Someone said the other day that it was a pity that I had stopped blogging. While this was certainly flattering it was also untrue. I have been blogging, just mostly on the Outfunnel blog.
Here’s a list of my best (if I say so myself) posts there:
This post is a summary of my recent talk at a marketing conference about things I’ve learned about tech marketing and growth. In that talk, I discovered myself stating multiple times how and why ideas are useless, or rather, what are the things that are more important than having good ideas.
Sidenote: I was suggested the title “Life lessons of an experienced marketer” but I changed it to “Reminiscences of an old marketing fart” instead.
#1. Treat your marketing budget like an investment portfolio
When I bought my first investment securities back in the day, I took the advice of a bank advisor and bought funds rather than individual stocks because this was less risky. Two years later my holdings had appreciated by double-digits but at the same time, popular stocks on the friendly neighbourhood stock exchange my friends had bought had gone up 5-7x in the same time.
I had taken on too little risk (for a 20-something).
What I should have done is put some of my investments in global funds for relatively safe returns and invest 10-50% of my budget in individual, risky stocks.
Photo Credit: Joshua Mayo, Unsplash
The same applies to marketing budgets. Yes, you need to do the things companies like yours have always done to make sales but you can’t afford to miss out on new, less tested tactics and channels. Things like testing novel tools, new advertising channels, new potential targets, new tactics.
And as everywhere, here too time is money. “Budget” can mean the media budget but it can also mean the hours and the attention of the marketing team.
What’s the right % to put into riskier bets?
That depends on the maturity of the market and your company.
Established companies in mature markets are wise to think like people close to retiring – you don’t want to take on too much risk. 5-20% of your budget should go to risky experiments and the rest to business-as-usual.
If you’re a startup operating in an exploding category, you may want to take on more risk, 25% or even 50% of the budget.
In other words, ideas don’t matter as much as having the right financial model does.
#2. One strategy that tends to over-perform? Find new emerging platforms
In the early days of Pipedrive (where I was head of marketing for 7 years) one-third of new signups came from Google Chrome Webstore because co-founder Martin Tajur thought it might be a good idea to invest some hours of work to try this out. Pipedrive did this before other CRMs did the same, got the advantage of more installs and reviews and this gift kept on giving for years.
We launched Outfunnel on Pipedrive Apps Marketplace at a time when the platform was relatively new. Our first version wasn’t that great of a product but if you’re one of the very few products in a category, this was enough to start getting signups.
3+ years after our initial launch, Outfunnel is still #1 rated app on Pipedrive Marketplace
Outside of b2b, Creative Mobile launched their drag-racing game on the Android platform just at a time then Google Play Store introduced the racing category. Today, their Nitro Nation drag racing game has bought in tens of millions and it’s still doing well in the crowded gaming market.
Whether or not emerging distribution channels apply to you, there are always new advertising channels launching.
Running Adwords in 2005 was super profitable because your competitors were not there yet to push up the prices.
In 2013-2014 it made all the sense to promote Pipedrive on Capterra because there were relatively few other CRM players there. (This was my first time experiencing maxing out a channel. We wanted to increase our Capterra CPC budget but the platform had no additional clicks to offer us at any price).
There’s a new distribution platform or advertising channel launching if not every day then every week. It pays to be looking for them and putting some of your resources into testing them. (see the previous point)
In other words, brilliant ideas don’t matter as much as finding the next platform that takes off.
#3. Understanding category awareness is the magic shortcut to marketing plans that work
“It seems we have product-market fit. Which marketing channels and tactics should we invest in?”
I think I have a pretty universal answer to this question, and this answer involves category awareness (and category urgency).
Your category awareness is high when most people in your target audience know the kind of product or service you’re offering. Email marketing software, smartphones, and “hotels in Copenhagen” are examples of things with high category awareness.
