Jack speaks about his experience with Ruby and touches on outsourcing any sections of your business that cause you stress. In the long run, your decision to do everything, may hurt the success of your business.

More importantly, you can’t outsource your vision. Focus on what will be the most productive, not what could save you the most money. 

In the instance that you have to take a hiatus, do what you can to ensure the direction and focus of your business are maintained, and the vision of your company is not lost. In some cases, a break may be exactly what you need to focus.

So on that note, we want to end the show with a fond farewell, and we will return soon! We are sad to say that our amazing and talented host Jack, has been diagnosed with an illness, but will be returning in the fall to start back up again.

Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for our return to Marketing for Founders!

Listen to this episode here: http://marketingforfounders.com/hiatus/

Bad money is any type of cash flow that can be traced to a personal emotion. Ask yourself what life might be like, if your company fails and you lose your families money. Bad money is also taking investment without a plan of action, or any customer relations. Good money is not only about where it originates, but how you spend it. Good money comes in many forms such as, venture capitalists, savings from previous work, and revenue flow before you quit your day job. We define good money by security, consistency, and coming with a backup plan. It may not always be the “rocket fuel” you are looking for, to explode your business into the green, but it will keep your life intact, and your stress levels relatively low.

Types of Good Money:

• A loan from a bank spent on equipment and gear. This can be used as collateral in a bankruptcy.

• Venture Capitalist investment comes with a time frame, so meet it with a plan to ensure the money is back before the time is up.

• Earning money while your business grows is the “best money.” No need to quit your day job until the revenue is enough to sustain your normal life.

• Having a runway. A savings account with the cash you need for at least 1 year into your startup.

Types of Bad Money:

• Investment related to your personal life. There is no collateral, and your failure will affect relationships.

• Any money that forces you to make emotional decisions, unrelated to the success of the business.

 Listen to this episode at: http://marketingforfounders.com/good-money-bad-money/

Many developers and new companies will turn to technology to begin profiting. In the age of advertising, many of these entrepreneurs will depend on ad revenue for all, or a majority of their income. This results in the advertisers becoming the customer, and the users feeling neglected. You are required to maintain a relationship with ad buyers, as well as continue to funnel views and clicks. Why not instead, create a product or service that helps the user, which you can also sell directly to them? 

Pitfalls in business ideas:

• Relying on Ad Revenue to sustain profits.

• Depending on celebrity impact and flash popularity as a long-term marketing model.

• Believing that software can fix any problem for a person.

• Thinking that apps and digital services are a one-and-done business plan. Like many businesses, software takes constant maintenance.

Listen to the show at: http://marketingforfounders.com/celebrities/

The most focus is found when you are excited about one project or idea. Mentally preparing throughout your day, and then progressing every time you work on it. When you have multiple projects, some ideas will get neglected, or they will never see the finish. 

What are some ways to stay focused?

• Using extrinsic motivators:  outside forces such as monetary, deadlines, or the need for a fancy car. They can drive us to focus, but can sometimes be stressful.

• Using intrinsic motivators:  internal forces set by yourself. They include facing challenges, being goal driven, or using your own vision for the future to motivate yourself.

• Focus on one project at a time. Work with it all the way to failure, or success.

• Chaos in business is bad, don’t make things harder than they should be.  Systemize all the processes that encompass your business and chaos gets reduced.

Listen to the show at http://MarketingForFounders.com/focus

Once your product is live don’t forget about it. Collect feedback from your users and customers on how to improve features. If that doesn’t work, kill a section or product to allow time to explore new strategies. Remember, sometimes as an entrepreneur, you have to choose between really, really, really bad, and really bad…

Some Do’s:

• Set internal deadlines to ensure your product is ready to go, well before any real deadlines.

• Research your market, and learn the best way to communicate with them.

• Be prepared to refine or delete sections of your company/product. 

• You’ll never get it perfect. Launch it, and let your users find the remaining bugs.

Some Don’ts: 

• Never blindly follow a marketing formula expecting it to work for every industry.

• Don’t tell the press until you’re ready.

• Failure to continue marketing after you launch. You can’t quit and expect to keep making money

Listen to the show at: http://marketingforfounders.com/launch-mistakes/ 

Listen to the show at: http://marketingforfounders.com/execution/ 

In this episode we explore ways to increase profitability by selling your waste, literally. Tim and Jack discuss the importance of understanding and locating potential wastes which your business can profit from.

