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給科技初創公司的10點營銷忠告

給科技初創公司的10點營銷忠告

Mark Suster 2011年06月29日
科技初創公司的營銷技巧和禁忌。

????凡是教科書上提到過的錯誤,我在首次創業時都犯了,因此在第二次創業時我自信自己已有長足的進步。我們需要通過嘗試和犯錯,從實踐中學習。良好的判斷力來自于經驗,但經驗來自于失敗。

????因此,如果能幫你避免一些我首次創業時犯下的錯誤,將是一大勝利。下面是我總結的早期初創企業的營銷教訓。由于營銷是一個很大的話題,這里我將其限定為公關營銷(不同于搜索引擎優化、搜索引擎營銷和產品營銷等):

????1.適時保密。關于“初創企業成立前是否應保密”有很多說法。真相是對于你的公司,沒有一個“正確的”答案。

????我的一般原則是如果仍處于打造產品、測試市場的早期階段,最好還是保密。保密不意味著封閉、多疑和完全不相信他人,只是說不要過多地向他人宣揚未來的計劃,不要在科技界雞尾酒聚會上飲酒過度、夸夸其談,不要向風險投資人或其他投資者過度透露你的計劃。

????我們處于一個很小的、聯系緊密的行業中,消息往往不脛而走。在早期階段,你肯定不希望會有另外三個團隊聽到了你的創業點子,在你立足未穩之時與你展開競爭。大多數人都反對保密。他們認為只有持開放態度、公開檢驗創業的點子,才能獲得成功。對此類建議要慎重。

????對風險投資人也要謹慎。我認識的大多數風險投資人都有很高的道德操守,但一旦風險投資人聽到了你的創業點子,就再也無法把它從頭腦中抹去。這些創業點子會有很多方式出現在風險投資人與所投資公司的討論中,比如“你有沒有想過嘗試A、B或C?”這些往往是無心之舉,但在談話中你的創業點子不知不覺就會流傳開來。

????我事實上更欣賞謹慎一些的創業者,不要那么夸夸其談,并有良好的行動規劃。

????2.適度開放。我也遇到過走入另一個極端的、什么都不愿意談的創業者。我在工作中曾遇到過這樣一位創業者,他原本計劃在一次初創企業的社交活動上談談公司的計劃。他考慮過退出這一活動,因為他希望公司延續“保密狀態”,而類似的活動有違保密的宗旨。我給他的建議是按原計劃參加活動(這個活動非常受關注),但只需泛泛而談,說說公司意欲競爭的領域。泛泛而談很少涉及真正的新點子,不會泄露宏大的戰略。但他在會上還是逢人便說“目前我們處于保密狀態,還不能披露我們所做的事情。”簡直毫無意義。

????過度保密的最大問題是會切斷一些非常有價值的資源,他們原本可以幫助檢驗你的理念,提供反饋意見,協助你發現你的模式中潛藏的缺陷。

????根據我的經驗,過度多疑或秘而不宣的創業者很少能有好的表現。他們自然也很難找到好的導師,因為要幫助一家老是藏著掖著的公司是非常困難的。

?????3.營銷當下,而非未來。我常常告誡初創企業要“沿冰球的走向前進”,鼓勵企業思考未來并立即著手籌劃。

????但不能告訴太多人你的方向,否則將鑄成大錯。我稱之為“營銷未來”。營銷未來策略非常適合企業軟件公司,銷售代表和潛在客戶間可以就近期技術路線圖互通有無。采購周期通常是3-6個月,因此初創公司自然希望提前為未來做好準備。但不要將這種信息泄露給大眾媒體,而且營銷工作最多也只能提前幾個月

????初創期的消費類公司應該更謹慎,不可采用營銷未來策略。

????我們都知道科技初創公司的早期成功很大程度來自于執行,眼下在做的工作往往未來幾個月就會有很大的變化。因此,我建議企業詳細討論現狀,避免談論未來計劃。當所有的競爭對手都試圖復制你的模式時,你的工程團隊已進入了另一領域。

