(4 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
Loading ...Hi,
I guess i am a novice is this field and would like to throw a few questions at the community -
( I understand that answers to these questions may differ between different business types)
1. How much budget do you guys keep aside for just marketing (Pre/Post revenue) ? Please mention type of business.
2. Does web marketing/SEO generate positive sales leads ? I find most of the SEO guys unethical and spammers, and very annoying when they post about your company link in irrelevant blog articles.
3. Whats your take on print media, and how effective is that for positive leads?
4. Practically what worked better for you - google-adwords/ banner at some website ?
5. Any innovative ways you used to get positive coverage ?
Jaspreet
In my experience working at an early stage startup, we started marketing with a very small marketing budget 25K per year. We generated most of the leads by going to various product review sites and published info on our products. We used webwire for issuing one PR per month on the average. Attended product roadshows and spread the word around. Contacted CXOs of major IT spending firms one-to-one, got one lead for every 50 contacts. Our product revenue was 4mn per year, so not a huge market but it did get us going with minimal marketing.
Jaspreet,
If you are planning to sell your product worldwide, you are absolutely going to have to do SEO and keyword marketing.
For example, I searched for “laptop backup software” which would probably be a target keyword for your company. You really have to get in the top 50 results. The results will be dramatic.
Since, you and I are new to the game - it takes time. Until then you can sign up for adwords and spend a bit of money to get on the Sponsored Links.
About your other questions :
>> 1. How much budget do you guys keep aside for just marketing (Pre/Post revenue) ? Please mention type of business >>
None - pre revenue. About Rs 10K - 15K/ month for adwords - post revenue. Type of business is packaged software. Right now we have frozen the adwords campaign. Will restart again when we have a new release shortly. Since you guys are funded, it would be worthwhile to announce your product to the world in a big way. A press release via a company like PR News Wire and a major adwords and print campaign would be the way to go.
>> 2. Does web marketing/SEO generate positive sales leads ? I find most of the SEO guys unethical and spammers, and very annoying when they post about your company link in irrelevant blog articles. >>
Absolutely. This is the way to go.
>> 3. Whats your take on print media, and how effective is that for positive leads? >>
Never tried it. I think mentions in print media which also have online presence (eg, E-magazine) help with Google.
>> 4. Practically what worked better for you - google-adwords/ banner at some website ? >>
Adwords, although I had positive results from site-targeted ads at a few networking forums like Sadikhov / Juniper / Cisco forums.
To sum up, it all depends on your business. My business depends on volume sales. Even though I may have 50 customers, including top names, it does not make much money yet because each customer only buys 1-5 licenses. Multiply with the unit price and you get the picture. The good news is it takes no extra effort to sell 500 (other than finding those additional 450 customers of course
) We have no customers in India so the internet is the companys’ lifeline to the outside world.
Hope this helps.
Good luck. This is the hardest type of business, not to mention the least glamorous.
Thanks Vivek,
Yup I guess i will reinvest the money inSync makes into some web marketing and SEO. This should get some visibility, users (product experience) and brand. Money is not something i would focus on in immediate future.
India is a market of its known, resellers rule the enterprise space. Biggies like dell also had to bend and shred-off direct model.
And, my experience says ultimately what works for resellers is -
1. Print adds
2. Beer fueled seminars …
3. Big Fat margins
Thanks again,
Thanks for sharing your knowledge. This type of knowledge is most expensive coz it is filtered with true performance.
Jaspreet,
Since you’ve already been thro with an exhaustive beta, it’s time those early users make some positive noise. Record those and splash them liberally across your website, pamphlets and brochures that accompany the package. I know Adaptec has used this strategy to the hilt in evangelizing their Snap EDR.
As well try hiring a sales and marketing support agency offering a full portfolio of services ranging from message and pipeline development to public and analyst relations support (specializing in your domain) – on a revenue sharing basis with a low front end fee. It will save you precious time defining and refining market segments and databases.
Regular releases to industry specific newswires / trade journals. They will lap it up as it gives them free content and for you, a free medium.
The one I can immediately think of is http://www.tabormarketing.com/publications/index.htm
Hi
I have looked at this for several startups, and have a differing opinion to several above. I am not sure what product you are selling, but if its a free product then the best marketing is ur users. Websites like facebook, google, yahoo etc never marketed when the started, although they did spam/grow inorganically at the start, they did little or any marketing.
