Acquisition Marketing for Startups

Shane Bliemaster

The hardest part of building a startup

• Vice President of marketing at Nutshell - www.nutshell.com

• PayDirt - dashboard.getpaydirt.com

• YesViideo- www.yesvideo.com

Raven Media Labs - www.ravenmedialabs.com

• Director at MoviePass www.moviepass.com

• Director at Peanut Labs www.peanutlabs .com

Who am i?

@bliemaster

What you shouldn’t do

What is the hardest thing about building a startup?

Growth

What to do before launch

What I’ll be talking about todayHow to successfully build a marketing plan for your startup that is scalable and repeatable.

What to do after launch

Tools to use

Goal for today

To leave you with techniques and tools that will make it easier to grow your business

per user

CAC2010-2016

0

52.5

105

157.5

210

262.5

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Advertising spend per user

Cost to acquire a new user has doubled since 2010

Reasons• competition• old tactics

How can you find ways tobring this down.

before launch

You’re gonna need some tools

ANALYTICS - Identify drop-off points best performing channels and under-performing pages

QUALITATIVE INSIGHTS - Figure out why things are happening

A/B TESTING - Find the best customer facing variations to optimize conversion

marketing Tool kit

OptimizelyCrazyEgg

KISSMetrics

SurveyMonkey

Geckoboard

Qualaroo

TESTING

ANALYTICS

QUALITATIVE

Google Analytics

RJ Metrics

OUTREACHMailchimp Mandrill

Create

marketing

page

What to do

Test ad

channels

research

competition

research

your

market

Build your

social

channels

Market researchGather more data

survey potentials

Marketresearch

Price testing

Google Research Surveys

SurveyMonkey

• pricing • product interest• demographic testing

Demo and product response

survey potentials

Marketresearch

Google Research Surveys

SurveyMonkey• pricing • product interest• demographic testing

65.6% would commit to a year

survey potentials

Marketresearch

Google Research Surveys

SurveyMonkey

• pricing • product interest• demographic testing

The younger the user, the more willing to help

Landing pagesGenerate some buzz

generate buzz

LandingPages

• Always capture email• Referral program

OptimizelyWordpress

• capture emails• track your clicks• a/b test copy• a/b test design• live chat with traffic• platform to test ads

collect data

optimizelyOptimizely

• a/b test copy• a/b test images• a/b test calls to

action

Integrates with Crazyegg

crazyegg

• where are the clicks?

• are people scrolling?

• difference in your a/b

tests

push some traffic

Adwordsfacebook

linkedintwitter

test ad channels

Keyword tool

test ads (ctr, keywords, etc)Cheap ads

Would you…

ContentBuild presence

Test traffic to landing page

Start capturing email addresses by pushing traffic

ContentBuild presenceTest traffic to lp

research your industryFind out what makes competitors successful

ideas and tools

research competition

Banner ads

MoatWhatrunswhere

Retargeting platformsQuora

Growthhackers

retargeting quora growthhackers

launch

for growth

growth

steps HAVE A PLAN

EXPERIMENT WITH ALL GROWTH LEVERS

UNDERSTAND WHAT’S DRIVING GROWTH

HEAVY FOCUS ON PRODUCT OPTIMIZATION

Test

Begin your rollout

optimizePlan track

HAVE A PLAN

launching

have a plan

TRACK AND MEASURE

EVERYTHING

INVITE ROLLOUTMAILCHIMP, URL BUILDER

www.nutshell.com/?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=discount20

TEST AND TRACK LANDING PAGESOPTIMIZELY, CRAZYEGG, GA

TALK TO YOUR CUSTOMERSQUALAROO, SURVEYMONKEY

TRACK USER BEHAVIORKISSMETRICS, MIXPANEL,

ELANCE/ODESK

REFERRAL PROGRAMREFERRAL SAASQUATCH OR IN-HOUSE

Test and track

everything

Experiment

growthlevers

BE AWARE OF WHAT IS

WORKING FOR OTHER

COMPANIES

AFFILIATE ADVERTISINGSHAREASALE, COMMISSION JUNCTION

MOBILE DOWNLOADSFACEBOOK, FLURRY

RETARGETINGADROLL, FACEBOOK, ADWORDS

YOUTUBE PARTERNSHIPSIN-HOUSE AFFILIATE PROGRAM

SOCIAL MEDIAFACEBOOK, TWITTER, LINKEDIN, TUMBLR

CONTENTBUZZSUMO, CONTENTLY,

REFERRAL PROGRAMS

REFERRAL SAASQUATCH

GROWTH HACKSON-BOARDING, INVITE, REFERRAL

growth hackingIt's the idea that an entrepreneur can take a clever or non-traditional approach to

increasing thegrowth rate/adoption of his or her product by "hacking" something together specifically

for growthpurposes.

What do these companies have in common?

examples

growth hacking

MoviePass• 115k likes

• 25k email addresses

Robinhood

Mailbox• Acquired for 100mm

DRIVE DOWN CAC

Key takeaways

TEST EVERYTHING

GET CREATIVE

USE AVAILABLE TOOLS

layering channels

Acquisition stacking

0

100

200

300

400

500

April May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar

TitleiOS Adwords Affiliates All

FIND GROWTH CHANNELS THAT WORK AND STACK

NUTSHELLiOS, Adwords

Measure ROI of each channel

Sean Ellis - Growthhackers.com

Growth hacking is a marketing technique

developed by technology startups which

uses creativity, analytical thinking, and social

metrics to sell products and gain exposure. It

can be seen as part of the onlinemarketing ecosystem, as in many

casesgrowth hackers are simply good at

usingtechniques such as search engine

optimization, website analytics, content

marketing andA/B testing which are already

mainstream.

Growth HackingMarc Andreesen– Netscape

, Andreesen Horowitz

Steve Blank

Being in a good market with a product that

can satisfy that market.” Many peopleinterpret product/market fit as creating

aMinimum Viable Product that

addresses andsolves a problem or need that exists.

Product market fit

Startup Marketing Disciplines/books

Eric Ries - The Lean Startup

Ries' overall claim is that if startups invest

their time into iteratively building products or

services to meet the needs of earlycustomers, they can reduce the

market risksand sidestep the need for large

amounts ofinitial project funding and expensive

productlaunches and failures.

The Lean Startup

For your attention

Thanks@bliemaster

[email protected]