And your category awareness is low when people in your target market don’t know there’s a kind of product or service that they’d need. For example, most people wouldn’t know to look for bookable-by-the-hour call booths (a new emerging category of services) when they need to make an important call and most of us wouldn’t know to look for smart swimming goggles before stumbling on an Instagram ad.
There is also category urgency. You know what a DVD player is very well, but I doubt you’ve bought one recently. Similarly, category awareness for gym memberships is high throughout the year, but the first two weeks of every year is the time where this turns into action for many people.
If you know where the market you operate in stands in terms of category awareness and urgency, you can make your first pick of channels.
When people know what to look for and are motivated to look for it, you’d need to become findable (doh!). Coming up in various searches is then a great bet.
When people don’t know to look for you, you’d need to interrupt them with a “cold” call or brilliant viral video and say “there’s this thing. would you like to buy one?”.
In other words, the backbone of a solid marketing plan is not having good ideas, but understanding your category awareness and category urgency.
#4. Ideas are useless when you don’t have a good system for prioritizing them
In every company I’ve ever been involved with, there is always the challenge that there are more ideas than the team can execute. So how do you choose?
Based on what team members vote to be the best ideas? Based on what the boss likes? Based on whether something has been tested before?
I’ve found that the best way for prioritizing ideas is ICE – a simple assessment of:
Impact: what is the likely effect on (business) metrics
Confidence: how sure are you that this tactic will work
Effort: how easy or difficult something is
You may also add “Reach” when some of the ideas can scale more than others, in which case ICE turns into RICE.
An important note: in my experience, it makes sense to add more weight to Confidence. Let’s assume that:
= it sounds like a good idea
= it’s worked for other companies
= it recently worked for another company with a comparable target group
= we’ve got qualitative information this works on our exact target group
= we’ve tested this and gotten positive results
With these definitions, 5 is not 5 times better than 1 but 10-50x better, and you may want to adjust weights accordingly.
#5. Ideas are worthless, period. It’s the team that matters.
At around Pipedrive series A round we’d gotten a couple of channels to work well. Charts were going up-and-to-the-right and we have the budget to properly build out the team. Among other things, content had started to work well, and done so without a lot of resources. Time to scale, right?
But seven expensive hires later you’re getting the same results…
But then web CRO, an area you’d given up on after several failed experiments gets a new lead, and your conversion rates start to improve dramatically.
This is how I learned there are no “good” or “bad” channels. It’s all about the people in your team.
And more importantly, it’s about the person that brushes your teeth when you look in the mirror. It’s about you. (Or me, in my case.) Things change fast in a startup and your role changes faster than you think. One day you’re operational, managing your PPC ads in one tab and drafting the next blog post in another.
And sooner than you think, you should have stopped all operational work and focused on hiring 90-100%. And soon thereafter, you would’ve needed to get really good at creating people room and resources to do their best work (in addition to hiring).
As you might have already noticed, my blog is now here at purde.net. Also, it now finally runs on WordPress because MT stopped cutting it about 4 or 5 years ago. RSS feed remains the same and includes add-ons like my Flickr feed and the hip quotes I post on Other people’s thoughts. If you don’t like to see my photos (I don’t blame you), you can get the normal feed from the corner of the address bar. I guess that covers the housekeeping stuff. Shoutout to Jens who helped with the move.
One thing I absolutely love about the blog move is that it brought old post drafts to surface. I just stumbled upon a draft from 2007 called “Everything I’ve learned from marketing in 10 years”. It’s totally worth translating to English and posting here as the first proper new post, to showcase both the wisdom and the naivety I possessed five years ago. Just watch this space.
Mul ei ole juba viis aastat telekat. Ja ma tundsin sellest pühapäeval, kui väljas oli nii jahe, vihmane kui tuuletu, natuke puudust.
