Internet Tech Boston

Your Marketing Automation System

This past summer, I recorded a series of startup profiles. Since then, two of the companies (Baydin and Peekaboo Mobile) have gone on to receive funding. I wanted to get an update from the others as well, so I had coffee with Jacqueline Thong, CEO at Ubiqi Health. Since we last spoke, Ubiqi’s Alpha phase finished successfully – users loved it. Jackie told me that she was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who really stepped up to become evangelists for the Alpha product (aka MVP). To me, this reinforced the importance of finding what Steve Blank calls, your “earlyvangelists” – people so eager to try the solution to their problem your product offers that they’re willing to slog through an MVP to get there. Now Ubiqi is open to the public. Their current biggest challenge is acquiring new users that match the same eagerness and intensity as their early-vangelists, in a low-cost manner. As a startup marketing guy, I felt I could help out. Here is Part One of our conversation where we talked about how to setup a user acquisition tracking system. Stay tuned next week for Part Two where we talked about driving new visits and users through the system.

Force the entire team to focus on team goals, not individual or departmental goals.

Acquiring users for your startup SaaS product is a problem that should be solved by the whole team, not just the “marketing person.” In my experience, the first step toward product/dev/marketing team alignment is sharing the most important metrics that the whole team is accountable for. Jackie was already sharing the new user signup and the number of retained/active users per week with the whole team. That’s a great start, but I recommended Jackie build out a full AARRR Dashboard to provide deeper insight user metrics from the top of the funnel all the way out the bottom. I’ve found that the mere process of choosing which are the most important metrics within each phase of the AARRR funnel, and as a team agreeing upon their importance, clarify the mission of the team. It takes time. Start by putting them on a whiteboard – you’ll need to erase and redraw as you refine your approach. When the idea of measuring AARRR metrics fully bakes in within your team, move it to a page on your wiki, or a spreadsheet in a network folder – someplace that everyone can see.

Where do users come from today, and which are most active?

Jackie told me that Ubiqi’s first users were found through typical Customer Development methods – respondents to surveys about migraine problems, connecting with the leaders of migraine user groups, and pure WOM. There were also some PR “blitzes” in the form of helpful comment son NYTimes blog posts and others. I like to setup systems that tag every user by referral source as they signup, so that you can follow cohorts of users through their AARRR lifecycle. This referral source should be part of their user record in your application database. Don’t rely just on external third party tracking tools or you’ll never get a complete picture of channel ROI. Your user tracking “system” doesn’t have to fancy. Just some quick javascript to store the standard Google AdWords referring variables or the referring website address with the user record when they get created.

We had a problem with Analytics . . .

Like most startups practicing capital efficiency, Ubiqi was using the free Google Analytics tool. I find that using GA for all types of web tracking from blog post popularity, to new user funnel effectiveness, to user interaction within the product itself can be unwieldy. Yes, it’s free. But it can be a bear to setup and it’s 24 hour lag before showing data can be a pain – especially if you found out you need to change your setup. Eventually Ubiqi found themselves in that spot, and lost some data. I recommend that startups understand that Google Analytics is great for web traffic analysis for up front Acquisition analysis, but tools like KissMetrics are better for User Activation analysis (conversion funnels) and MixPanel for Retention and Usage metrics (user interaction within the product). Art Van Kilmer has more great detail on these packages here.

Continue on to read Startup Marketing Lessons: Ubiqi Health Part Two where we talk about driving new visits and users through the system.

Software engineers hate maintaining someone else’s code – they don’t know for sure what will happen when they change it. Sales people can’t  give presentations created by other people effectively – their styles rarely match. Don’t get me started on designers – ask them to make a minor edit to another designer’s work and you’ll have a complete brand new design overnight.

Digital marketers, however, love to copy. They emulate best practices. If a tactic has proven to work for someone else, then it will be scooped up and replicated in short order. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at how Twitter has grown.

