Finite Marketing Funds And Where To Spend It
Embarking on your marketing efforts, more often than not, can go tragically wrong and waste a significant amount of time and money. To make it a little less painful, we’ve outlined a guideline for how you should be thinking about your finite funds and where to start. From that point, your pathway is mostly test, fail, test again, and double down where you see that traction.
Audience
Who are they and where do they spend their time. While this is a basic tenant, many founding teams forget quickly to take their personal biases out of what they ‘think’ vs what is true. Take polls on these groups. An even better approach, if you have access to generating a small group sample, gather the data that way. If you’re trying to poll moms, see if you can partner with a mom Facebook group and offer an incentive to get higher conversion on answers. Another way to poll is using Twitter polls, Instagram questions, or Facebook polls. If you want it to grow organic legs, be witty and bold to pique interest. Asking “What kind of coffee do you prefer?” vs “Starbucks | Blue Bottle | Can’t I just get a latte for under $5??” is easy, to the point, and gets you quick answers. For more tips on polls.
Goals
What do you want out of your marketing? Let me guess, you want to reach 1 million users in 3 weeks, lower your CPA to $.05, and have Techcrunch sing your praises all in the next quarter with a “limited budget”. Let me be the first to break it to you…that’s not reality (not for 99% of you). When you were thinking about building your world class product, did it take 3 weeks? I don’t think so.
Identify what results you want and the calculations to get there. For example, spending $1500 to convert users in technology is a lofty $55 a pop. 27 users won’t move the needle. Instead, run your messaging and 8–10 creatives spots to see which ones are resonating. Lean in on the highest engaged campaigns, run a special promo for those engaged used by retargeting, and grab your data that way.
If you’re further along, partner with a larger player who carries reputation and reach, but where you could add unique value to their audiences. Either way, think deeper and more creatively about how to maximize your spend.
When you were thinking about building your world class product, did it take 3 weeks? I don’t think so.
Creative Juices
Dovetailing off your goals, stirring up your creative juices can be an exciting but daunting task, yes? What’s the message, what should the visuals look like, and where do we spread campaigns so the max number of people can see it and want to be involved. Whether it’s traditional digital marketing, an influencer campaign or guerrilla marketing tactics by engaging online and offline communities, putting yourself in the shoes of your audience is key. Ask yourself are you funny?, are you informative?, or are you all of the above. What do you want your brand to be when it grows up? These questions start to formulate the beginning stages of your brand and drive people to gain deeper interest in your product or company. For example, an enterprise company can be informative in a fun, engaging way. What if you ran a cybersecurity company and invited your top customers and potential customers to a happy hour session at an escape room? You’re implying there’s danger, but there’s a way out. For $5000 and some serious referral hustling, you can bring people into a different experience. For the ultimate step further, grab photo/video from the event, and lean in on an email campaign for conversion and referrals.
Same thing can go for a consumer-focused company. If you were a new shoe brand, like Allbirds, what would you do to turn heads? Maybe hire a young comedian to take you on a journey with brand shoe X and create a video series that you could release to people who showed interest in All Birds. Paying the comedian a couple thousand bucks to generate interesting content and then re-purposing them to digital ads can extend your budget even further.
Pro tip: Make sure the top of your funnel is ready for that kind of messaging and complete conversion.
Paid Social, Is Facebook Still Relevant?
In short, yes. It’s actually a necessity for testing your message, creative, and audience draw for product market fit. Prior to dumping money on this platform, having a plan and setting an expectation of what you want to reach will make this less painful for any newbies. Facebook/Instagram is extremely predictable these days and can make a difference if you want to go big on spend. A recent Medium article including our friends at Dirty Lemon pointed out that the ‘startup’ spends upwards of $30,000 per day on Facebook ads. An evil necessity, which is why your creative juices is critical!
In-Person
There is nothing like a well done pop-up or partner activation to turn heads. With the number of competing ads online, one of the best ways to gain those first tens of thousands of users is creating a memorable experience. Easier said than done, right? Go back to your first users, first super fans, and those polls you took at the beginning of your marketing plan. Start with your budget and don’t be shy about it. Partners and vendors can’t help you if you don’t identify your spend. Create 5–6 viable ideas and play out the scenario to what the end takeaway would be for these customers. What’s the follow-up with these people? What do you want them to feel and what do you want them to do next? The biggest issue with activations is not creating the through line to get exactly what you want from people. Be better.
Pro Tip: Have a photographer and videographer on site to turn your experience into evergreen content to what it’s like to experience your brand online.
Going Big with Television and Billboards
TBH, billboards and television have made a comeback for young companies in the best ways. Yes, they are at the top of your budget, so whatever gets you to this point, make sure your other channels are operating to support this kind of highly localized and highly reachable strategy. What are you getting with these channels? Maximum brand awareness and a whole lot of potential traffic. This is a key opportunity to tell your story in 30 seconds, grab interest and pique curiosity to drive people to your brand. Whatever your message, be sure your creative is the best version of you. As any early stage company, think about the goal for this kind of activation.
As an example, our team worked with a company looking to close their Series B. We tapped into a local sports channel that had very inexpensive media buys, and where we made our bets were on the opportunity for two local professional teams to make it through the playoffs. What this meant was our ad would be seen nationwide for the same spend on a local level. We spent around $50,000 to create the commercial and under $40,000 for the entire media buy. The end result was heightened traffic to the site, a sold out weekend of the devices being marketed, and some key investors who went back to the founders to commend them on the exposure.
So, what’s the answer?
While there are many channels, some more expensive than others, really look at your product and be sure it’s ready for action. Consumers are providing back level-high criticism on companies that can’t deliver. If you are just starting out, be transparent and ask for something small that allows you to take that feedback and turn it into a new product feature. If you already have traction and need to show even better traction, weigh the risks of going big or better yet, dig a couple layers deeper with a smaller sample size to show more meaningful metrics that investors or other funders can get behind. There are lot of ways to slice it up, so start out with core questions around audience, goals, and who your brand is. Make sure to leave no stone unturned with follow through, and take the risks you’re most comfortable with. We know it’s a tough choice to make, but it’s exciting when it all works!
Silicon Drive is a high performance marketing and creative team for early stage startups and emerging brands. We take companies to the next level. 1silicondrive.com