Pühapäevaõhtut aitas sisustada Idiocracy, üsna värske B-kategooria film, mis räägib ühiskonnast 500 aasta pärast. Sellisest, kus kõige kiiremini ei ole paljunenud mitte kõige targemad, vaid lihtsalt need, kes kõige kiiremini paljunevad. Ja seetõttu on keskmine IQ kõvasti vähenenud, põllutaimed surevad spordijoogiga kastmise kätte, arstid tegelevad põhiliselt kiilaspäisuse ja impotentsi ravimisega, populaarseim telesaade näitab peamiselt jalaga munadesse löömist ja üldse, kogu elu meenutab wrestlingu-teleülekannet. See ei olnud kindlasti parim film, mida ma kunagi näinud olin, aga keskne mõttekäik oli terav ja meeldis. (DVD saad siit, faili pead küsima)
Idiocracy lõppedes oli normaalse magamaminekuajani veel umbes pool tundi ja jäi aega vaadata, mis Joostis uut. Palun väga – Braindead TV:
Everything boys like – and some girls too. Crazy chicks, stupid people, fast cars, car crashes, dumb stunts and even dumber humour. Irresistible, sometime irresponsible TV like World Of Stupid, Das Crazy Clip Show, Extreme Russia and Cops Uncut. Crack open a six pack, switch off the grey matter and enjoy.
Vaatasin ühe osa tahanolla-Jackassi-laadsest saatest, kus kolm Walesi kutti proovisid aiatrimmeriga juukseid lõigata ja ennast superliimiga seina külge liimida. Äratundmisrõõm saabus siis, kui keegi kolmikust sai squashipalliga mainitud väga õrna kohta. Täpselt nagu selles filmis! Me olemegi ajas 500 aastat edasi liikunud! Või oli see tagasi?
Uue aasta lubadused on täitsa head asjad. Või üleüldse lubadused iseendale, mida tegelikult võiks anda sagedamini kui kord aastas ja vahuveinise peaga. Mõtlesin välja hea harjutuse, mis seda ikka ja jälle tegema innustaks. Kirjutada endale järelehüüe. Aga mitte sellisele endale, keda sa tavaliselt näed (selline ok või võibolla isegi natuke parem, kui sa tegelikult oled), vaid sellisele, kes koguks kokku ja võimendaks kõiki su nõrkusi. Näiteks selline:
Peale pikka võitlust vähesest liikumisest ja rohkest lõõgastumisest tingitud haigustega on meie seast lahkunud [mina]. [Minat] jäädakse mälestama kui andekat inimest, kes ei julgenud või ei tahtnud ennast tõeliselt proovile panna. Seetõttu jäävad [mina] suurimateks saavutusteks kaugushüppe teine koht Saku Keskkooli algklasside spordipäeval ning asjaolu, et ta suutis läbi elu õigeaegselt tasuda enamiku liisingmaksetest. [Minat] ning [mina] poolt võetud laenukoormat jäävad meenutama tema lapsed, kellega lahkunu kohtus regulaarselt iga aasta esimesel jõulupühal. Tema alkoholist ja suguhaigustest puretud keha maetakse kuskile kalmistuserva külmal talvepäeval. Ärasaatmisele on puhtast kohusetundest oodata sugulasi ja igavlevaid tuttavaid, kuid mitte ühtegi lähedast sõpra, sest lahkunu arvates oli enda avamine kellegagi riskantne.
Planeedile Maa on [mina] lahkumine aga väga hea uudis, sest [mina] sõitis enamiku oma sõitudest suure neljaveolise autoga üksi ja viis igal kuul prügikasti vähemalt neli kilo plastjäätmeid.
Väga masendav tekst, eriti kui seda liiga tõsiselt võtta. Aga minu meelest töötab. Sel aastal olen jälle natuke parem kui eelmisel, ma arvan.
This fine blog is updated at irregular intervals by Andrus Purde. I like startups, kiteboarding, learning new things and (travel) writing. I’ve worked mosted of my life as a marketer, five years of that at Skype. Currently consulting startups and e-tailers on marketing , co-founder of Achoo and advisor at Pipedrive.
See my Achoo profile for things I’ve been involved with lately. andrus (at) purde (dot) net