Perhaps there is something to learn from our fellow technology professionals. Just because a something works for a marketer in Company A, does it really mean it work for yours? Maybe – if you’re talking to the same people, and addressing a similar business need. If so, you’re probably competitors and have just lost differentiation.

Don’t get me wrong, marketing is a tough job and it’s getting tougher and tougher to reach and hold people’s attention and get them to take the action you want. You’ll need new methods of engagement and conversion tactics constantly. Don’t let that need to “feed the beast” drive you to move in herds. Keep your eyes open and measure what’s happening with these new programs. Don’t be afraid to stop them if you’re not seeing what you want.

I recently joined the Harvard Startups usergroup. Today, I was replying to a question posed to the community and about half-way through, realized it was a blog post.

The question: How does one promote online marketing and lead generation services to an audience that is primarily used to only exhibiting at conferences. What strategies can be used to drive this audience away from exhibiting at conferences and focus more on utilizing online marketing?

Let me start by saying, this is a long process – be prepared for frustration along the way. Traditional marketers are generally very scared to try new media strategies for a number of reasons, mostly because it’s new and people don’t like change, but also because it’s threatening. Here’s how I’d advise you to start:

1. It doesn’t cost us anything to try this. You don’t need anyone’s permission to start a Twitter account, a Facebook page, or a Ping.FM account. You can probably easily get the budget for a Constant Contact account to send regular email marketing. Focus on how little cost (both money and time) it is to start an online marketing program. How can they say No?
2. My Online programs are here to help make your offline programs better. Send email marketing ahead of the conference to increase your company’s awareness. Live-Twitter about the conferences. Bring a video camera and tape as much as you can. All these activities help both their conference, as well as your grow your online community-base. Focusing on Win-Win situations helps reduce their fear of you and what you represent.
3. Track EVERYTHING. Most traditional marketers don’t track metrics. Sad to say, but they leave the barn door wide open. They just spend money on the next conference. If you track followers, click-throughs, traffic, leads, and EVERYTHING else, the upper management will start to drool over your success, then you’re ready for step 4.
4. Explain to Senior Management what they could get if they gave digital marketing a decent budget. You were able to attract X amount of opportunities/dollars with your limited budget. But, if you had a team of people working for you, and better tools, you could easily do 10X. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for – when they decide “Gee, maybe we should skip one of those 15k conference sponsorship fees and give that budget to the digital marketing guy to rebuild our website . . . “

Good luck, and remember that you have to change mindsets. Much of this is not about proving that online marketing tactics work, it’s the interpersonal dynamics between the agitator vs. the status quo. It takes awhile. You will be scoffed at, at first. Then, you will become their enemy. You can not control their response to change. But, you will succeed because it’s been proven thousands of times over that digital marketing is more effective than a 100% offline strategy.

Has anyone else been through his process, successfully? Let me know in the comments below other ideas I didn’t touch on.

One of the biggest obstacles to successful  sales and marketing efforts is the constant fear of owning up to real or perceived product shortcomings. When faced with the inevitable question from a prospective client regarding functionality, the knee jerk reaction is almost always – “Yeah, we can do that.” This leads to the age-old struggle between sales and delivery. Delivery teams feel that sales has over-promised with no regard to how their empty promises affect the rest of the team. Sales feels that Delivery teams are sandbagging and whining about having to do their jobs. This continues until all engineering and developer resources are tied up in custom jobs, and all hope of actually improving the product to add new features for future customers goes out the window. If this vicious cycle repeats indefinitely, it will surely prohibit the company from being truly successful.

Moshe Engelberg, PhD, MPH proposes an alternative approach in a white paper titled, Marketing 101: If You Can’t Fix It, Feature It.

The underlying principle is simple and powerful: What you may treat as a “negative” — a liability — may in fact be your greatest asset. Instead of hiding it or trying to change it, lead with it. Don’t hide from the truth, which is usually what your target audiences think about. Disarm the negative perceptions by putting them on the table, front and center. In other words, if you can’t fix these differences, feature them.