Jack is working on an interview training service for university students where they do a phone interview and get feedback on how to improve.  Through building this service, he'll gain knowledge that is just sitting around only getting used by the people who use the service.

He can take this knowledge and package it into an interview course that students (or better yet, universities) can purchase.  It could take the form of a live workshop, or a live virtual workshop, or simply online videos and exercises for them to watch and implement.

Or perhaps, you might find profitability from another business' waste. Sometimes one man’s trash in another man’s treasure. Tim saw an episode of Dirty Jobs With Mike Rowe where a hog farmer near Las Vegas take the waste of casino restaurants to feed his stock with high-quality food while lowering his costs. 

How do you identify a waste product of your business?

How do you profit from your own byproduct, or those of other businesses?

Take a listen to this week's episode to find out! 
http://marketingforfounders.com/byproducts/

Links Mentioned In This Episode

Jason Fried Making Money From Byproducts

In todays episode we examine the final “nail in the coffin” of bad business marketing, margins, mistakes, and quality control, as we dive deep into online and offline business strategies.

Are you making enough money to hire contractors or employees? Which should you choose and why?

We break down the necessity of training employees to carry your brand and franchise in order to capture and grow long-term customers.

What are activation business models? And how can they help you grow your customer base? 

Tim and Jack discuss the relevant and key pieces needed for maintaining viral businesses when and if you hit a lottery. How can you be prepared for the unthinkable? Will you ultimately make money or lose out on a one time home-run, without catching any of the cash? Listen now to find out the biggest killers of both online and offline business strategies.

Listen to the show at: http://MarketingForFounders.com/postmortem

What are the 20% of the things you do for your business that make the largest impact in growth?

This question is one that haunts many business startups, and even businesses that have been running successfully for years. It is important to track and analyze the marketing tactics, email makeups, and information you are spreading to your potential customers. What works and what doesn’t?

Above all, hard work, consistency, and testing will ultimately lead you to growth. The idea that “doing” as many things as possible will bring you success is highly unlikely. Almost all businesses are started and built on market research, and determining what on your list of “things to do” is most successful and powerful to your growth.

Listen to the episode on Marketing For Founders: http://marketingforfounders.com/entrepreneurial-mind/ ‎ 

The first steps to a good sales funnel:

1) Craft your position. Sift sort and screen the potential customers by taking a stand in your market. Wether you are the BWM or the Rolls Royce of your niche.

2) Find out what sources are your most reliable from your marketing mechanisms.

3) Track and measure your sales funnel, and determine where potential customers are leaking out.

4) Reach out to your buyers and continue to sell them new products.

5) Finally determine where to direct your funnel. Decide what potential customers are the highest converters.

Test, test, and test again and you will find a growth pattern in your conversions. Follow the data and track everything possible.

Listen to the show at http://marketingforfounders.com/funnels/

When beginning your show you will need the following:

A uni-directional USB Microphone.

An acoustically quiet environment.

A computer to record your audio.

Components to determine before recording:

What is the length and format of content that your market prefers?

What are your call to actions?

What will be your show format? Cold Start, Music intro, Humor?

Is there any time sensitive material in the script?

When podcasting it is important to note that anytime you use time sensitive material, it is important to maintain and manage your library of podcasts. In many cases you will need to remove those shows to ensure your audience is not listening to out of date content. Finally, podcasting will build authority among your peers and audience, so start and end your shows with calls to action, and drive listeners to your website.

 Listen to the show at Marketing For Founders: http://marketingforfounders.com/podcasting/

Many entrepreneurs believe that their next big business plan is as easy or hard, as coming up with an original idea, and putting it down on paper. What many don’t realize is new markets don’t often blast off into riches. Many great businesses start by finding an opportunity for growth and improvement, and doing it better than all those before.

Too often, entrepreneurs are blinded by ideas, and become easily attached. When the reality is, there are tons of limping or old foundations in place for businesses, that with the right ratification, could create a ton of cash.

Today, we will discuss the best way to get on the right track to a new business idea.

Identify a need or opportunity in a market.

Create a question, that if answered would solve a problem in a market or industry.

Continue to refine and build upon that idea, until it shows signs of success.

Tip: Don't waste too much time trying to come up with original ideas, they often end in bloodshed.

