Slides from Founders Institute Kabul lecture on Startup Branding and Marketing by Sajad Ghanizada (Growth Marketer)

1. Startup Branding
& Marketing
Sajad Ghanizada | me@sajad.co | www.sajad.co

2. With marketing comes branding
Marketing
All of this
Leads to….
DEVELOPING
YOUR
BRAND

3. But you must tell a story
Storytelling should be your #1 skill
1. Find places to tell your story
2. Use HARO to become a source
3. Use Muck Rack to identify
journalists
4. Build relationships with media
5. Pitch once they know who you
are
How To Get Media Coverage For Your Startup: A Complete Guide

4. Create a press page
Before pitching and guest
posting, create a press kit
Include
1. Press email
2. Social media links
3. Team images
4. Product logos
5. Quotes
6. Product screenshots
7. Social proof

5. Become an influencer
Build your email listSteps
1. Start with a landing page, a
blog, and a way to collect
emails
2. Create a list of areas where
your users are (sites, blogs,
forums)
3. Create amazing content and
distribute it. People will opt-in
to your mailing list.
An example of an awesome landing page (subscribe at okdork.com)

6. Become an influencer
No secret trick: Write amazing content
Steps
1. Write extremely useful content
that your users care about.
2. Spend 20% of time writing,
80% promoting.
3. Collect emails on your site,
blog, email, Slideshare, etc.

7. Guest post
1. Identify blogs within your niche
2. Pitch them guest content
3. Write the content (Make sure it’s amazing)

8. Pre-launch | Post-launch
Focus on list building
Establish influencer status
Build media contacts (Tweet,
comment, share their posts)
Discover strongest growth channel
Build lead nurturing emails
Execute, measure, iterate
Use list to gain early traction
Maintain momentum through all
other marketing channels
Provide the BEST product and
support to your customers
Everything else will come
together. Trust the system.

9. Tools of the trade
Twitter & Twitter Lists
HARO
Muck Rack
BuzzSumo
Mailchimp
Google

10. References & further reading
Do Things That Don’t Scale - Paul Graham
Summer of Marketing - Marketing course
Email1K - List building course
The Definitive Guide To Growth Hacking - Neil Patel
The Beginners Guide To Online Marketing - Neil Patel