Why this Works

Take a step back and look at competing wants. Sales wants a product that demo’s well (i.e. easy to sell), has lots of features (i.e. can be sold into a wide range of customers), and is easy to implement (i.e. they get their commission faster). Delivery and Engineering want reasonable expectations (i.e. something they’re familiar with) so that they can deliver a good product (i.e. bug-free and bullet-proof) and make clients happy (i.e. reduce complaints as much as possible).

When sales does not expose product limitations appropriately, the product does not demo well, it is harder to implement, and it results in unhappy clients. Everyone loses. If we replace the “Do you want fries with that?” sales approach with the “Feature It” approach, then everyone WINS. The customer’s expectations are met appropriately and the project completes quickly with minimal amount of customization. The client is happy that they got exactly what they bought. Sales is happy that the client is happy and paid in full. Delivery is happy that they’ve launched another successful project.

This is a flavor of High Probability Selling, in which marketing generates interest in only the prospective clients that truly WANT what it is your company is selling. By featuring your product’s limitations, you attract a prospective client list that does not value what your product does not do. Conversely, they are more interested in what your product DOES do.

In summary, don’t hide from giving customers the truth. Tell them what to expect up front, tell them why it’s a GOOD thing, and then focus on delivering high quality, repeatable results.

Two nights ago I attended the 2008 What’s Next Forum and Technology Awards Ceremony hosted by the Massachusetts Innovation Technology Exchange (MITX). The Technology Awards “recognize and celebrate innovative [marketing] technologies developed in New England.” My company, PermissionTV, was nominated as a finalist in the “Video” category. Although we didn’t win, it was a great event and it was nice to be considered for the award given the exceptional companies and great talent that was assembled.

Despite a brief interruption due to a fire alarm (the event planners must have loved that), there was still enough time for a short panel discussion on whether software licensing and service fees could be affected by competition in the form of ad-supported online software services. In particular I found Baba Shetty, Chief Media Officer at Hill Holiday to have some insightful remarks. Baba stated that while the Internet has enabled a “seek out or keep out” permission-based ad model that by definition should lead to higher ROI on targeted online ads, corporations are currently suffering with “an outdated marketing infrastructure” that prohibits them from realizing the full benefit of internet marketing and ad-serving technology. I took his comment to mean that the majority of people in marketing these days would still rather focus their time and budget on mailing postcards and attending trade shows. It’s what they know and are comfortable with. This sentiment was echoed by Jeff Bussgang, General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, who pointed that while it’s “easy to get into experimental budgets,” there still has not been widespread commitment from corporates to create an Internet-centric marketing or advertising strategy.

Based on my experiences formerly leading an Interactive Marketing Agency and currently with an Online Video Delivery company, I tend to agree. Interactive is still seen as a “tack-on” to the overall marketing plan, instead of a core delivery and metric model to both online and offline tactics. This reality is not caused by deficiencies in the technologies or products available, but rather in the people who are charged with their implementation and use. For those corporations that have the right personnel in place, they are able to reap the benefits – but from my vantage point, the widespread revolution of internet-based marketing is still a few years away.

In a recent article on ReadWriteWeb.com, Josh Catone describes the data from a study by PubMatic that shows online ad prices are coming down.

The report found that ad prices (based on effective CPMs) in April across all sites fell an average of 23%. This was most acutely felt by large sites (over 100 million page views per month), led by social networking sites, which saw eCPMs plummet 47% from March to April. Medium-sized web site monetization was essentially flat, while small sites (less than 1 million page views per month) saw modest gains month-over-month.

The article goes on to suggest that a possible reason for the slow down could be residual affects of the current problems with the US economy. Of course, this is a valid hypothesis and the overall economic woes probably are playing a large part in everyone’s reduced spending – from gas, to milk, to corporate online advertising.

