Startup Boot Camp

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Startup Boot Camp

• Kick Starting Success for Californias Retail,
  Restaurant and Service Entrepreneurs!

Day 3 Session 1
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Review/Questions
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From Day 2

• Lets discuss any questions you have from last
  week
• What sources of market research have you found?
• What questions do you have regarding . . . .
• Estimating sales
• Startup vs. operating costs
• Developing cash flow projections

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Marketing basics
People don't need to necessarily see me in the
jersey to understand who I am and what message
I'm trying to get across with the things that I'm
marketing. Dwyane
Wade
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Importance Of Marketing

• Marketing pulls it all together
• Marketing is more than placing an advertisement
• Its about developing the right product(s) or
  service(s), at the right price, at the right
  place, in the right quantities at the right time
  and offering it to the right customer
• Marketing drives sales
• Sales drive profits

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The 4Ps of Marketing

• Product Whatever you are selling
• Price The amount of money asked for, or given in
  exchange for your product
• Place Distribution channels (where will your
  customers find the product/service)
• Promotion An activity designed to encourage the
  purchase of a product
• And dont forget . . . . People!

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Marketing Mix Definition?

• How the 4Ps are combined is known as the
  Marketing Mix. Its the coordination of
  product/service design, pricing decisions,
  distribution, and promotional decisions to form a
  consistent and effective marketing program.

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Whats The Marketing Mix?

• Product?
• Price?
• Place?
• Promotion?

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Whats The Marketing Mix?

• Product?
• Price?
• Place?
• Promotion?

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Whats The Marketing Mix?

• Product?
• Price?
• Place?
• Promotion?

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Product

• Remember your target customer, their needs and
  wants
• Tailor your product/service to your customer

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Price

• Must make sense given the
• Markets served and the target customer
• Products/services offered
• Operational costs/method of distribution
• Competition/perceived competitive advantage

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Place

• Where will your customers find you?

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Promotion

• Methods a company uses to communicate its message
  to its target market and Brand its product or
  service
• 5 Promotional Strategy Methods (eMarketing tools
  discussed separately)
• Advertising
• Sales Promotion
• Public Relations
• Personal Selling
• Direct Marketing

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Branding

• Branding (positioning)
• The battle for your customers minds.
• Who will the customers think of first, when
  making a decision on your product/service type?

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The Message

• Lends itself to multiple media
• From t-shirts and hats to cable ads
• Shorter is better
• Distinctive
• Memorable
• Examples
• You Deserve a Break Today
• The Ultimate Driving Machine

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Advertising

• The message(s) and what it says about your
  company and products
• The mediums used and how they are perceived by
  different audiences
• The mix of media combined with the message(s)
• Can reach masses of geographically dispersed
  buyers
• Message must be repeated many times to move
  customers to take action
• Impersonal one-way, one-to-many communication
• Can be very costly

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Media Choices

• Yellow pages
• Newspaper
• Other print
• Radio
• TV/Cable
• Press Releases
• The business systems and collateral materials
• The Internet

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Yellow Pages

• Everyones favorite sold hard by the phone
  company
• Mass market reach
• Low cost per thousand but expensive overall
• Most over use with diminishing effects
• Web based version often a better value
• Is your business really that mass market driven?
• Some exposure is good keep it small and focused

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Newspaper

• Run of press is also mass market
• Classified ads and retailing driven
• Has lost ground to all other media
• Older readership
• Consider alternative papers
• Consider special editions sections
• Directories
• Home repair guide
• Real estate Sunday section
• Best used by local retailers to drive traffic
  with deals, sales and coupons

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Other Print

• Specialty magazines
• Chamber of Commerce newsletters
• Industry Associations
• Use depends on the product and customer
• Can be high cost per thousand
• Hard to measure and control
• Keep use small and focused

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Radio

• Lots of very targeted media choices
• Radio stations have detailed information about
  their customers demographics
• Great for campaigns where high frequency is a
  plus
• Ads are typically not expensive to produce

