Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

You need to be great at something: technology back-end, front-end design, usability, sales, marketing, quantitative analysis, leadership –> whatever. So they set out a grass route’s effort to go directly to the market. There has been all sorts of discussions about marketing on blogs lately.

Entrepreneur 398

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Blogging 398

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2009

all the other folks out there that will try to enter the same market) the barriers have been dropping over the last few years. Fantastic post by Christian Gammill - Startup Delta Force… From a competitive perspective (e.g. How’s that for duality.

Startup 150

Startup SEM IP SEO 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2015

The point isn’t to “build a business on YouTube” but rather to use YouTube as a marketing platform to build a video business that works across many platforms. This kind of spend happens all day long inside startup companies and 100% of the spend on attracting customers is a cost. I think most arguments miss the mark.

SEM 150

SEM Content Platform Acquisition 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2013

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. This combination will almost certainly get your plan tossed by potential investors, who understand all too well the need and cost for marketing in today’s environment.

Marketing 106

Marketing Startup Social Media SEM 106

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 3, 2010

Probably every one of you who has a business and a website have been approached through email or personal contact, and asked to spend money on Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Search engine marketing is simply buying advertising for your business from Google or another search engine company. Cost per action (CPA).

SEM 90

SEM Marketing Startup Search Engine Optimization 90

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2014

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. This combination will almost certainly get your plan tossed by potential investors, who understand all too well the need and cost for marketing in today’s environment.

Marketing 102

Marketing Funding Social Media SEM 102

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2010

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. This combination will almost certainly get your plan tossed by potential investors, who understand all too well the need and cost for marketing in today’s environment.

Marketing 94

Marketing Startup Social Media SEM 94

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

One of the investment themes I’ve been focused on in the past 3 years has been Performance-Based Marketing. When I started investing the US advertising market was $300 billion with only 10% of it ($30 billion) of it being online and measurable. I believe that many social networks confused this idea. Early evidence is good.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

Not because they didn’t want to do Pay-per-click (they are huge buyers of SEM) but because they didn’t want other people to know what they paid for clicks! He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards. I further that.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2015

Social media is now one of the key marketing tools, but not the only one, so the challenge is to manage the resource tradeoffs effectively by constantly assessing payback versus cost. Startups should begin by selecting just a few of the vast array of social media offerings out there, and customize based on results.

Social Media 108

Social Media Media Startup Tips 108

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 24, 2013

For about 50 years, (…cough M) Ad Men, or marketing and sales individuals, have been the kings of organizational hierarchy … and then came the Internet of things and engineers took over the throne. Awesome, now you know it works, so you need a lot more customers to become an actual business.

Hulu 111

Hulu Startup Social Media Organization 111

socalTECH

MARCH 13, 2020

Dmitri Leonov: We built a distribution business for equipment for the spa industry, and have had 10,000 client over that time, but in the last few years, we've really focused on talking to spa customers about their needs in the market. Essentially, the customer wants natural and organic ingredients. Do users buy or rent these?

Template 124

Template Beverly Hills Startup SEM 124

socalTECH

MAY 5, 2009

Third, is we provide customer care and phone support for orders; the fourth is the software technology, the platform that powers everything. The sixth is marketing analytics, including SEM/SEO, collecting customer names, emails -- we use ExactTarget for emails, and Omniture for Analytics.

Venture Capital 113

Venture Capital SEM Commerce Email 113

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

Here are a few examples: Marketing specialists. As your business starts up, you need marketing programs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a modern “pull” strategy based on social networks, and lead generation. This world changes rapidly and needs a highly focused specialist to keep up.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur Services Search Engine Optimization Startup 106

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2012

Do basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) yourself. Sales and marketing costs. Print your own collateral and marketing materials until the business is rolling. Skip the IT consultants and build an entry website yourself to save $50K. Wages and benefits.

Startup 102

Startup Search Engine Optimization SEM Social Network 102

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

Here are a few examples: Marketing specialists. As your business starts up, you need marketing programs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a modern “pull” strategy based on social networks, and lead generation. This world changes rapidly and needs a highly focused specialist to keep up.