????若論及對未來營銷守口如瓶者,似乎無人能出蘋果(Apple)之右。看看這一策略給蘋果帶來的好處吧。

?????4.好產品是王道。對于首次創業者而言,最重要的忠告可能是壞產品是無法取得營銷成功的。要走出過度吹噓的營銷帶來的惡劣影響非常困難。當今世界推崇盡早推出產品、獲取客戶反饋,人們往往會把“產品上市”和“營銷”混為一談。

????我認為目前一個很好的例子是社交網絡turntable.fm。這一產品問題不少,但相當新銳。我從未聽到他們自吹自擂或進行盛大的營銷推廣。產品僅向受邀者開放,因此他們能控制用戶數量,處理每個人的預期。等到產品面向大眾推出時,我相信所有的問題應該都已經得到了解決。而在這之前,渴望一睹產品真容的期望值也會持續高漲。

????turntable.fm采用的策略與夜總會所謂的“天鵝絨圍欄”如出一轍,它們都造成一種稀缺感,勾起人們光顧的欲望。這種策略還有助于遏制由于用戶數過早過快膨脹帶來的問題。

????5.不要早早亮出底牌。宣稱自己在某一方面取得了“第一”總是極具誘惑力的,你會迫不及待地希望告訴所有人。我知道這是什么感覺,因為我在2000年初就是這樣做的。我們急切地向市場宣布“第一”,并獲得了《金融時報》(Financial Times)的精彩報道(當時我們在倫敦)。但我們的產品尚未做好大賣準備,我們只能勉強兌現自己大肆宣傳的內容。

????正如你能想象的那樣,一旦人們將你和電影《伊斯達》(Ishtar)相提并論,下一次滿足人們期望的門檻就提高了。然而, 并不是每個人都有閑置的4,000萬美元重頭再來一次。

????6.緊盯目標受眾。我看到有很多初創企業喜歡在博客上撰文記錄創業者的酸甜苦樂。如果創業者是你的目標市場,這沒問題。但要清楚誰是你的目標市場,你希望與他們溝通哪些信息。我在《創業公司開博指南》(how to blog as a startup)的文章中對此有詳細討論。

????7.不要聽信炒作。處在泡沫中的創業公司往往會時刻關注最接近的3-4位競爭對手的動態,因此,一旦看到對手在媒體上大出風頭或宣布推出新產品就很容易感到沮喪。不要被他們的營銷鼓噪所迷惑。

????經驗老到的人往往不會太相信競爭對手的任何重大聲明。這些聲明來來去去,轉瞬即逝。生活還在繼續。iMessage發布后,《紐約時報》(NY Times)將Group Messaging公司列為即將被蘋果電腦全球研發者大會擊潰的公司之一。但生活并未結束。iMessage只是一款小眾產品。大多數應用軟件是兼容的,但蘋果不是。每家公司都截然不同。生活還將繼續。

????8.不要被競爭對手蒙蔽,脫光衣服大家都一樣。初創企業首席執行官們往往忽視營銷對團隊士氣的影響。然而,團隊成員每天讀到的競爭對手的消息卻都是些激動人心事。大家看到的只是他們的新聞稿或博客文章。而在你自己的公司,一切都感覺糟糕透頂。

????因為初創企業就是這樣。初創企業總是有太多技術性債務,太多問題,員工辭職,資本金不足,客戶抱怨等等。其實,你的競爭對手也有這樣的感覺。他們同樣也在讀你的新聞稿,心里想“他們已經解決了一切問題”。事實并非如此。要確保你的團隊了解這一點,保持信心。

????9. 建立媒體關系。很多初創企業錯以為任何時候只要有新聞,隨便聯絡一位記者就能見報。這可行不通。記者們周圍往往簇擁著一群迫不及待的創業者。慢慢來。不需要報道的時候就要著手結識更多記者。

????在Twitter上關注記者。尊重他們的職業。讀讀他們的文章,發表評論。如果其它報道你能提供新聞線索,不妨自薦。參加會議時,主動與記者打招呼。了解他們的工作情況。你得明白,記者的每篇報道都需要“一個角度”,如果你無法協助他們明確報道角度,可能就無法獲得報道。日復一日,你提供的幫助越多,你需要報道時能夠如愿的幾率就越大。

????10.營銷是一場馬拉松,不是短跑。一些初創企業團隊試圖在一份新聞稿中宣布多項重大消息,以獲得更大市場影響。例如,你可能會把獲得風投融資和贏得大客戶、推出新產品或重要里程碑等消息融入一篇新聞稿。大忌!