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Cable TV

• Lots of choice by market and system
• Good for targeted marketing with a TV flair
• Companies have in-house production resources
• Many day/time choices
• Easy to measure and track use a unique URL and
  phone number in the ad
• Excellent viewer-ship information
• Immediate if it works well
• Lots of choices and deals

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Promotion

• Wide assortment of tools
• Attracts consumer attention
• Offers strong incentives to buy
• Invites and rewards quick consumer response
• Use to generate immediate sales

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Promotion

• Public relations
• Events
• Sponsorships
• Pricing
• Innovative sales and promotions
• Good works

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Promotion Examples

• Patronage Rewards
• Point-of-Purchase Promotions
• Contests
• Sweepstakes
• Games

• Samples
• Coupons
• Rebates
• Cents-off Deals
• Premiums
• Advertising Specialties

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Promotion Ideas

• The following 7 slides contain examples of
  potential promotion ideas for you to consider as
  you formulate your marketing plan.
• Always carry business cards. Give them freely and
  ask permission to leave them in places your
  target market may visit
• Print the products you sell or services offered
  on the back of your business cards
• Create a calendar for customers with your shop's
  name and address on it
• Join a trade association or organization related
  to your industry

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Promotion Ideas (contd)

• Collect your customers email and mailing
  addresses by offering your customers an
  additional on their next sale (which you will
  email to them to confirm the email address)
• Have a drawing for a product or a gift
  certificate. Use the entry forms to collect
  customers' mailing addresses
• Develop a brochure of services your shop offers
• Conduct monthly clinics about a product or
  service you offer

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Promotion Ideas (contd)

• Print a tagline for your business on letterhead,
  fax cover sheets, e-mails and invoices
• Develop a website. Use a memorable URL
• Include customer testimonials in your printed and
  online literature
• Promote yourself as an expert
• Submit to the local newspaper, trade journal or
  other publications
• Host an after-hours gathering for your employees
  and their friends/relatives

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Promotion Ideas (contd)

• Provide free t-shirts with your logo to your
  staff to wear
• Create an annual award and publicize it
• Create a press kit and keep its contents current
• Use an answering machine or voice mail system
• Distribute specialty products such as pens, mouse
  pads, or mugs with your store's logo
• Give a speech

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Promotion Ideas (contd)

• Sponsor an Adopt-a-Highway area in your community
  
• Donate your product or service to a charity event
  or auction
• Maintain your on-line presence
• Advertise in creative locations such as park
  benches, buses, and popular Web sites
• Improve your building signage

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Promotion Ideas (contd)

• Create window displays in locations away from
  your shop. Airports, hospitals, and large office
  buildings occasionally have display areas they
  rent to local businesses
• Cross-market with local non-competing businesses
• Team up with a non-competing business in your
  area to offer a package promotion
• Pick the slowest day to hold a 1-day sale

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Promotion Ideas (contd)

• Create a loyalty program to reward existing
  customers
• Send hand-written thank you notes to important
  customers every chance you get
• Use brightly colored envelopes and unique
  stationary when sending direct mail pieces
• Show product demos or related videos on a
  television on the sales floors during store hours
• Book a celebrity guest for an event at your
  store

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Public Relations

• Very believable
• Reaches people who avoid salespeople and ads
• Can dramatize a company or product
• Tends to be used as an afterthought
• Planned use can be effective and economical

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Public Relations

• Cheaper to get them to write about you than to
  write about yourself
• Worth a PR firms cost if you are doing something
  noteworthy and different
• Many angles to play for all companies
• A PR Agent will network you into the correct
  channels to get press

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Examples Of Public Relations

• News
• Speeches
• Special events
• Buzz marketing
• Mobile marketing
• Written materials
• Editorials

• Audiovisual materials
• Corporate identity materials
• Public service activities
• Web sites
• Blogs

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Public Relations Kit

• Biography of You
• Fact Sheet (bullet points which answer who,
  what, where, when, why)
• Business Information (Biography about the
  business)
• Pictures of the business and product/service
• An article about something newsworthy amazing
  that the business has done
• Public Relations Kit