Could it be possible that another reason for the drop in ad prices is that organizations simply aren’t getting the ROI on traditional text ads? Catone does point out that the study “didn’t differentiate between display and text ads.” The definition of “display ad” can be pretty broad, but I’d like to suggest that what he’s getting at, is the difference in performance between your standard run-of-the-mill text ad vs. a newer style video advertisement.

I’ve been a big proponent of the next generation of online video – especially as it relates to online advertising. Traditional online ad models aren’t working anymore – and studies like the PubMatic are starting to show the data that will prove it out. A recent April 23rd article by Melissa Chang of The Industry Standard describes three online video formats for the future and how they are proving to be more effective than traditional text ads. Do you think that this recent data from PubMatic suggests that advertisers are starting to pull their money from internet ads the new interactive video formats allow for Cost Per Action models?

I had my first bad experience with Blog it. After spending a good deal of time, doing some researching, creating links, and writing up an entry, the “Post” button returned error – invalid username/password. I hadn’t changed either my username or password since my last successful entry. Of course, my entry was gone, and I felt like I was 13 years old again – staring at a “Disk Read Error 0″ on my Packard Bell 8080 with 3 1/4 floppy drive, knowing I was going to get an F on my book report on Of Mice and Men.

I was really excited by Blog it when it first came out. Even though it burned me, I still used it to make this entry you’re reading now. However, after using it a couple of times, I’m starting to think a blog post is probably faster, easier, and safer, if done in good ‘ol WordPress. I can take the extra 2 seconds to update Twhirl myself.

Dan Tynam of PC World online recently wrote an article describing The 10 Most Disruptive Technology Combinations. He describes “10 marriages of technologies that have shaken the digital world over the last 25 years.” At the end of the article he lists 5 things he’d like to see disrupted. There, in the list at #3 is:

Rich Media Ads on the Web: If we wanted to watch commercials, we’d be sitting on the couch in front of Oprah. Stop with the swirling, scrolling, popping, video ads; they’re not working.

Of course, he’s talking about the ubiquitous pre-roll. The take-over or overlay ad that flies in and demands you watch it or hunt and peck for the tiny little “close” button to get rid of it. At PermissionTV, we’re working on ways to disrupt that technology – to take it to the next level. Instead of locking the user into a passive experience they don’t want in the first place, we’re imagining a Rich Internet Video Advertising experience that allows people to get an engaging experience that’s actually relevant to them.

I’ve blogged about our concept of Video 2.0 before. I guess I really do enjoying working for a company that is striving to change the way people experience the web. We’re not interested in the status-quo and that’s alright by me. I guess it’s alright to the folks at PC World too.

Back in 2002, I joined a 15 person web design company called Keyware Internet Technologies. The company had recently been spun off from a larger corporation. It was disorganized and inefficient, had some unhappy clients and employees, but was producing some great work despite it all. Shortly after I joined, the Keyware brand was replaced by Embarc. The office moved. It moved again. Coworkers left. New coworkers arrived. Those coworkers left again.

Embarc won a stack of W3, WMA, and MITX awards. In addition to the award winning creative, we created interactive campaigns to support worldwide brands. We planned the architecture for mission critical web applications, and led their development efforts. We developed intergrated marketing systems that proved real ROI to our customers.  Most importantly, customers enjoyed working with us. We worked as part of their team, and we helped solve some business problems. I know this because they took time to let us know how they felt.

In November 2007, Embarc was sold to a larger corporation based in Pennsylvania.  The work we’ve done on the Internet will now be accompanied by expertise in branding and public relations. There is a great, exciting future ahead of this new, combined team. I stepped down from Embarc, now Garfield Group Interactive, to allow this new team to grow under new leadership. The news didn’t make Techcrunch, nobody was interviewed for their reaction, and the blogosphere remained utterly silent. 

For my part, I am incredibly proud of the work we produced at Embarc. I worked with great people who came together as a team. We matured as a business and as individuals from those chaotic times in 2002. Thank you to the people who worked hard to make it possible. I will always remember my time there fondly. I write my last post on the topic of Embarc, 2002 – 2008.