????融資消息是一個獨立事件。這是一個角度。有些記者專門花費大量時間和精力報道融資消息。新聞稿只談融資即可??梢酝硇r候再談贏得大客戶或達成重大的業務發展合作關系。如果有值得報道的產品新功能發布,也可以在新聞稿中談。

????我鼓勵采取的策略是將新聞稿分拆成獨家消息透露給不同的記者,與記者建立良好關系,讓每個人都有一些獨家的東西可寫。沒人喜歡寫大雜燴式的報道。

????Mark Suster 2007年作為普通合伙人加入GRP Partners投資公司,此前他將自己的公司出售給了應用程序解決方案供應商Salesforce.com。他的關注重點是早期科技公司。個人博客見Bothsidesofthetable.com

????I made every textbook mistake at my first startup, which is why I believe I was much more effective at my second one. We need to learn from doing, by trial-and-error. Good judgment comes from experience, but experience comes from bad judgement.

????So if I can help you avoid some of my first-time mistakes, it would be a victory. The following are lessons I've learned about early-stage startup marketing. Because marketing is such a broad topic, I'm restricting these to PR marketing (as opposed SEO, SEM, product marketing, etc.):

????1. Where Stealth is Good. There's a lot of discussion about whether startups should be stealthy before they launch or not. The truth is that there isn't a "right" answer so for your company.

????My general rule is that it's good to be stealth in the early days while you're building your product and testing your market. Stealth does not mean constipated, paranoid and totally untrusting of others. It does mean not telling more people your future plans than is necessary. It means avoiding drinking too much at cocktail parties with other tech people and bragging about your plans. It means not over-sharing your deal with VCs or other investors.

????The truth is that we work in a very small, tight-knit industry and news spreads fast. In the early days you don't really want three extra teams hearing your ideas and gearing up to compete before you feel you've got a solid head start. Most people totally advise against stealth. They think that only by being open and testing your ideas in an open marketplace can you be successful. Be careful about this advice.

????Also be careful about VCs. Most ones that I know have very high ethical standards, but once a VC has heard your idea he can't "un-think" it. And these ideas have ways of seeping into board discussions with portfolio companies as in, "have you ever thought about trying A, B or C?" It's mostly unintentional, but tacit knowledge about ideas spreads quickly amongst the chattering elite.

????I actually like finding entrepreneurs who are more circumspect, less braggadocios and generally more planned about their actions.

????2. Where Stealth is Bad. I do meet entrepreneurs who clearly fall on the other side of spectrum and are totally closed. I worked with one who was scheduled to talk about his company's plans at a startup networking event. He considered pulling out because he wanted to stay in "stealth mode" and felt an event like this compromised him. I counseled him to do the event (it was high profile) and talk in broad themes about the areas in which his business would compete. There are very few truly novel ideas so talking in broad themes certainly wouldn't give away any grand strategy. In stead he went to the event and told everybody "we're in stealth mode and can't yet reveal what we do." It went down like a lead balloon.

????The biggest problem with over-stealthing yourself is that you cut off some of your most valuable resources in terms of testing your ideas, getting feedback and helping you figure out the potential flaws in your approach.

????In my experience, entrepreneurs who are overly paranoid or are information hoarders rarely do well. They certainly struggle to find mentors as there is nothing more frustrating than trying to help a company who is afraid to tell you anything.

????3. Market Today's Puck, Not Where It's Going. I often tell startups to "skate where the puck is going" as a metaphor for thinking about where the future lies and planning for that now.

????But it is a big mistake to tell too many people where you're heading. I call this "marketing futures." Marketing futures can be really good for enterprise software companies where the information is passed between sales rep and potential customer in terms of near-term roadmap. The buying cycles are often 3-6 months so you want to put your best future foot forward. But don't let this information get out into the general press and don't market more than a few months out.

????We all know that much of early-stage technology startup success comes from execution and often what you're working on today will be rolled out more seriously over the next several months. So I recommend that companies talk in detail about the puck at their feet but avoid talking about where the puck is going. While all your competitors are trying to copy your model, you're already on to the next thing on your engineering team.

