notes-business-startups-startups-stMarketing

Contents

Marketing

"everything you do is marketing"

marketing is not only advertising

market research

positioning

advertising

brand awareness vs. lead generation (note: as a startup you can't afford brand awareness campaigns)

a brand as a cognitive shortcut

lead generation is conventionally thought of as part of marketing, but we'll discuss it in section 'the sales funnel'

emotional over rational

how does it make the customer feel about their social role? does it make the customer look good?

pricing

"try to price at the highest point where people will complain but still buy" -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9708668

sales

the sales funnel

leads, opportunities, warm and cold leads, conversion rate, goals

funnel thinking can be applied for broadly

e.g. worse is better essay

B2C vs B2B

the sleazy high-pressure 'sales tricks' you hear about mostly work only when getting the sale is an on-the-spot decision by consumers, as opposed to when it's a lengthly decision process by businesses. (cite)

in general, listen to your customers. they will tell you what they are looking for.

B2B: learn the decison-making structure of the company you are selling to

todo

side projects can generate attention:

https://blog.crew.co/how-side-projects-saved-our-startup

links

" in his book, Traction....Gabriel Weinberg identified 19 channels for growth:

about SaaS? demoing:

" For starters, your SaaS? demo isn’t a demo at all...Like [almost] everything in business, the demo is an act of persuasion. It’s not about the features — it’s never, ever about the features, even when it is. Your natural inclinations to demonstrate features X, Y and Z can actually harm the sales cycle.

    Contrary to popular opinion, the primary goal of a demo is not to demo your product! Let me say that again: the goal of the demo is not to demo your product. — Rob Gonzalez

So what is your goal when demonstrating SaaS?? Like in copywriting and perhaps in all things marketing and sales, your goal in demonstrating is first to identify your prospect’s pain. From there, you further qualify if your product is a good fit to solve the pain.

Good — that’s where the demo begins. It could happen 15 minutes or more into your scheduled time.

But that doesn’t mean that, once you’ve identified their pain, you simply start showing off your tech. As Rob Gonzalez notes in this fantastic article, a demo isn’t a software tutorial — the only time your prospects will even see your software is when you’re showing them exactly how it crushes their pain. And that may not actually take more than a few clicks — a few minutes — inside your app.

Your demo is not about your product.

Your demo is a sales conversation. As Vengat Krishnaraj puts it:

    Don’t waste time showing [prospects] the step-by-step process of doing something. Create a vision of what benefit they can get by using your product. Then demonstrate how they achieve that benefit. Only if they ask for more should you get into the “step-by-step” process of how to set things up.

The demo is the backdrop for the main event: the conversation. ... In a thread on Reddit, user StarkSell? notes that you need to know three things before you can even consider running a demo:

    Why your prospect wants a demo
    How they will make a buying decision
    What their budget is

To get this info, StarkSell? suggests that, that day before the demo, you call the person who booked it and use this basic script for your pre-demo call:

Hi, I wanted to call to check I have everything straight for tomorrow’s demo, if that’s ok?

We’re meeting at X Location for X Amount of time, right?

You won’t be the final decision maker and she won’t be attending right?

OK awesome. So I can ensure we tailor the presentation for you, what are you hoping to get out of tomorrow’s demo to look back and say “that was a good use of my time”?

OK, so if I’m hearing you right, we achieve X and Y you’ll be happy with our time together?

What will happen after our time together?

What do you think are the most important points for her?

If everything goes well and she’s happy with your feedback, will there be an opportunity for us to meet with you and her together, to answer any questions that come up after?

Raj Nadar adds that you should not give a demo until you’ve had a call and prepared a deck:

    The [pre-demo] call you gives you the ingredients you need most: Context and Priority.
    Precede the product demo with a small 2–3 page deck. Ideally it would talk about the prospect’s company and the perceived problems, a page on a high-level describing how your software solves those problems, and third page building trust and confidence in you as a firm as well as your company, customer logos, a wee testimonial, founder creds won’t harm....

I personally had no idea you were supposed to hold a pre-demo call. Big revelation. (The script above helps!)