The traditional model is usually pr–> sales–> mkt (expand reach) —> sales
However for dotcom sales imploded back into mkt, which is slowly imploding back into PR.
Thats enuff gyaan, so now I will answer some of your questions, or at least try
1. How much budget do you guys keep aside for just marketing (Pre/Post revenue) ? Please mention type of business.
A. All depends on how much cash you have in the bank., Budgets for marketing are all a finger in the air when you have no revenue and no idea how popular your product can/will be. Also it depends upon reach. If you want to do a article in say a magazine, that will cost 5-6 lacs, if you wish to do a viral that will cost about 3 lacs.
The best way to budget for marketing is to look at marketing as a cost base (that is unless you have no sales team), and then list down all the diff types of marketing as you have below. After doing this see what proportion of customers each type will contribute, and then work out the cost per acquisition of a customer. If you cost per acquisition is losing you money, then this model will only work if you can scale up your customer base quickly and add up rev streams. If on the other hand you cost per acq. is less than 40% of the rev, and you still make profit then you can start. Once sales start to come in, what you want to do is to scale back the mkt budget based upon ur last 3 Qtrs revenue (averaged).
2. Does web marketing/SEO generate positive sales leads ? I find most of the SEO guys unethical and spammers, and very annoying when they post about your company link in irrelevant blog articles.
A. I do not like SEO, you see you have two diff types of products
a) One which lots of others are selling, i.e laptops, hence you are buying those keywords at a premium (Yatra just spent 10Cr on buying SEO keywords, goto juxtconsult website for more stats on how much indian comps are spending on SEO)
b) something which no one has used…hence they will never type in a keyword which applies
The best way to get high up on google, is to get other people to link to you, and that is done by getting other websites/newspapers to talk about you.
3. Whats your take on print media, and how effective is that for positive leads?
A. Poor, print is more about brand building, so unless you have a brand, and everyone knows your product, eg IBM selling a cheap PC, then its tough. Ask yourself how many ads have you called in the last 5 yrs.
4. Practically what worked better for you - google-adwords/ banner at some website ?
A. Banner ads also suck, ok they work if you have a known brand and a known product or one of these, if you have none then little.
For a online banner you need to see what you want, hits, awareness, signups/trials, lead generation etc etc, all will have diff weightage for banner ads.
5. Any innovative ways you used to get positive coverage ?
PR, I think PR is great, get a good PR company , have lots ot right about, get yourself compared to big brand comps in your area. Also get your users to talk about you, get them to spread the word
When you plane something you need to consider, what product you have, what company name you have (is it known), and what you are looking for (sales, awareness, leads )
Good luck
Iqbal
1. 25K a month is probably the minimum (consumer internet - stock market investing) and we’ll go much higher. in the long run about 20% of revenues.
2. For us web marketing does a lot. For you it is not likely to be as helpful if you don’t do direct sales (or transactions on the web).
3. Print is good for branding. But very expensive. Still doing trade journals or magazines is probably far better than any other approach.
4. Adwords at specific sites seems to work well, and I’m not a fan of banners at all.
5. Do quid pro quo with industry bloggers or sites that are popular in your space. Do promos with Laptop companies (like offering a couple of licenses free with a company order etc). Other stuff involves affiliate marketing etc.
Your site lists the product, inSync, but it’s more difficult to find the free download (Use hte words “free 30 day trial” the free being important) everywhere so users can try the product. In the trial have a link to the purchase page. There’s also no way to buy the product unless one calls you - it’s probably better to have an online card based purchase even for a single license.
The price should be prominently displayed - I’m not a big fan of sites that hide pricing info. In your case, you have it but it’s an excel sheet - a sheet that can be coded in javascript in a few minutes. Do it - you’ll get indexed better and will be able to convert. In fact google analytics lets you create goals for such conversions and find out the power of your adword marketing too.
You should also get inSync listed at www.download.com, www.cnet.com, www.zdnet.com, and a number of such sites that list software. Getting it reviewed would be even better.
THe last thing is to be a helpful person at all related forums and insert, in your signature, a link to your site. very useful but you have to actually be helpful and not try and advertise (puts people off)
Nothing works better that hearing from the ones who have done it already.
This was some good info, thanks a ton guys. I have too many TODOs in my marketing action list now.
Keep it coming…
Edita, Webwire seems good.
Can someone point me to other good review sites, PR sites and news channels ?