Today's post is an excerpt from The MFS Startup Marketing Playbook.
Having achieved clarity around your vision, goals, target customers, and competitors, it is time for you to set up some of the essentials. At the very least you will need a website, social media accounts, and some kind of CRM system to house your customer data. In time, you will need to build your tech stack far beyond a CRM - but, with these b2b marketing essentials in place, you will have enough to kickstart your initial marketing and sales campaigns.
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When it comes to websites, the most popular option would be WordPress which comes with the bonus of easy-to-implement themes, plugins, and integrations with other tools such as HubSpot, Google Analytics etc. In terms of a CRM, Salesforce and HubSpot are both market-leading options. There are free alternatives out there as well which may well be enough for your initial setup. Setting up social media accounts is straightforward - but remember it is important to maintain consistency across your web presence. Ensure your website, socials, etc. are all on brand in terms of colors, fonts, and messaging.
You might want to consider a brand kit at this juncture as well where you select which colors and fonts will best represent your company. If you are not already set on a logo, you will need to figure that out at this point as well. You can hire a designer if you do not have anyone in-house. Alternatively, you could look online at the various logo-maker tools available and see if anything tickles your fancy.
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
- Arthur Ashe
B2B Startup Marketing - Basic Setup
These setup items are your bare minimum requirements and you can think about them as setting out your stall before you attack the market. If, as is the case for many early stage companies, resources are tight - then, it is no harm to think along the lines of minimum acceptable standards here.
The ultimate goal here is validating your product by making sales and growing revenue. Get your company basics set up in a way that is polished and highly professional, but do not waste too much time discussing colors and hex codes with highly skilled team members whose time could be better spent elsewhere. Growing revenue is the business you want your company to be in - keep your eyes on the prize.
The ultimate goal here is validating your product by making sales and growing revenue. Get your company basics set up in a way that is polished and highly professional, but do not waste too much time discussing colors and hex codes with highly skilled team members whose time could be better spent elsewhere. Growing revenue is the business you want your company to be in - keep your eyes on the prize.
Startup Marketing - Figuring Out Your Channel Mix
With your digital essentials in place, it is time to set up the various marketing channels you will need. To begin with, let’s consider all the possible channels you will have at your disposal.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Building up your website to rank organically on Google and other search engines for keywords related to your industry.
- Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC): Pay for ads on Google or social media sites to get your company in front of the right people.
- Email Marketing: If you can build up a list of suitable people and job roles at target companies, then email marketing can be a way to get your company front of mind. Within email marketing there are different areas to consider such as awareness building, thought leadership, or straight up prospecting where you are trying to get your target person onto a meeting with your sales team.
- Content Marketing: The area of content marketing can dovetail with your SEO strategy, but content marketing goes beyond SEO to cover aspects like thought leadership, video, case studies, sell sheets, and sales enablement content - those pieces of content sales teams need to get deals over the line. An example might be a ROI document or comparison chart with key competitors.
- Events: Depending on your target market, sometimes traditional channels like events can be more effective than the digital route. There may be a good deal of expense associated with some events, so you will need to weigh up numbers like average deal size etc. to figure out if events and conferences are worth the investment.
- Direct Mail: Another possibly underutilized channel to consider is direct mail. There is lots of online noise, and sometimes target customers might be easier to reach by going old school!
- Print Ads: Again this option would be another more traditional option than the digital channels, but can help you escape some of the noise online. Keep ROI considerations front and central here though. Can you find out about the companies and job titles a print ad would get in front of. What would a good ROI look like and do you have a way to prove or demonstrate ROI on any print spend?
- Cold Calling: Not for the faint-hearted, cold calling can however produce the results. Things to consider here are contact info availability and the resources you have at your disposal. Do you have a junior team member in your sales organization that is looking to get in at the bottom and work their way up? Cold calling left in the hands of a capable, personable, and ambitious team member can help you make the initial connection with target decision makers.
- PR: In the early stages of a company, PR can have a major impact. There are various ways to work a PR component into your initial marketing strategy including working with PR agencies or hiring a full-time PR person if your budget allows. There are other ways too including building up one of your executives as a thought leader in your space and putting them forward for media appearances etc.
- Partner Marketing: A really great partnership can be the making of a company. In many ways, partnerships and the type of partnership options available to you will be tied in with the makeup of your product. In a situation where a technical decision is made to integrate with an established platform, that can open up many marketing possibilities for you. You can also leverage the brand power and name recognition associated with an established platform. There are other possibilities here too around online marketplaces like the Salesforce AppExchange and others.
- Podcasts and Webinars: Another channel at your disposal will be webinars and/or podcasts. Once again, this channel has grown incredibly crowded over the past decade or so, but it can still be valuable particularly if you are targeting a niche audience. There are a number of things to consider here - for starters you could simply try to put someone forward from your own company to appear on established podcasts. Alternatively, you could try and host your own and leverage existing customer relationships to appear on your own webinar or podcast. Possible guests may be interested in appearing as a means of building their own brand be it personal or company. This social proof can be invaluable as you look to attract and convince new customers of your product’s value.
The first rule of fishing is fish where the fish are.
- Charlie Munger
B2B Marketing Channel Mix Exercise
In this section we have covered the main marketing channels available to you. The task for you is to figure out which channels are best suited to your current situation. There are a number of key questions to consider as you weigh up which channels to invest your marketing budget, time, and focus.
- Where do your target customers hangout online?
- Is your target customer reachable online or do you need to incorporate a mix of traditional channels like events or print ads?
- What is your average deal size?
- What is the cost of a marketing campaign in relation to your average annual deal size?
- What are the key components you would need to launch an initial marketing campaign?
- What would a healthy ROI on a marketing campaign look like?
- How would you measure ROI?
The exercise, once again, is to simply work through these questions allowing yourself 30 seconds for each answer. If you can not answer satisfactorily, you can mark the question as an area you might need to invest some time in - time that could be spent on either research, planning, or even trying out a pilot campaign in a given area to test out some real world results.
These exercises should not themselves be seen as a time investment, instead they can be used as a tool to help you figure out where to invest your time as you build up a highly effective marketing machine.
This post is an excerpt from our recently released B2B Startup Marketing Playbook. If you would like to read more you can access the Playbook in full here. If you have a marketing challenge you are looking for support with, you are welcome to set up a no obligation initial strategy consultation with our team.