... The day before: Sell the show-up by email. That means, instead of simply sending a meeting reminder, email your prospect to reiterate the benefits of attending the demo and of ensuring decision-makers are present. Booking a demo and attending one are two very different things. ... (Bonus tip: Hit record as soon as you join the demo room, like your Zoom room.) ... You won’t show your software immediately — you may or may not share your screen, though. If you do share your screen, don’t have your app showing. Instead, consider sharing either:

    A slide featuring the agenda (source), or
    The company’s website, which can create a sense of familiarity and comfort for your prospects (source).

As people join the meeting, you’ll want to start building rapport.

Yup, this means small talk.

Authentic — not weather-based — small-talk. As SalesLoft? suggests:

    Be sincere and ask them how their day has been. Reference an article you read about them. Do something that will make them remember you. In a competitive market where solutions are similar, it’s ultimately you that will be the tie-breaker.

You’re not just chit-chatting to build rapport, though. Director of Sales Jordan Rackie notes that you need to combat all the distractions your viewers could be facing, and a conversational approach to the demo can help with that:

    When you’re doing a web demo, you want to get the client involved early because there’s so many things they could be doing while on their computer (checking email, browsing the web, etc). For the first 10 or 15 minutes, make sure they’re speaking for about 80 percent of the time. Ask a lot of questions up front, learning about their business, keeping them involved.

The keyword: questions. ... Ask lots and lots of questions. Follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of the demo content should be about your customers, and 20% should be about your solution. Summarize past conversations. I ... Some questions you need to answer, courtesy of Alex Yamamoto:

    Why did they sign-up?
    What are the evaluation criteria?
    What other competitors are they evaluating?
    What problems are they trying to solve with you product?
    How are they currently dealing with these pain points?... Start with the killer feature that most obviously addresses your prospect’s identified pain. Your first 2 minutes should wow them — and to do that, SurveyGizmo? recommends you take a page from Jurassic Park: ... Let your audience guide you through the details you should show, if and as they’re interested. As Sean Burke says:
    Let them steer — one of the reasons that SaaS products have such a low usage rate is that users don’t take the time to understand how to use the product. If your product is intuitive(big if) — then hand over the control of the demo and let them use it with your guidance. Why? You want them to personalize their experience with using your product. If they find it easy to use and valuable, then you maybe able to skip the trial and go right to the proposal stage.

When you’re demoing the feature level, Steli Efti recommends you always go from macro to micro:

    When you’re demoing a feature, always give your prospects the big picture first. They should never watch you demo something and not know what the purpose of it is. If a prospect wonders, “Why is this guy showing me this?”, then you haven’t properly explained first what it is you’re going to demonstrate.... Before you show a feature, try this formula:
    Remind your prospect of what they told you they were struggling with
    Tell them you have a solution to that very problem, and mention a great benefit or outcome
    Ask them if it sounds interesting / if they’d like to see it... And while you’re demoing only the features your prospect needs to see, based on what you know about them, remember this: slow down. Sebastien Bonnier explains that you may know your product inside and out, but this is the first your prospect is likely seeing of it  ... If you’ve reached the end of the pains they’ve identified but you have more to show them (because you know they’ll really wanna see), consider adding this to your demo script, courtesy of Hampus Jakobsson:
    “Do you want me to show something else — I can take you through a general product tour if you want, it just takes 5 minutes.”

Side note A: What if your prospect wasn’t forthcoming about their pain?

If you’re unclear on the pain your prospect needs you to solve, start your demo with a real world use case, says Alain Mevellec. Jason Lemkin fleshes out that thought:

    The best way is to demo using actual data/instance/etc. if permitted — how a real paying customer is using the service. Connect that to a great story about the customer and the real ROI.... Also consider EQCRC: Encourage Question Confirm Respond Check. Rob Gonzalez uses it to develop empathy with a prospect. Here’s the script he uses to explain it:

Prospect: “Getting started seems like a lot of work.”

Me (Encourage & Question): “Yeah, I can totally understand that reaction. It does take some effort to get started depending on how many widgets you’ll be loading. About how many widgets do you think you’ll be maintaining?”

Prospect: “Maybe about 40.”

Me (Confirm & Respond & Check): “Yeah; 40 can definitely seem overwhelming. But the good news is that it’s a one-time effort that our Customer Success team really helps you out with at the beginning. We have customers with well over 100, and the started getting lots of value after the initial handful to their key retailers were set up. That make sense?” ... It’s time to wrap up the demo — so set expectations for what happens next

Raj Nadar recommends finishing a demo with this question:

    On a scale of 1–10 how much have we covered of what you wanted to cover?

