Advanced Brand and Marketing for Early Stage Companies

Advanced Brand
and Marketing
for Early Stage
Companies

Tomás Puig
Sr. Director, Labs
at WP Engine
@tnpuig
Paul Dery
Executive Creative Director
at R/GA
@pauliedery
#AdvBrand

The Landscape
House of Mirrors
Action Framework
Your Turn
The Pitch

This workshop was first given at
SXSW 2015 as “Advanced Brand and
Marketing for Early Stage Companies”.
The Example of SaaS was chosen as
an economic model to explore with
and these slides were the guide we
used to explain the topics.
@tnpuig @pauliedery #AdvBrand

What is SaaS?

Two kinds of SaaS business:
MRR
Those with primarily monthly contracts, with some longer term contracts. In this
business, the primary focus will be on MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)
ARR
Those with primarily annual contracts, with some contracts for multiple years. Here the
primary focus is on ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), and ACV (Annual Contract
Value).
this section via David Skok

There is two things a SaaS should
focus on.

Single Customer Cash Flow (Skok)
-7000
-6000
-5000
-4000
-3000
-2000
-1000
0
1000
Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6 Month 7 Month 8 Month 9 Month 10 Month 11 Month 12
CAC (Cost to Acquire the Customer) Subscription Payments * GM% http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2/

http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2/

Two Key Guidelines for SaaS Startups
LTV CAC
Months to
recover CAC
>3x
12 Months<

What does awesome look like?

Activity:
Write down three SaaS companies you
admire.

The quickest way to gain users is to
have a product that disrupts the
market.

A disruptive innovation gives new
consumers access to product historically
only available to consumers with a lot of
money or skill.
(Andreesen)

It's a fabricated myth that disruptive
innovation is about destruction: It's
about creation
(Andreesen)

Disruptive innovation shrinks
inequality, by bringing to lower-income
consumers things that only richer
consumers had.
(Andreesen)

Rich people always had books, music,
clean clothes. Disruptive innovation
made these things available to many
more people.
(Andreesen)

Printing press disrupted books from
scribes; recorded music disrupted live
concerts in homes, washing machines
disrupted live-in maids.
(Andreesen)

A new product for a previously
underserved market it is typically
cheaper than existing product.
(Andreesen)
http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/02/marc-andreessen-teaches-startups-what-disruption-is-really-
about-in-17-tweets/

What does this mean for me?

The Simplicity Filter

What ONE problem does the product
solve?
Does my product
solve one problem
amazingly?
YES
MOVE
ON
NOPE

Who is the ONE person my product
solves this for?
Does it solve the
problem for a
specific niche?
YES
MOVE
ON
NOPE

What level of customer service does
the product provide?
HIGH
(Humans)
LOW
(Automated)

CASE STUDIES
BirchBox
Delivers a box of beauty samples each
month to your door for $10 - 30 a
month.

CASE STUDIES
Hubspot
Provides a cloud service for inbound
marketing that acts as an all in one
technical marketing tool for $200 –
2500+ a month.

Activity:
For the three companies you chose
answer these three questions.

The Experience
Exchange
Marketing cannot make your
product better.
What the brand says and what
the brand does must be ONE.
Match culture to brand essence
Does your product
deliver on what your
marketing says it
does?
YES
MOVE
ON
NOPE

Total Available Market
This is the most ignored analysis in
early companies.

What is TAM
Total Available Market
Or stated as:
The revenue opportunity available for
a product or service.

Niche in Business Terms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_addressable_market

Two ways to calculate:
Bottom Up: Manual Counting
Top Down: Secondary Market
Research (analyst reports)

Niche is a subset of TAM that are your
base (or evangelists)

STARTING WITH SOCIAL
Social is a great place to start.
A low entry barrier to build your brand.
Your singular focus comes through in social.
You mightn’t have a million followers, but your singular purpose comes through.
4
3

For years, we’ve one had
one figurehead
broadcasting to many
people.

01
Social is the
sponsoring of
a community.

02
Nobody wants
to be your friend,
they already have
their own.

03
Talk to your
followers like they
are your friends.
A good friend
doesn’t try to sell
you, they help you.

04
No need to be
always on,
but do be
always relevant.

SUCCESSFUL CONTENT
IS ALL ABOUT CONTEXT.
Who will see it? When will they see it?Where does it live?
These are the questions that will help us reach the audiences we want with the messages
we want them to see (and the messages they want to see from us).

SEO – For a start up only five things
mostly govern position.
1. Domain authority
2. High quality of inbound links
3. High quantity of inbound links
4. High quality page content
5. Site speed

Instead of going into channels deeply
here is some tips and tricks.

Earned media often refers to “PR” or
getting someone to write about you.