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Direct Marketing

• 4 characteristics of Direct Marketing
• Nonpublic (private)
• Immediate
• Customized
• Interactive
• Benefits
• Powerful tool
• Can be highly targeted
• Can tailor offers to individual needs
• Can be timed to reach prospects at just the right
  moment
• Low-cost and efficient

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Direct Marketing Examples

• Examples of Direct Marketing
• Telemarketing
• Direct-Mail Marketing
• Catalog Marketing
• Direct Response TV Marketing (i.e. infomercial
  and shopping channels)
• Kiosk Marketing

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Personal Selling

• Personal interaction between two or more people
• Allows relationship building
• Most expensive promotion tool

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Sales

• Product/service knowledge the more
  knowledgeable a salesperson is about a product,
  the easier it is for her/him to explain it to
  others
• Training is important
• Make sure they know what to say and have the
  tools to say it well

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Is This A Salesperson?
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Your Elevator Pitch

• Whether you are trying to raise capital, promote
  your company, or promote yourself, its essential
  to have an elevator pitch. You must communicate
  your main message quickly, clearly, and
  distinctly to someone who doesnt even know you.
  A good pitch takes planning and practice to
  deliver quickly, on the spot, and under pressure.
  30 seconds to a maximum of 1 minute!
• You your business name what you do any
  special/unique capabilities what kind of
  customers can benefit from your business and how
  you help them. If time, include an example of
  something great you have done that helped a
  customer
• Example If you're a restaurateur and can't keep
  your regulars coming back, you're lost. Using
  proprietary online and offline survey techniques,
  Trey Research will find out how you can stop the
  losses and start generating profit.

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Marketing Execution
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Elements Of A Sound Marketing Plan

• The market research is done
• The heavy user group identified
• The message is clear, concise and tested
• The marketing mix well thought out and consistent
  with the product and target market
• Spending is within budget
• Feedback systems allow tracking and measurement
• Willingness to change and adjust based on results

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Marketing Budget

• What the business can afford
• What it needs to spend to be competitive
• Fixed or Variable Cost model
• Total communication costs
• New businesses
• Always spend more
• Need to get known
• Build a client base
• Make mistakes while trying media

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How To Spend The Money

• Driven by the business plan and the target market
• Reach your heavy user as often as possible
• Budget by the month
• Structure marketing campaigns
• Manage costs by the campaign

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How Much To Spend

• A function of
• The business model
• Your profit vs. growth objectives
• Stage of the company
• Gross margins
• Competition
• Cash
• 5 is about as little as one can spend
• 12 is about the maximum
• Averaged over the year seasonal peaks and
  valleys
• Fish all day when they are running dont waste
  money when theyre not

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Spending Levels

• Model could be something like this
• 1.00 Net Revenue
• .55 Cost of Goods Sold
• .45 Gross Margin
• .09 Occupancy/Web Costs
• .09 GA
• .09 Sales and Marketing
• .05 Interest and other cash
• .13 Profit before Taxes

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Spending Levels

• Higher Gross Margins means more for Marketing
• Sometimes you must over spend to launch a new
  business, new product, stay competitive or grow
• Make sure you monitor costs and results
  frequently

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Measurement Systems

• Need to measure results
• Gauge results quantitatively
• Track leads and conversion to sales
• Use the results to adjust future spending
• Fund winners
• Kill losers

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Measurement Systems

• Some ways to track results
• Special phone numbers
• Web site landing pages
• Web based surveys
• Questions when people call
• Coupon codes
• Simple tracking systems are the best
• Use the data to adjust spending

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The Marketing Plan

• The schedule of all the planned marketing
  activities to be performed over a period of time

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Example

• Take out a blank sheet of paper.
• Remember the bicycle shop

Take 3 minutes and write down marketing ideas it
should pursue
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EXERCISE Marketing Plan

• Take out the 7th sheet labeled Marketing and
  fill in ideas you tend to consider for the
  various elements of your marketing plan.