If you don’t get a ten, ask what else they were hoping to see. Continue the demo.

Then, in the final five or so minutes, talk about next steps.

Do you want to execute the contract? Ask for it.

If you have a slide deck prepared to help you through your demo, the final slide could begin your closing sequence, suggests HubSpot?.

Although there are different schools of thought on the ultimate goal of a demo, it’s a sales tool — so unless the sales cycle continues beyond the demo and there are more stakeholders to involve, go for the sale. As Annie Musgrove puts it:

    Don’t just thank the prospect for their time. Go all the way to the sale. That’s the ultimate goal, after all. And if the sale doesn’t go through, there are still other tiered goals you can aim for. If not a sale, then a trial sign-up. If the customer doesn’t even want a trial of your product, then you should leave the conversation with precise feedback on why not. This could be invaluable insight into the product and also the sales demo itself.... You’ve survived your SaaS? demo! Now what?

After everyone exits the demo, it’s time to follow up. Stat.

If you haven’t already, immediately connect with all parties on LinkedIn?.

Here are some top tips for an awesome post-demo email, courtesy of SurveyGizmo? and InsightSquared?. Make sure this is in your email:

    Genuine thanks for their time and interest
    A link to the recording of the demo, if you remembered to hit record
    The answers to any tough questions you weren’t able to answer during the call
    The delivery date for answers you just don’t have yet
    A recap of their pains and how your product solves them
    Additional dates to note and deliverables
    Links to any relevant case studies or whitepapers

If the person you demoed to has to sell their boss on your solution, your job is to help make that conversation very, very easy — and persuasive. Consider sending them a competitive analysis, says InsightSquared?, featuring a clear comparison of your pricing vs theirs and your features vs theirs. Don’t forget to bolster its persuasiveness with testimonials, case studies and influential logos. ... Tools, software and tech for demos

At Airstory, we use Acuity Scheduling to help teams book their demos with us online. And we use Zoom to run the demos because it doesn’t need to be installed, it has great screensharing, it has great recording — and everyone can see each other’s smiling faces.

Here’s what the pros recommend for demo software:

    GoToMeeting for scheduled demos (this is one of the most recommended of all the tools)
    Join.me for impromptu demos
    Mouselight to add a spotlight or focus to where your mouse is
    Refract for training and feedback after demos
    ReadyTalk
    DemoSheet
    Chorus, Fileboard or Gong conversation intelligence software (to see where viewers stop paying attention)
    Visual.ly
    Prezi
    Slideshare
    Hangouts
    Skype
    Zoom... If your user is already in a free trial, then take control of your user’s environment and setup parts of their application — so that you can take them closer to activation (source) Invest in serious, systematic sales training (source) Think of a demo as a closing tool, not a sales tool (source) Don’t expect to be good at demoing until you’ve tried 20, 30 or 50 times (source) Never presume! If you make a statement, ask your prospect if it’s true for them (source) Don’t be afraid to say no or I don’t know — your solution doesn’t have to have every little thing your prospect desires (source) Answer questions with questions — if you’re asked how your product handles X, reply with “How our product handles X is one of the things our customers love most, but tell me — how do you want your software to handle X?” (source) Beware of jerky mouse movements when people are watching your cursor (source) Going into the demo, have a plan on where you expect to move the sales cycle (source) Think of yourself as a partner and advocate in their business — not a salesperson (source) Don’t be afraid to pause and hold the silence when you want feedback (source) Help them uncover problems they didn’t even know they had (source) Remember your time is just as valuable as your clients’ — don’t waste yours or theirs (source) Don’t expect the viewer to make the connect between your feature and their problem (source) Get confirmations along the way that your viewers understand and are following (source) Power statements: Make parts of your demo REALLY memorable by using bold statements (source) Memorize your case studies so they’re always at your fingertips (source) Memorize a 30-second, 1-min and 2-min version of your pitch, and practice them with anyone who’ll listen (source) Create a demo “playbook” for your team, featuring recordings of demo variations, key points to cover for various personas, short pitches everyone needs to know and any virtual leave-behinds (source) "

-- https://thebetterstory.co/everything-i-wish-id-known-before-i-started-demoing-saas-f83c1c4fad99

"

riskable 88 days ago [-]

I've sat through probably thousands of demos in my IT career and I must say this quote featured in the article is bullshit:

    People don’t buy features, they buy solutions, trust, and relationships. -Rob Gonzalez

I can't count the number of times we (various IT teams) have selected products because they were the only one that had a feature we needed. I'm at the point in my IT career where if I'm watching a demo I politely let them do their little spiel for 5-10 minutes and then I'm like, "yeah yeah show us feature X" (because I want to see that it works and how it works).