Only two things cause narrative in the
press: Controversy or Novelty

Paid.
Instead of going deep lets just look at
some tips.

The more mature the paid channel the
less likely you are to have cheap wins.

Adwords
Protect your brand but you aren’t
going to outbid the big boys.

Social Paid
Useful but limited budgets should be
saved for blowing up your earned
media wins.

YouTube Paid
Wonderful for marketing directly to
niche’s on specific channels. But
watch your budget.

Affiliates…. Explore them. Can run 10-
30% of revenue acquired. But
remember they are motivated by
payout. Think lead generation
mercenaries for hire.

Display
I wouldn’t touch display with an earlier
stage company.

Churn is the loss
of an ARR or
MRR customer.
This is bad.

Customer Nurture:
Look after the customers you have.
They’re easier and cheaper than
acquiring new customers.

Now that we’ve the applied simplicity filter
to the product.
Now that you’ve found your niche.
We need to communicate.

The smaller you
are the bigger
the purpose you
must have

THE BRIEF
CUSTOMER BRAND MESSAGE
What does
the customer
want?
What does
the product
deliver?
What do you
want to say?

THE BRIEF – BIRCH BOX
It’s a big
investment to
try out
different
products.
A little
sample every
month based
on your
preference.
The
smartest
way to shop
for beauty
and
grooming.

THE BRIEF – HUB SPOT
Inbound
marketing is
really $ and
very technical
for my SMB.
A suite of
tools that
cheaply lets
you grow
your SMB.
Let us handle
the hard
things so you
can focus on
what you do.

THE BRIEF – NETFLIX

NETFLIX
It’s
Blockbuster
or bust.
A huge
library of
unique titles
delivered to
your door.
Movies
delivered to
your door
without a
late fee.

THE MODERN
MARKETING
DEPARTMENT

SaaS Marketing in a start up primarily
consists of three activities.
1. Acquisition
2. Sales Enablement
3. Customer Nurture

Lets say you have four people.

THE MODERN MARKETING DEPARTMENT
Strategy Creative
Comms Data
KPIs and OKRs
Research
Positioning
A/B Testing Plans
International
Copy (selling)
Content (informing)
Design (emotion)
Public Relations
Community Relations
Analyst Relations
Social
Ad Campaign Planning
Analytics
Lead Evaluation
Conversions and ROI
Organic Search Rank Reports
Evaluating and Enacting A/B
Tests
Each group will need
to use both online and
offline channels to
perform their
functions.

The Landscape
The Brief
The Thought
Your Turn
The Pitch Groups
You Pitch

The Landscape
The Brief
The Thought
The Goal
The Pitch

The Landscape
The Brief
The Thought
Appendix
The Pitch

Digital Ecosystem
Branding and content
must feel consistent
across all channels that
exist within the digital
ecosystem
PAID SOCIAL
CONNECTIONS CONTENT DRIVEN
Ad Networks
Partner Programs
Sponsorship
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
Marketers
“In the Wild”
Events
SEO
Blog
Newsletter
PR

Site Activities
RESEARCHING WORKING PARTICIPATING CONNECTING
Audience Users looking
for a solution
Existing Customers Community and
Activity Owners
Stakeholders 
Industry Participants 
/ Special Interest
Groups
Relevant Content Service Benefits
FAQ
Contact
Product Mix
Offers
Testimonials
Support
Login
Resources
Platform Status
Blog
White Papers
Case Studies
News
Social
About the Company
Careers
Contact
Team
News
Social

Strategy
It is broken up into seven key activities:
1) KPIs and OKRs
2) Audience Research
3) Channel Research
4) Messaging and Positioning
5) Strategic Planning
6) A/B Testing Plans
7) International territory management
Each group will need to use both online and offline channels to
perform their functions.

CREATIVE
COPY (Selling)
1) Ads
2) Landing Pages
3) Brochures
4) Product
Descriptions
Content (Informing)
1) Blog Posts
2) E-books
3) Podcasts
4) Infographics
5) Webinars
Design (Emotion)
1) Brand Guidelines
2) Amazing Company Swag
3) Quality Control of All External
Assets
4) Build of Assets for Ad Network

Communications
It is broken up into eight key activities:
1) Public Relations
2) Publicity
3) Government Relations
4) Community Relations
5) Analyst Relations
6) Social Influencer Relations
7) Speaker Pitches
8) Ad Campaign Planning

Data
It is broken up into nine key activities:
1) Analytics
2) Lead Evaluation
3) Media Hits and Readership Reporting
4) Sales Numbers Following Ad Campaigns
5) Conversions and ROI
6) Follower Growth
7) Negative SEO Checks
8) Organic Search Rank Reports
9) Evaluating and Enacting A/B Tests

Advanced Brand and Marketing for Early Stage Companies

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