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eMARKETING
People share, read and generally engage more
with any type of content when its surfaced
through friends and people they know and trust.
Malorie Lucich, Facebook
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Traditional Marketing
One to Many
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Online Marketing Or eMarketing
Many to Many
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Goals of eMarketing

• eMarketing provides an additional set of tools to
  communicate with your customers to
• Create Brand Awareness
• Strengthen Customer Loyalty
• Generate New Opportunities

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Effective eMarketing Is Built On . . .
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Find Your Online Audience

• What Are they Looking For?
• Where are they on the Internet?
• How Do they Find You?
• What are Your Competitors doing?
• Develop a set of questions to survey your current
  or perspective clients
• Do your research!

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Tracking Analysis

• The Key Benefit of Online Marketing is the
  ability to track and analyze results, then
  quickly iterate and adjust for optimal performance

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Your eMarketing Toolkit

• Categories of eMarketing tools
• Website, Blog, Newsletter Your online message!
• Online Directories e.g., Google/Yahoo Local
  How theyll find you
• Review Site e.g., Yelp How they will verify
  the quality of your services
• Social Networks e.g, Facebook Developing your
  online community

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Your eMarketing Toolkit (contd)

• Micro Blogging e.g., Twitter Build a flowing
• Rich Media e.g., YouTube A picture says a
  1,000 words
• Mobile Apps e.g., FourSquare Community
  building quick hitting specials/deals
• Industry Specific e.g., your local news website
  industry, geography, grouping specific
• Event Promotion e.g., MeetUp Get people out
  for your next event

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Website And Blog
Google ranking, Alexa ranking, SEO, Wordpress,
Blogger, Typepad

• Control the content
• A chance to tell your story
• Define a clear message.
• What do you offer?
• Create a medium for contact
• Invite feedback/questions
• Provide links to other content/other content
  links back to website where you control the
  message
• FB, Twitter, etc.
• Strategically update

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Website The Hub Of Your Online Strategy

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What And Why SEO/Keyword Advertising?

• Why? It helps your customers find you online!
• SEO Search Engine Optimization free
  dictates when you show up and how high you show
  up in the listing generated by an internet search
• User selected keywords to associate with your
  business
• Helped by the degree of your online presence and
  your activity
• SEM Search Engine Marketing paid advertising
  advertisement shows up in a special area of the
  page pay per click

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eNewsletter
Goal Keep Customers Connected/Informed
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eNewsletter Basics

• Build an email list
• Include subscription on your website
• Ask customers for their email address (in the
  store)
• Build the list at any events you attend
• Create a newsletter that your audience will value
• Perhaps include an incentive

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Online Directories
Google Local/Maps, Yahoo Local, Yellow Pages,
CitySearch

• Search yourself
• The power of Google!
• Look for similar businesses
• If youre not listed, someone else is!
• Display correct contact info
• Location, phone , hours/directions MUST be
  correct
• Add a photo

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Google Search vs. Places

• Google Search
• Website scanned and indexed by search engine
  robots
• Use SEO techniques to improve ranking
• RESULT Customers find business on Google Search

• Google Places www.google.com/places
• Need Google account to claim your listing
• Requires verifiable address
• Can fill in basics first, then add detail later
• RESULT Business listing shows on Google Maps

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Google Places Scream Sorbet
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Claim Your Google Places Listing

• Click on the name of your business in the search
  results in the left-hand panel of Google Maps
• In the information box that appears, click more
  info next to your businesss name
• In the right hand menu, scroll down to IS THIS
  YOUR BUSINESS? And click on Manage this page
• Three options appear You can Add, Edit or
  Suspend the listing.
• For each of these options, Google will ask you to
  verify that you are the business owner. You can
  chose to receive a PIN by phone, SMS or by Post
  Card. Once you receive the PIN you can complete
  the verification process.
• See Google Places Support for more information
• http//support.google.com/places/

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Review Sites
Yelp, Zagat, Chow, Lawyers.com

• Rely on word of mouth
• People trust personal accounts more than ads
• Offer additional information.
• Yelp is a mobile tour guide
• Respond to reviews
• Thank those who provide feedback, positive an
  negative
• Learn from your reviews
• Dont make the same mistake twice!