What always destroys a demo for me:

Everything I've read about this sort of thing says that the #1 thing you can do to improve sales of any software product is to add new features. At least, that works once your product has been established. Selling it initially? No matter how you slice it that's hard.

freehunter 88 days ago [-]

It goes both ways. Some companies only care about a specific feature and will overlook almost everything else. Some companies care about the relationship and are willing to sacrifice features. I know a company I was working for year ago was switching from IBM Notes email to a cloud provider. Microsoft and Google were the last two in the running. We ended up going with Google even though Microsoft had more robust DLP and auditing features because the Microsoft sales guys seemed to assume they already had the sale and would respond to emails without reading them or sometimes not respond at all, whereas Google actually sent someone out to our Midwest headquarters to walk us through it face-to-face.

...

 codegeek 88 days ago [-]

"...feature we needed...".

That is the point. You needed those features which means that it was solving your problem of needing that functionality/feature. When people say "sell solutions and not features", it just means that whatever you sell, has to solve a problem for the client otherwise it is just a "Feature". A feature that solves a problem becomes a "solution".

If the feature was something you didn't need, you would not buy them even though the feature may be nice and shiny. So it still has to solve your problem.

dahdum 87 days ago [-]

I haven't sat through as many as you, but I've found that telling them upfront I'll want a sales engineer and deep dive works best.

From the book Pitch Anything, sounds both of us are "analyst frames".

"A particularly dangerous one is the analyst frame that fixes on granular details. The best way to knock off this frame is to give a direct yet high-level answer that describes overall goals or systematic features and then go back to your pitch."

shostack 87 days ago [-]

I can spot when reps try that one on me. In my field I know the devil is in the details, so I need to always push back for a detailed technical answer. I give context, but it is annoying how many reps act like I'm inconveniencing them by actually doing my due diligence and knowing what I need in a solution.

tlogan 87 days ago [-]

I have different problem (on sales side).

If a potential customer only talks about "feature" and it does not talk about their problem then I consider the customer a "troll". Move on.

The problem with "feature you need" is that many many times IT have no clue that problem X can be solved with feature A, feature B, etc. And whether they envision that "feature' should look like will never be exact the same what my team implemented.

In short, from founders perspective, if I cannot understand that we are solving problem X then I cannot sell our product. But there are some shark which can do - but for small startups that is not good.

 thibaut_barrere 88 days ago [-]

Sharing a bit of my own experience: I used to do a lot of demos for my SaaS? (usually 1 to 2 hour long, because it ended up in some form of coaching session on cash-flow forecasting habits), but after a while I realised that I got more churn from such users ultimately.

I later replaced those demos (which I still do occasionally) by 2 things :

And I also moved from a CC-upfront trial mode, to a no-CC trial.

Applying those 3 measures slashed my "customer support time" to almost zero & fewer churn.

I suppose I'm attracting more savvy, self-service users too now.

encoderer 88 days ago [-]

How did the trial conversion go? Do you have a lot of in-app prompting and email around conversion?

We tried that at Cronitor in 2015 but we saw less engagement from users who started a trial without a cc and less engaged users, predictably, converted at a lower rate for us.

thibaut_barrere 88 days ago [-]

I have no in-app prompting at all, and I have a simple 5-email benefits-oriented email series (via customer.io).

I don't have enough numbers for things to be meaningful (it's a small-scale SaaS?), but I seem to recall that removing the CC without onboarding initially was not great, and things improved with the onboarding tour (sorry if I cannot be much more specific!).