Listen to the show (and nickname Jack) at:  http://marketingforfounders.com/idea-romance/

Turns out this is NOT the case (Tim and I can both say from personal experiences). Running a SaaS product is extremely difficult, but sometimes the majority of that difficulty is self-inflicted. Common wisdom says that it should be a long, slow, painful, ardous process, but we disagree.

Tim and I will discuss a couple reasons why we believe most startups end up in the Long Slog SaaS Ramp of Death:

• Not understanding the market
• Not solving a paindful enough problem in that market
• Only using one marketing channel to reach that market
• Being passive rather than active in your marketing and sales
• Having a crappy pitch, and blaming it on your feature set
• Failing fast in a binary way

Links mentioned in the show:

• Gail Goodman, Constant Contact. How to Negotiate the Long, Slow, Saas Ramp of Death
• Amy Hoy – Sales Safari in Action
• Patrick McKenzie – Long-Term Revenue Growth Is Harder Than Short-Term Revenue Growth
• Justin Wilcox – How I Interview Customers

Listen to the show at http://marketingforfounders.com/saas-ramp-of-death-mff023/

Many startups know to track Cost Per Click (CPC), but not what to do with that knowledge.  CPC really isn't that important until a startup needs to optimize their costs.  What is really important is how much a new customer costs to acquire (CAC) from that ad spend and whether the company can afford it.

If an average customer has a high lifetime value (LTVC) then a company can afford to spend a lot to acquire a customer.

But...

That pesky thing called cash flow gets in the way.  A self-funded startup can't afford to wait years or even months to get its money back where a funded startup may have enough cash in the bank to keep running until the high lifetime value pays off.

How Much Can You Afford To Acquire And Keep A Customer?

• What is your cost of acquisition?
• What is your churn rate and churn points?
• Lifetime value of a customer is an estimate, but a critical one.
• Do you know your cost of goods sold?
• How much and when you charge a customer is critical to startups.

Get additional insights from links mentioned in the show by going to:

http://MarketingForFounders.com/marketing-metrics/

Because Having A List Doesn’t Mean Much If You Never Use It…

As most online startups by nature require an e-mail signup, chances are you’ve already got yourself an established mailing list. In many cases though, startup founders fail to actually contact these potential or current customers, and if they do they’re usually not doing it very effectively.

But don’t be fooled into thinking list building is only useful for an existing product or service.

Maybe your company is pre-launch, in which case it’s the perfect time to start thinking about what kind of lists you want to build, then leveraging these to test your market and build a buzz surrounding your upcoming service.

Whatever your situation, effective communication with your existing or potential customers can make or break the future of your company. So it’s critical to understand the various types of lists and the different ways in which we can give maximum value to those we wish to see as return customers for years to come.

How Much Can You Afford To Give A Perfect Experience?

• What type of lists do we want to build?
• Building lists pre-launch.
• Purchasing lists and what to avoid.
• How many mailings is too many?
• Building loyalty and creating a habit.
• Converting initial customers into return customers.
• Spending money to make money.

http://marketingforfounders.com/building-profitable-lists-and-how-to-convert-them-into-sales-mff021

How To Reduce Churn By Offering A Complete Solution…

On the face of it, combining a product and service-based business seems like it would solve some of the big problems many startups face. The problem is though that productizing a service and building a SaaS business can be much more difficult than it may seem, and in a lot of cases can create a massive headache for any founder. So what’s the best way to go about this?

To spark some discussion on this topic, this week we’ll be taking a look at Goodsie, Jack’s product-based business, and exploring how he plans to implement a service in to his business in the near future.

We’ll be looking at some common pitfalls of both business models, why testing is so critical before you take the leap, pricing strategy and a whole lot more.

What’s great about this discussion is that it goes both ways. So whether you’re someone running a service business, or a product founder looking to complete the package, you’re sure to get some real value out of this one.

Taking Control Of Your Customer’s Experience…

• Why you need to bring everything in-house.
• Preparing for many complaints from a lot of people.
• Testing demand for a service.
• Key differences between product and service businesses.
• How not to mess up your pricing strategy early on.
• Tailoring a service to varying customer sophistication.
• Using education for immediate results.

http://marketingforfounders.com/creating-a-service-in-a-saas-business-without-all-the-headaches-mff020

Exploring Jay Abraham’s ‘3 Ways To Grow’ Concept…

When it comes to growing a business, it’s easy for us to over-complicated matters and lose sight of what’s really going to bring us both short and long term results. Sometimes the best way to move forward is to forget what the internet gurus throw at us and really study what the old school marketing legends had to say.

