6 Things To Think About When Marketing Your Startup
My job in the consumer app game is to, a) acquire new users and, b) retain old users. The things I typically aim for are: getting front page headlines, running ads with 100% CTR, sending emails with 100% open rate, creating a witty yet intelligent brand voice, having stellar customer service, and fast yet sustainable organic growth.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far: You have to try a million things in and out of the box, and whatever sticks today won’t stick forever…
1. Press: They say, building relationships leads to good press. I haven’t had time to stalk writers and build an in-person relationship. So here are a few things I’ve done instead: sent emails with the subject: “Puppies are more popular than Kim Kardashian’s Butt” (we had the data to back up this claim), hand delivered cookies to 4 major media outlets, sent 300 personalized emails in one day. These led to 0 responses and thank you’s, but 2 weeks later had 3 articles written.
2. Advertising: I’ve tested the waters. Some platforms spend my money too slowly, some too fast. It’s a tricky game to finesse. We once ran ads in Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese and those were our best ROI. Then I got a lot of complaints to stop using Google Translate. Takeaway: It’s all about extreme targeting.
3. Email Marketing: Every week we write a newsletter linking to our favorite articles that the Interweb had to offer. Every week the email comes from a different person (ie: Mary-Lynx and Ashley Olsen, Bruce Springlynx, Lana Del Lynx). My goal is consistency - both in content and in schedule. There is a core group of people who read it, and a week never goes by without one.
4. Creating a Brand Voice: Similar to Email marketing - the same consistency in voice needs to be reflected in Twitter, Facebook, push notifications, blogs, or wherever your product has a presence.
5. Customer Service: Going hand in hand with our brand, we aim to show our users that we’re real people and not robots. I’ve had people write in about inappropriate content on our site, and when I apologize and tell them we have a system in place, which isn’t perfect - they respond back with less stern periods and more exclamation points when they realize - I’m just a girl sitting in front of a computer.
6. Organic Growth: Every startup aims to have organic virality. If there was a foolproof way to do this, then we’d all be rich and successful. But ideally - the combination of the above 5 leads to people using your product habitually and annoying their friends into doing so as well!
The joy and beauty of working for a startup is being able to be exercise creativity. Marketing is a lot of testing and finger crossing. It certainly makes every day exciting. If you want to see how we’ve done #3-6, download Lynx for iOS or sign up for our web version. Feedback welcome! And of course, come say hi at DC Tech Day in October!