user acquisition bootcamp for startups
TRANSCRIPT
User acquisition (made a little less hard!)
The goal of this session:Show you some tools and ideas to optimize your user acquisition (on a tiny or non-existent budget!!)
About me: Consultant CMO and adviser for startups
Started Mansfield + Associates in 1992
Helped clients build an aggregate market value of close to $5 billion
Played a founder's role in successful startups including Brand3 (sold to American Express), PropertyBridge (sold to MoneyGram). Wallaby Financial (sold to BankRate)
Supported marketing and fund-raising programs with VCs and angels for over 100 companies
About me: Ways I help fast growth companies
Mentor
Consultant
CMO in a Box
Co-founder
User acquisition is like sex for the British:
Everyone talks about it. Nobody really knows how to do it. Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it. So everyone claims they are doing it...
Where do you start?
Gender? Age? Income? Geography? Interests? Cars? Housing? Pets? Idols? Fears? Aspirations? Religious? Clothes? Intelligence?
Conservative? Favorite colors? Role models? Entertainment?
Know your user
Go where your users go....
Forums Facebook/LinkedIn groups Meetups
Know your product (and how you hope people will engage with it)
Ready for prime time? Customer validation? Support resources?Videos, ZenDesk, FAQs etc.
Engagement strategy?Drip campaign
Partners prepped? Feedback loops?
Get the user experience right
Every step in the process, from requesting an invitation to the social signup, builds an emotional connection to the user.
http://goo.gl/G4l2v
Get the product right and focus on community
Instagram had less than a dozen employees that focused on perfecting a product that their users loved, turning millions of customers into powerful advocates.
Know your funnel
Acquisition: How do users find you?
On boarding: Do users have a great first experience?
Engagement: Do users come back?
Loyalty: True love?
Calculating user acquisition costs (CAC)
What is CAC?
The cost of your sales and marketing divided by the number
of customers acquired
Match CAC with lifetime value (LTV)
Less than 1:1 Prep your resume
1:1 You’re losing money from every acquisition
3:1 The perfect level. You have a thriving business and a solid business model
4:1 Great news but you’re under investing and could be growing faster
LTV:CAC Prognosis
Other key metrics
Not so important:• Registered users• Downloads• Page views
Important:• Engaged users• Repeat vs first-time actions• Time between actions• Repeat action probability
AdWords Cost Per Click Rises 40% Between 2012 and 2014
So, assuming you haven’t raised $50M, what the hell can you
do to get users?
How do you feed the funnel?
SEO/SEM Paid search/Online ads App store optimization
Email Social/content/viral Affiliate
PR Partners Growth hacking
Focus area:
Content
Using content to drive sign ups
“We focused on building out a unique personal finance blog, very content-rich, that spoke to a young professional crowd that we felt was being neglected. The blog became #1 in personal finance, and drove traffic to the app. Our app didn’t have a high viral coefficient but we had content that was. Our infographics and popular articles became regular hits on Digg, Reddit, etc.”
Compelling content can come in many forms
Blog Webinar eBook
Video Opinion pieces Case studies
Podcasts Papers/reports Syndicated articles
Focus area:
SEO
Cover the SEO baseshttp://explorer.cognitiveseo.com/
https://positionly.com
https://moz.com/
Build killer websites and/or landing pages (and test, test, test!)
• A compelling image and/or video• An attention-grabbing headline• A strong value proposition (the benefits)• Social proof or an endorsement• A strong call to action
SEO action plan
Diagnostics:monthly
Key metrics: weekly
Keywords/content: weekly
Outreach, link building:
daily
SEO standards/co
mpliance: monthly
• Number of visits from the top search engines
• Which keywords are driving traffic, and how your site is ranking on each
• What terms do you competitors rank high for and why?
• Compare performance on desktop searches vs. mobile
• Compare your website’s performance over the past several month
Focus area:
Pay per click
Pay per click (PPC)
• Choose between display (banner) ads and search ads. • Banner ads are graphical and appear on relevant websites. • Search ads sit beside Google search results. Bid based on search keywords.
Banner ads & AdWords:
• Promote your Facebook page, and also promote landing pages outside of Facebook. • Disadvantage: restrictions on ad art, copy, and URLs. Facebook Ads:
• Floating ads are the new popups. • Ads hover over the current window. • Offer a free eBook or recorded webinar.
Floating Ads:
Example: Floating ad
Focus area:
Viral
Go viral
33,000,000 views
19,000,000 views
How do you help a video go viral?
http://goo.gl/C7z1Yj
Make it:• Short• Likeable• Sharable
In other words avoid this...
Focus area:
PR
Get coverage in the right spots
+40% sign ups in one week
How PR helps user acquisition
Supportuser
acquisition goals
Coverage
Awareness
Leads
Speaking slots
Awards
Focus area:
Social
So many social channels – Where should you focus?
• Facebook is a good way to generate trafficFacebook
• Perfect the frequency of promotional content, and Twitter can generate trafficTwitter
• LinkedIn is not usually a significant source of traffic. It’s best for raising brand awarenessLinkedIn
• Though not as good as Facebook and Twitter, Google+ can be a noteworthy source of trafficGoogle+
• If you promote your link well in the video description and have engaging video content, it can be a good source of trafficYouTube
• Has to be the right kind of product and audienceInstagram/Snapchat
• Pinterest can be a good source of traffic. Add a “Pin It” button to images on your website to encourage engagementPinterest
Great, low cost tools to help your social campaign
Focus area:
Email marketing
Get creative with emails, but try to keep it simple
Tailor your campaigns: Segmentation allows for more
personal messages
Review click-throughs, bounces, and other metrics to
measure success
Get feedback on email frequency, content, and
delivery method
Use automation tools to the fullest
Combine drip marketing with segmentation, social media tools, and CRM integration
Email marketing, drip marketing, lifecycle emails, autoresponders
Email marketing tools
Focus area:
App store optimization
Get content right:Title, description, icon,
screenshotsPick the right category
Generate rave reviews:Plugins like Appirater can help
App store optimization starting points
https://goo.gl/08KW64https://goo.gl/EUJPrq
Getting ahead in the app stores
Did you forget growth hacking?
Scratching the surface on growth hacking
https://goo.gl/c2dHnm
https://goo.gl/5gc07p
Focus area:
Partnering
Finding partners to help you carry the load?
Synergistic products? Similar user base?
Track record of partnership deals? Good acquirer?
30 second summary:• Don’t need Superbowl ads to acquire customers
• You do need to be diligent
• Takes a mix of tactics depending on your target
• There are lots of good tools to help
• Don’t be reticent in asking for help
Where to go next
Peter Mansfield: [email protected]
Schedule a free one-on-one marketing session:Calendly.com/petermansfield