So on this week’s show we’re going to be looking at three core concepts from Jay Abraham, a guy who’s massively inspired both Tim and Jack throughout their careers –

1.      - Increase the number of customers.

2.      - Increase the transaction size.

3.      - Increase the purchasing frequency.

By breaking down these points and applying them to your startup, we’re going to build a really solid foundation for increased profits and for a healthier business overall.

So listen in as we learn how these concepts have been applied to Tim and Jack’s businesses, ways you can start to tweak your business approach and how some of the bigger guys utilise these ideas.

Revenue Saved = Revenue Gained

• Saving cash through customer retention and reactivation.
• The benefits of reducing churn.
• Utilising bonuses to increase your customer base.
• Why you can’t be afraid to take risks.
• Pricing structures and getting the most from anchoring.
• Expanding the scope of your business.

http://marketingforfounders.com/3-simple-ways-to-grow-a-business-from-a-marketing-master-mff019/

Setting Up An Early Loss For A Long Term Gain…

I bet there aren’t many founders out there who are happy to see the word ‘loss’ anywhere, but stick with us here.

This week we’re dealing with two marketing concepts which we see most often in the retail world, but can have enormous potential when re-applied to our online businesses and startups.

Although they have different applications, risk factors and initial costs, both loss leaders and self-liquidating offers are all about maximizing customers getting in to your sales funnel. What we want to do is learn the fundamentals of these strategies, get creative with them and generate some serious leads for your business.

So listen in as Tim and Jack break down the key concepts, study some killer case studies and talk on their own personal experiences. We hope by the end you’ll be a bit more comfortable with the ‘L’ word.

Building Trust And Credibility…

- How to manage the risk factor of an early loss.

- Why loss leaders shouldn’t just be applied to retail.

- Reducing the cost of the barrier to entry.

- The concierge loss leader method.

- Why self-liquidating offers are less risky.

- Diversifying your marketing channels.

It’s an age-old marketing question. As founders, should we be focusing on building our companies image and branding or should we be targeting our audience with a killer direct response strategy?

There’s no doubting that both forms of marketing will prove to be beneficial over time, but it’s crucial for us understand when and why you should be applying each strategy to your business.

On this week’s show we’re taking a good hard look at both camps and working out which elements you should be applying to your marketing strategy. While getting a nice logo together and making everything look pretty might seem like a top priority when starting out, by the end of this episode you may have a different idea of what you should really be focusing on going forward.

Be In The Pursuit Of Customers, Not The Pursuit Of Novelty…

What are we actually trying to achieve through design?

 - Why you can’t let your ego get in the way.
 - Award winning designers and why you shouldn’t be dazzled by them.
 - Asking the important questions of your market before you build your image.
 - Why you can skip having a logo for longer than you think.
 - The dangers of being a lazy entrepreneur.

http://marketingforfounders.com/bridging-the-gap-between-image-based-and-direct-response-marketing-mff017/

Planning Ahead For Your Startup’s Long Term Success…

So many startup founders love to meticulously plan out the development process of their product, from the initial stages all the way through to having a completed product. The reality is though that great marketing is still the tool which is going to convert all that hard work to money in your pocket.

Now is the time to start giving your marketing planning the same attention you’re giving to your development cycle, rather than haphazardly working on whatever new marketing idea pops up. By making a solid plan for the future we can take control of our budget, build up tension for an unreleased product or increase sales for an existing one.

If you find yourself dabbling in a bunch of different marketing strategies but struggle to stick with  a clear path moving forward, then listen in this week as Tim and Jack do their best to  get your marketing plan sorted.

Taking Charge Of The Calendar…

• Tips for planning both existing and new products.
• Strategic use of promotional marketing.
• Using social proof and cross-promotional case studies.
• Putting out killer content during your products build up.
• Building anticipation for an unreleased product.
• Who actually writes the marketing plan?

http://marketingforfounders.com/building-a-marketing-masterplan-to-boost-sales-and-drive-more-customers-mff016

Deliver Live, Interactive And Effective Content Directly To Your Audience…

Webinars and web conferencing have come a long way since the dark days of less-than-stellar internet connections, frequent dropouts and questionable video quality. These days all it takes to educate and sell to a live audience is a smartphone and high speed internet – though it’s definitely worth putting a bit more planning in to your first webinar than that.

