track, analyse and ask them, list down learning

Great! Now its time for final build: in short beta-version launches*

*It also applies to non-product companies

Release Beta 1.0 Track user engagement both online

and offline

Now its time to think about a marketing plan…

What makes it the optimum time? 1.You really know your customer segments 2.You really know that what you have does click 3.You really know that people are sharing

You have numbers and data to make plans!!!

Next…

Get back to basics, by now you know that customers are buying, its now time for

you to unravel the mystery of What do our customers really like?

That’s pretty important and it gives you clue to the most important question: What do customers really value?

That question is the starting point of creating a pricing structure, it’s a question of “How much do my customers value

this product/service?”

Hey I gotcha: You are thinking – “Our competition has already set the pricing” . The answer lies in value, customers seek, love and obsesses brands that offer value, Apple is a

great example.

You set the rules of the game!

Your product/service = Monetary cost what customer values (speed, satisfaction, security, simplicity, scalability, strong, ……)

Customer pays for :

Reverse it..

Tangible (Product/service)

Intangible (Happiness, satisfaction/ feeling top-of-the-world, enthusiasm, joy, delight, security

Well you’ve got the whole idea that pricing is proportional to value, now its time to

ensure that you start to relate your product to that intangible value and

ensure your customer focuses there…

Here’s your value proposition: Hello customer you pay not only for the

product/service but also for that amazing, incredible, awesome intangible value that we offer! We bet you won’t get it anywhere else.

Features, features, features….

Enough of feature talk,

show emotional benefit

Great! You know your customer segments, the value you are offering, the next big

thing is to ensure more people get to know your awesome story.

Its time to amplify this awesomeness

Your customers are at different places, but do remember they are social, its time to

relate to them. People do smell manipulative relationships, so its time to get

real and share your story

Great stories click when its heroic, in our case your

product/service is the hero, and the problems

that people are facing are the villains…

Demonstrate how this hero of yours smacks

the bad-guys and wins the day for the

customers.

Choose right mediums or channels to reach many others for it to become a large

scale epic

There’s no one way to do it!

Make it personal!

Let experiences of the victors speak for themselves, feature jubilant victors remember : true emotions connect!

Use Hubs: Websites, landing pages, sales collateral, social media to share

these stories… Reach out!

Campaign for there are many more who need this product/service saviour of yours!

Allow victors to communicate, give them a voice!

Build right channels!!! And yes amidst all the hula-bulla and chants, don’t ever lose

track of analysing “if it’s the best channel?”, else someone's bagel might

attract your customers.

Build strong links, your product/service is not perfect, its also vulnerable, its got its own Achilles heel to deal with, know what

those moments are and be ready to ensure support and care.

Let people know that you love them, share how they can win better through

constant webinars, seminars and all possible sweet spots you can think of.

People’s greatest need are people, its great to know we are wired this way, so

build great relationship structures, let them know you are there for them in their hard moments (Product failure, bad response…)

Live up to your story…

All external branding elements – Logo’s, tag-lines, color-schemes… are pointers to the

real value, they can NEVER substitute what you can offer to them.

Awesome, now its time for you to start engaging and building your brand.

Fake stories have graves marked.. You can’t sell false stories, people will HATE

you and will spread the HATE around.

BUT great stories are etched in eternity, generations love these tales,

theyexperience it for themselves and create that eternal bond that’ll be

passed on and on

Here’s a quick recap:

1. Don’t fall for any of the myths 2. Involve the customer in the building process

3. Build – learn – rebuild 4. Know your customer segments well and validate

5. Discover and build on your value proposition 6. Share your story

7. Live up to your story 8. And eventually it’ll become an eternal story

Long live your brand!!!!

Next in the series | Part - 2

Metrics that matter for your startup marketing & sales

Startups sometimes traverse in the wrong direction its because they measure the wrong aspects and build on things that really don’t count in the long run. This can change with the right aspects measured. What’s gets

rightly measured gets eventually done!

Updates to follow on @kjosephabraham

1. Lean startup - Eric Ries 2. The four steps to the Epiphany - Steve Blank 3. Business model generation - Alexander Osterwalder 4. Running lean - Ash Maurya

Having seen challenges running and marketing at my previous start-ups, I sought for wisdom in various quarters, I stumbled upon these four amazing books and I highly recommend them:

Inspiration and gratitude:

Let’s stay connected hello@kjosephabraham.in @kjosephabraham www.kjosephabraham.in

Image credits : pixabay.com