Entrepreneur 89

Entrepreneur Services Product Search Engine Optimization 89

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

I was in advertising and marketing, working in Newport Beach on the Mazda account. Billy Fried: We first tested it in California, which was our launch market a year and a half ago. The idea was to have tent poles up in the most important leisure markets. Bill Fried: I'm a serial entrepreneur. It's down in Laguna Beach.

Activity 164

Activity Startup Sites Web 164

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Do basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) yourself. Sales and marketing costs. Print your own collateral and marketing materials until the business is rolling. Skip the IT consultants and build an entry website yourself to save $50K. Wages and benefits.

Entrepreneur 94

Entrepreneur Startup Search Engine Optimization SEM 94

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Here are a few examples: Marketing specialists. As your business starts up, you need marketing programs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a modern “pull” strategy based on social networks, and lead generation. This world changes rapidly and needs a highly focused specialist to keep up.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Search Engine Optimization Startup SEM 48

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2010

Do basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) yourself. Sales and marketing costs. Print your own collateral and marketing materials until the business is rolling. Skip the IT consultants and build an entry website yourself to save $50K. Wages and benefits.

Startup 50

Startup High Tech Search Engine Optimization SEM 50

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 23, 2013

It pays only if a customer clicks through AND takes a further action (conversion), such as buying a product or filling out a web form. For sites displaying the ads, this is called pay per click (PPC). Cost per action (CPA). The display side is called pay per action (PPA) or pay per lead (PPL). Campaign setup and ad copy writing.

Paid Search 90

Paid Search PPC Organization SEO 90

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

As noted in Pour and Stir Part I , the key to the successful execution of this strategy is managing the following equation: The cost to acquire a customer < lifetime value of a customer. Decreasing Your Customer Acquisition Costs. This is equivalent to being handed a free customer for every ten customers you acquire.

Custom 164

Custom Customer Advertising SEM 164

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 20, 2020

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing.

Custom 146

Custom Customer Marketing Startup 146

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2023

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing.

Marketing 114

Marketing Invest Social Media SEM 114

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 6, 2016

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing.

Custom 60

Custom Customer Marketing Social Media 60

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

Perhaps the most misused terms I see these days from entrepreneurs involve CAC (customer acquisition costs) and LTV (life time value) and a lack of understanding these critical components is driving many companies to premature failure. Customer acquisition cost. This is how much you spend to get a new customer. That bit is easy.

Metrics 150

Metrics Startup SaaS Course 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Lately I’ve been having to say things I thought I’d never have to remind people, like, “getting to positive gross margin in several territories is a very low bar to claim success” or “profitable excluding marketing costs” is not actually a real thing. Market Size. MakeSpace provides physical storage.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 25, 2014

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing.

Startup 99

Startup Social Media SEM Advertising 99

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

Social media marketing. For businesses, these are now prime sources of business networking, customer service, and client leads. Search engine marketing (SEM). This popular form of Internet marketing seeks to increase website ranking in search engine results. Viral marketing. Streaming video.

SEM 95

SEM Search Engine Optimization Blogging PPC 95

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2010

They became popular for socializing, but now are prime sources of business networking, customer service, and client leads. Search engine marketing (SEM). This popular form of Internet marketing seeks to increase website ranking in search engine results. No SEM plan means you are missing a huge marketing opportunity.

Entrepreneur 89

Entrepreneur SEM Search Engine Optimization Blogging 89

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2018

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing.

Social Media 55

Social Media SEM Startup Advertising 55

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2011

A while back I emphasized how important is to have a company website these days ( Publish Your Website Or Customers Won’t Find You ). Another alternative is to buy your way out of the zone with Search Engine Marketing (SEM). SEO does not have to be a major expense.

Google 93

Google SEO Search Engine Optimization SEM 93

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

Search engines like Google depend on website HTML tags, inbound and outbound links, and relevant content to do its ranking and matchmaking, and hopefully get your company found and near the top of customer search requests. Another alternative is to buy your way out of the zone with Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

SEO 48

SEO HTML Search Engine Optimization Web 48

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 13, 2009

Customer Service – As newspaper boys were the face of their employers, savvy carriers learned to establish healthy customer relationships to facilitate timely collections and generous tips. Other entry-level experiences for budding entrepreneurs included selling items marketed in comic book ads.

Web 2.0 222

Web 2.0 Web Sales Outsource Development 222