The benefits of being able to communicate your message directly to your audience are endless, whether you’re going for a hard sell or are just looking to educate others to generate more leads and interest in your business. Whatever angle you choose to take, there are some critical do’s and don’ts that need to be taken in to consideration before you take the plunge in to the world of webinars.

Throughout this episode, Tim and Jack are going to equip you with the skills and ideas required to start your own webinar, or to improve the quality and reach of what you’re already doing. You’ll learn what makes an effective webinar, some tips on preparation, how to keep your audiences undivided attention and a whole lot more…

Breaking The Pitch…

• Finding which platform will best suit you and your customer’s needs.
• Making sure your market can actually benefit from a webinar.
• How to structure your educational webinar.
• Preparation is key.
• How to avoid those awkward moments on camera.
• Keeping people’s attention against the temptations of the internet.
• Creating urgency to get your audience to take action.

http://marketingforfounders.com/a-crash-course-in-creating-engaging-webinars-for-your-startup-mff015

We’ve talked previously on the show about the importance of implementing a direct mail strategy in to your startups marketing, so now we’re taking those concepts one step further. While sending regular flat envelopes to your target market can be super effective, it’s undeniable that receiving a piece of lumpy mail has all kinds of positive effects on us and makes that package almost impossible to not open up.

While being a hugely effective marketing strategy, lumpy mail is rarely used by small startups. By dropping the ego and allowing ourselves to get a little outrageous, we can send out some truly memorable marketing which is sure to increase our conversion and revenue. Sending direct mail with a difference can achieve some amazing results, and luckily doesn’t have to cost us a fortune.

Listen in as Tim and Jack break down how to give a boost to your direct mail strategy, from building your initial targeted mailing lists to the most effective goodies you can stuff your mail with and then how to effectively follow up your leads.

Time To Have A Bit Of Fun With Direct Mail…

• Finding your high value targets.
• Balancing cheesiness vs. a stylistic approach.
• Building a hit list.
• How to track the effectiveness of your mailings.
• Getting past the gatekeeper.
• Why you have to do your research when personalising your mail.

http://marketingforfounders.com/get-noticed-in-your-target-market-through-the-power-of-lumpy-mail-mff014

The Best Salespeople Know Your Product Inside And Out…

There is a whole lot of information out there for startups on how to sell to VC’s, but as founders, knowing how to sell to your customers can prove to be so much more valuable. Of course there will come a time when you just can’t do it all yourself, so now it’s time to consider hiring a quality, dedicated salesperson.

For many, just the thought of a salesperson can conjure up that common image of some slimy dude selling snake oil, luckily that’s not always the case.

This week we’re talking building a sales team from the ground up, and ensuring we get the most from it in the long run.  We’re also exploring why it is so important for founders themselves to have some sales strategies in their toolkit. Even if you’re just a developer who wants nothing to do with the sales side, there’s a really good chance that you have more than it takes to drive sales while keeping your customers interest in mind.

Ultimately, we want everyone to win – your customer, your company and your salesperson.

Nobody Wants To Be Sold, But Everybody Loves To Buy…

• Why a founder needs to know how to sell.
• What to look for in a dedicated sales co-founder.
• Interviewing and hiring your prospective salesperson.
• The importance of knowing your product inside and out.
• Why devs make great sellers.

http://marketingforfounders.com/the-right-way-to-build-an-effective-sales-team-for-your-startup-mff013

Fitting A Square Peg In A Round Hole…

So, you’ve built up a complete product or service and you’re absolutely sure the customers are going to come straight at you with all their money. You know your product is going to provide a huge amount of value for others and people would be crazy not to feel the same, right?

Well if you haven’t done all your homework and properly tested your future market, it’s easy to be left with a product which won’t reach anywhere near your expectations.

This week on Marketing For Founders, we’re talking about nailing down our audience to the point where the market begins to pull the product out of us – even if it doesn’t exist yet. It’s all about really engaging and talking with our customers so we can adapt and mould our idea in to something we know is going to succeed.

Listen in as Tim and Jack explain why the focus has to be shifted to your potential market before building the product itself, how to effectively test a market, why companies take off and a whole lot more.

