5 Things I Learned as a Startup Founder With Zero Marketing Background
I made that mistake before of leaving all marketing related decisions to my co-founder because that was his background. So after launching my startup, I took a break from fixing bugs to learn as much as I could about advertising on social media, composing website copywrite, email marketing, and more to help build traction for my product.
Even though my journey on becoming a marketing jedi is far from finished, so far, here is what I’ve learned.
1. Think in the perspective of your customer.
This is #1 for a reason; it’s the most important one.
Nearly every sentence on your landing page should answer the question, “so what?” Communicate in terms of what value your service provides, not what it provides. A new customer does not care about what your product does… all they want to know is what is in it for them.
It seems that so many startups think they’re supposed to describe what their product/service is. Too often I see website taglines say things like, “The AirBnB for Pets” or “The Best Digital Marketing Agency For Your Brand”. Who the hell cares? The truth is that nobody knows who you are so, honestly, nobody cares. Instead, tell them why they should care.
Let’s imagine a website for a product that manages the room temperature throughout your home and use that as an example.
BAD: “Automated temperature monitoring for your home”
BETTER: “Lower your monthly bills and worry less with the perfect temperature in every room”
Automated temperature monitoring for your home (so what?) means absolutely nothing to a potential customer. In other words, there is no clear value as to what value the product offers. However, the 2nd line clearly states the benefits of the product to the consumer.
Use this method of thinking for your marketing emails, social media marketing, copywrite, videos, and almost everything you could think of related to selling your product. When you think you’re done, give it to someone else (not mommy and daddy), and ask them: would you buy this? Heck, just tweet your link to me and I’ll tell you if I would buy your product/service based on your website copy (I’ll do this free, of course) :)
2. Go to where your customers are.
Whether your startup is B2B or B2C, your job as the salesman for your product/service is to present solutions to people that may actually experience the problem you’re looking to solve. Your job is also to find where this community of people are and go straight to them.
Hugh Liddle from Red Cap Sales Coaching once put it perfectly; his friend, let’s call him Bob, sold a product in the agriculture industry. Instead of going farm to farm (which can be very time consuming), Bob discovered that every morning at 8 am all the farmers in a certain town visited a local coffee shop to get their morning cup of joe. Well, guess where Bob was every morning at 8 am.
While your customers may not all be in a coffee shop like Bob’s was, they may be on an online forum, a subreddit, an online chatroom, a live conference or trade show, a local market, or even the unemployment line at your local welfare office.
When you find them, make sure to follow point number 3 (below).
3. People don’t want to be sold to.
I don’t know a single person that likes it when someone tries to sell them something. As soon as I hear something along the lines of, “Do you experience back ache in the morning? Do you wish your bed was more comfortable?”, I immediately look the other way because it sounds like a sales pitch. If this sounds like something you do, stop it now because it’s hurting your sales.
Last week a friend on Facebook sent me the message below after I posted a status about entrepreneurship.
Her: Hello. I came across one of your posts on my newsfeed and I thought it was great. I like some of your posts and I actually just wanted to run something by you. I’m not sure if you’re open but I am working with a group of millionaires on a billion dollar idea and I am looking for people who want more than what they are currently getting right now. Would you be one of them? Yes or no?
Me: Hey [friend’s name]. Many entrepreneurs are working on what they perceive is a million or billion dollar idea ;) What is the idea that you’re referring to?
Her: Well that is true but our actual company growth is headed into that billion dollar direction! Let’s exchange contact info and I’ll be happy to show you what were working on!
I didn’t respond to her after that.
Let’s be honest. Would good ol’ YOU actually reply to her saying, “Yes OMG I definitely want more than I am getting right now”?
I’m not going to get into the specifics of all the things wrong with this message but it’s obvious that she wanted to sell me something and that’s all she cared about. Her interest wasn’t really to “help me get more than what I’m getting”. It also sounded like something straight out of a flowchart from the sales training class of her “billion dollar company”.
Be human. Be authentic. When reaching to customers/businesses just use natural language. People want to feel important. If you speak to customers in cheap-car-salesman lingo, you’re not making them a priority. You might as well be a robot.
4. When sending cold e-mails make it personal and straight to the point.
Again, follow point number 3 especially when looking for cold leads via e-mail.
If your startup is B2B, make your e-mails to potential clients personal. Don’t make your e-mail seem like a canned response or template. Nobody likes that and most people will not read it. Remember, people want to feel important. Instead, tell them exactly why you know they will specifically benefit from your product/service.
Also, make the e-mail short and sweet. Don’t get into details about your product/service or attempt to sign them up immediately. Right now all you need to do is get them interested and set up a follow up call to talk more.
Try to make your e-mail super short. It shouldn’t look like a letter and it shouldn’t be more than 2–3 paragraphs of more than 2–3 short sentences each.
Get them interested. Talk details later.
5. A 5-year old should be able to understand what you do.
Without scrolling or clicking anything, your customer should at least have a clear idea of what your product/service is about within 15–20 seconds of visiting your website.
The attention span of a new customer can be very low so you should communicate your message in the simplest words possible. I learned somewhere (if I remember where, I’ll update this) that your landing page should be able to explain what you do to a 5 year old. I use this concept all the time when making landing pages. Here’s why:
Nobody has time to decipher your message. Give it to me straight.
Make it super simple. Here is how:
- Keep your message short.
- Use words that flow well together in a sentence (match syllable counts when possible). No, I’m not talking about making your website a rap song or haiku ;)
- Use words that even a non-native speaker of your language can understand.
- Do not use English phrasal verbs. Here is a list of a few. Not everyone understands what these may mean and a 5 year old probably won’t either.
BAD WORD CHOICE: establish
BETTER WORD CHOICE: prepare, create/make, build, deliver, give
BAD WORD CHOICE: come upon, identify
BETTER WORD CHOICE: find, explore, discover
If you’re not sure what alternative word to use, look up the word on thesaurus.com and keep it simple! :)
I’m working on my startup at VendemoMarket.com and will be tweeting our journey and more tips on Twitter/@FranklinAcosta_ if you’d like to see where it goes.
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