Removing the CC avoided the need to handle refunds for some people, which was a bit of hassle to handle.

ams6110 88 days ago [-]

Don't forget to allow an extra 30 minutes for all the inevitable tech glitches with Zoom or Adobe or whatever your remote solution is. Get ready to bash your head on the wall when you discover that they are trying to use IE 7 on Windows XP to connect to your presentation, and nobody in the meeting knows how to "load chrome" or even has permission to do it. Finally throw your deck away and do a voice-only call via someone's cell phone sitting on the middle of the conference table.

arethuza 88 days ago [-]

Some places, particularly government networks, have extremely locked down Internet access - the tool that I've found to work the best for screen sharing is screen leap:

http://www.screenleap.com/

No silly viewers for people to install to watch your demo.

jaymzcampbell 88 days ago [-]

> Don’t waste time showing [prospects] the step-by-step process of doing something. Create a vision of what benefit they can get by using your product.

This 100 times. This goes for many things too, it's often very easy to feel like you are being productive by painstakingly going over basics and step-by-steps but anyone who is genuinely interested will follow up themselves. Anyone else is going to get bored fast. This is why it's so important to have and show this big vision - you need to hook people to stay interested.

Great post, it's also nice to see something well over 1,000 words! Thanks for taking the time to write all this up!

frogperson 87 days ago [-]

This is sales 101. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak."

wj 88 days ago [-]

I learned this lesson as well. Step-by-step is a training session. For a demo start with the end (show the wow") and then dig down if they ask questions.

wonderwonder 88 days ago [-]

You also need to account for losing internet connectivity. I had a demo before I knew what I was doing where I went to the customer site and they set us up in some sort of dead zone, essentially could not connect to either guest wifi or mobile hotspot to show the product for most of the time or when it did connect the lag was so bad it seemed like the product was incredibly slow.

Most places will not allow you to connect via a wired connection to their network for good reason.

I then started tripping all over myself because I had not prepared for this situation. I did not land the customer.

If possible, running on local host is the way to go.

It was a character building experience.

bshimmin 88 days ago [-]

...and when running from localhost, watch out for any resources loading from a CDN, and, of course, for your local dummy data being total crap and/or accidentally offensive (and get ready for "Why is all this text in [Latin/French/Italian/something really bizarre]?" when you use lorem ipsum).

" ---

https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/building-your-first-micro-saas-app-on-shopify

---

SaaS? websites:

"

franciscassel 14 hours ago [–]

I analyzed the online searches of thousands of SaaS? buyers to uncover exactly what information they want when considering a SaaS? purchase.

These are the top five highlights from what I learned:

1. The most sought-after (and often 1st) piece of info sought by SaaS? buyers is pricing -- by a large margin.

Have a pricing page! If you can't share exact pricing for some reason, try one of these alternative approaches (created by an acquaintance of mine): https://businesscasualcopywriting.com/show-pricing-on-websit...

2. '[brand] alternatives' is the 2nd most-frequent search pattern.

It seems obvious to have a page on your website targeting '[your_brand] alternatives] that positions your offering against your competitors.

But only 2 of the 50 biggest SaaS? companies do this!

Ex: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/comparison

3. SaaS? buyers literally search for 'why [brand]'.

This is another under-leveraged opportunity.

Buyers want someone to spell out for them why they should spend money on your solution.

Make it easy for them!

Ex: https://www.hubspot.com/why-go-hubspot

4. Security is a big concern for SaaS? buyers. They want to know how you're going to protect them from loss and litigation.

They're even checking out your privacy policy and GDPR terms! (Keep those things up-to-date.)

5. Your 'About Us' page matters.

Startups fail all the time. It’s not a secret.

Buyers want to know that the effort they put forth–convincing management, setting up and integrating your solution, convincing employees to use it–is going to be worth it in the long run.

Does your company have meaningful funding? Well-known investors? Is it profitable and self-sustaining? Does it have experienced leadership?

In your company’s About Us page, make sure you convey anything that can reassure buyers that the company is robust and set up to thrive. " -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24621133

https://www.mikesonders.com/saas-website-content/

---

landing page suggestions:

https://blog.roastmylandingpage.com/landing-page-roasts/

--- design

https://cantunsee.space/

---

https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/the-manifesto/ rec. by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23054871 ---

https://sandro.volpee.de/the-mom-test-summary-validate-ideas

---

https://sparktoro.com/blog/what-if-performance-advertising-is-just-an-analytics-scam/

---

ads

--- Links:

see also stSales

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