????Nobody seems more disciplined at this tight-lipped future marketing than Apple and you can see how it has served them.

????4. Don't Market a Bad Product. Perhaps the most important lesson for first-time entrepreneurs is that you can't have great marketing for a bad product. The corollary is that it is very hard to recover from a crappy marketing campaign that was over-hyped. In a world in which you're encouraged to launch early and get feedback from customers you can often confuse "product launch" with "marketing."

????I think a great example right now is turntable.fm. It's a buggy product but pretty damn cool. I haven't heard them pounding their chest and running big marketing campaigns. And the product itself is invite-only so they can control volume and manage everybody's expectations. By the time they go GA (generally available product) I'll bet the kinks are all worked out. And the anticipation of wanting to see the product will build.

????The strategy they're employing is called "velvet rope" as in what nightclubs do to build scarcity and interest in getting on the inside. It also helps to keep down issues with crowds getting too big, too early.

????5. Don't Blow Your Wad Early. There is a temptation to announce that you're "first" at something, so you rush to market with announcements. I know because I did this in early 2000. We rushed to market to be first and got great coverage in the Financial Times (we were in London). But our product wasn't ready for prime time and we struggled to live up to the hype we had created.

????As you can imagine that once you're compared to Ishtar (the movie) you've got a higher bar of success to get people interested the second time. Not everyone has a spare $40 million for a re-do.

????6. Market to Your Target Audience. I've seen a lot of startups who like to write blog posts on life as an entrepreneur. That's fine if entrepreneurs are your target market. But be clear on whom your target market is and what the messages you want to communicate to them are. I talked about that in detail on this post about how to blog as a startup.

????7. Don't Believe the Hype. When you're inside the bubble and paying attention to every announcement of your nearest 3-4 competitors it's easy to get despondent when they get their killer press articles or announce new features. Don't get caught up in their marketing noise.

????Those of us that have been around the block tend to not get too worked up on any big competitor announcements. They come and go. They're mostly fleeting. Life goes on. iMessage is announced. The NY Times puts Group Messaging companies on their list of companies crushed by Apple's WWDC. But life doesn't end. It's a narrow product. Most app-to-app products are inter-operable, Apple isn't. You have tons of differentiation. Life goes on.

????8. Your Competitors Look the Same as You When They're Naked in the Mirror. One thing that startup CEOs often overlook is the impact of marketing on team morale. Every day your team members are reading about all of the great things happening at your competitor's company. You're reading their press releases or blog posts. Inside your company everything feels like it's going to hell in a hand basket.

????That's because that's how it always feels at a startup. You always have too much technical debt, too many problems, staff members quitting, not enough capital, customer complaints, etc. You competitors feel that way too. And they're reading your press articles and thinking, "they have everything figured out." You don't. Make sure your team knows this and stays confident.

????9. Build Relationships. Many startups make the mistake of thinking that they simply approach a journalist any time they have a story and get coverage. It doesn't work that way. Journalist are constantly harangued by over-eager entrepreneurs. Go slowly. Get to know journalists when you don't need stories.

????Follow them on Twitter. Respect their profession. Read their articles. Comment. Ask if you can help be a source for other stories. Say hello to them at conferences. Understand how their job works. Understand that for every article they write they need "an angle" and if you can't help shape that you're not likely to get inches. The more helpful you are over time the more likely you are to get inches when you need them.

????10. It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint. Some startup teams try to lump a bunch of announcements all into one release to have more impact. For example, you might lump your VC funding announcement into a story about major customers wins, product features or key milestones. Don't.

????A funding announcement is a stand-alone event. It's an angle. There are journals who dedicate a lot of time and energy into covering funding. Focus solely on that event. When it's time later to talk about some major customer wins or big biz dev partnerships you'll do so. If you announce killer product features worthy of coverage then talk about that.

????One strategy I encourage is to break up mini-releases into exclusives that you give to different journalists to spread the love around and give everybody something unique to write about. Nobody likes writing re-hashed stories.

????Mark Suster joined GRP Partners in 2007 as a general partner after selling his company to Salesforce.com. He focuses on early-stage technology companies. He blogs at Bothsidesofthetable.com

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