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Social Networks
Facebook, Linkedin

• Communicate with clients
• Be involved with the conversation
• Connect
• Associate your business with related pages and
  people
• Establish a following.
• Invite past clients/customers to view/like
  your page

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Micro Blogging
Twitter, Friendfeed

• Interact with daily events
• Relate to whats happening
• Remind everyone about events
• Update information leading up to the event
• Invite new customers.
• Friend of a friend of a friend

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Rich Media
Youtube Videos, iTunes Audio PodCast,
Flickr Pictures

• Appeal to the senses
• The eyes are drawn to an image/video first!
• Attract new customers
• If the website quality is great, then people
  assume the business quality is great, as well
• Entertain your audience
• Get creative with images and video

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Mobile Apps
FourSquare, Urbanspoon, Yelp, iPhone, SMS Text

• Stay in contact
• People are ALWAYS on their smartphones
• Solidify your relationship
• Make the client feel special for receiving
  extra attention
• Go the extra mile.
• This shows that youre following through

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Industry Specific
East Bay Express, San Francisco
Chronicle, DiabloMag.com

• Network within the group.
• Get the scoop on whats the latest and
  greatest in your industry, geography, etc.
• Surround yourself with what you want to become
• Hang out with likeminded businesses
• Help those who help you
• Youll never know when youll need something

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Event Promotion
Meetup, Zvents, Constant Contact Events, PlanCast

• Promote what youve got
• An event can attract more business
• Collaborate with others.
• Get other businesses involved
• Feature your calendar
• The internet is a great way to publicize!

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Getting Started

• Get with your SBDC Business Advisor and develop a
  plan!
• Build a website (many options with a variety of
  costs the SBDC can help you decide)
• Claim yourself on Google Places and Yelp
  regularly monitor comments
• Research and identify what tools your target
  market uses
• Experiment strategically figure out where to
  spend your time
• Create profiles on other tools over time (helps
  increase your search engine ranking)

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Time Management

• Dont let managing your online presence become
  all consuming.
• Do what you like and what shows results
• 3 days a week 15 minutes a day

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Internet Marketing References
Resource Description Web Address
Blogger Free Blogging Platform www.blogger.com
CoffeeCup Website Design Software www.coffeecup.com
Constant Contact Email Marketing Service www.constantcontact.com
Cooler Email Email Marketing Service www.cooleremail.com
Dream Template Website Templates www.dreamtemplate.com
Elance Freelance Internet Consultants www.elance.com
Facebook Social Media Platform www.facebook.com
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Internet Marketing References
Resource Description Web Address
Google Analytics Free Website Analytics Service www.google.com/analytics
Google Places Free Online Directory www.google.com/places
Homestead Website Hosting Service www.homestead.com
HP Logoworks Graphics Website Design Service www.logoworks.com
iContact Email Marketing Service www.icontact.com
LinkedIn Social Media Platform www.linkedin.com
Mail Chimp Email Marketing Service www.mailchimp.com
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Internet Marketing References (continued)
Resource Description Web Address
Ning Social Website Design Service www.ning.com
Odesk Freelance Internet Consultants www.odesk.com
Open Web Analytics Open Source Web Analytics www.openwebanalytics.com
Twitter Micro-blogging Social Media Platform www.twitter.com
Vertical Response Email Marketing Service www.verticalresponse.com
vWorker Freelance Internet Consultants www.vworker.com
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Internet Marketing References (continued)
Resource Description Web Address
WebSort (cardsorting) Website Design Application/Service www.websort.net
Wordpress Website Content Management Application www.wordpress.com
Wordtracker SEM Application Service www.wordtracker.com
Yahoo Small Business Website Hosting Service www.smallbusiness.yahoo.com
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Keyword SEO Research Resources
SEM Resources

• Google AdWords Main Page
• http//adwords.google.com
• Wordtracker Keyword Research and SEO Tools
• http//www.wordtracker.com
• Googles Search Insights Tool
• http//www.google.com/insights/search

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Startup Boot Camp LUNCH

• I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62 of
  women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've
  never met a woman in my life who would give up
  lunch for sex.
• Erma Bombeck