It’s Time To Get Validated…

• Why some companies get picked up while others fade away.
• Jack’s experiences with Goodsie’s white label program.
• Consequence free market testing.
• Adapting a poroduct to find a better fit.
• Why you actually have to talk to your customers.
• Pivoting – what it means and when you should do it.

http://marketingforfounders.com/finding-the-perfect-market-fit-for-your-product-mff012

Our Expert Marketing Automation Panel Fills Us In…

Manually tending to the many facets of online sales marketing can become a real time drain when working on smaller projects, let alone larger scale ones. What we want to do is take all those repetitive tasks and put them on autopilot. This way we can use our time more effectively to re-engage with our audience and look at the bigger picture of our sales marketing.

Joining us this week on Marketing For Founders are two great buddies of Tim and Jack and both real authorities on the subject of marketing automation, Jake Hower of Fuzedapp.com and Damien Thompson of Linchpin.net. Both of these guys have a ton of experience in setting up marketing automation for their own businesses and for others, and are here to share their nuggets of automation gold.

This week you’ll learn how to get systematic, avoid redundant work and accelerate an established sales funnel as well as the what, why and how of processes you can automate.

Sit In On The Automation Roundtable…

• The key advantages of marketing automation.
• Manual processes with limited resources and how they hurt you.
• What exactly should be automated?
• When should a startup get automating?
• Building a clearer picture of our customers behaviour.

http://marketingforfounders.com/how-to-streamline-your-online-sales-funnel-with-effective-marketing-automation-mff011

A Follow Up On Our Education Based Marketing Topic…

So, you’ve put in the hard yards and landed a ton of new clients. For many founders the automatic response is to keep pushing for an increase in customers, bigger is better right? This is a common mistake and can lead us to seriously neglect some huge potential growth.

This week we’re following up on our education based marketing episode, but narrowing in on how we can use education to maximise our profits from the customers we already have.

By elaborating on Jay Abraham’s three ways to grow a business, Tim and Jack are going to show you how it can be cheaper to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new one, and explain how to apply these principles to your business.

Forget About The Hunt, It’s Time To Farm…

• Increasing transaction size and purchasing frequency through education.
• Discounts, bundles and packages.
• The psychology of the pricing table.
• Pitfalls of have a service with multiple features.
• Teaching your customers what it is you do and how they can benefit.

Grab Their Attention And Get Yourself A Quick Win…

When writing effective headlines for our content, our objective is simply to become the signal amongst all of the online noise. So what methods can we use to interrupt someone’s day, grab their attention and keep them focused on the stuff we want them to read?

There’s so many ways for us to use our basic human emotions to steer people’s attention in the direction we want. Writing killer headlines is all about interrupting one’s pattern, so as copywriters we’ve got to make sure that it’s almost impossible for our audience not to drop what they’re doing and take a look.

This week, Tim and Jack are getting to the root of why people click on something, and the best ways in which we can get the same reaction from our audience.

How To Get Noticed…

• Personalizing your headlines.
• The power of the question mark?
• The 9 different types of headlines.
• An effective use of numbers.
• Headlines and sub-headlines, the killer combo.

Go to http://MarketingForFounders.com to get more direct response marketing knowledge for startups.

Achieving Inspiration Through Education…

People don’t usually search for a product to fix their problem, they simply want to find a solution. By being the solution itself, rather than just going all-in with a sales pitch, we’re able to captivate, inspire and really connect with our customers.

This week is all about education based marketing, a concept which both Jack and Tim are truly passionate about. Though don’t be concerned if you were never one for formal education – we’re talking about keeping it engaging, inspiring and never boring. Our goal is to get results for our customers through education, and once we achieve that, we can initiate a reward cycle which ultimately benefits us as a result.

So join Tim and Jack as they run through their own experiences as well as some killer examples of education based marketing which you can re-work in to your future marketing strategies.

Don’t Just Educate – Inspire…

• Teaching people to be successful on your own platform.
• Key differences between education and content based marketing.
• Pros and cons of in person education vs. online.
• Giving your customers greater value through teaching.
• Onboarding – an effective form of education based marketing.

We all love to focus on our branding and advertising being as pretty as possible. But sometimes as founders we have to step back, forget all the shiny marketing tricks, and start focusing on what’s important for our business.

How are we going to get someone to buy our product right now?

This week on Marketing For Founders, we cover seven of the ten rules from the hugely influential direct marketing guru Dan Kennedy’s book, ‘No B.S. Direct Marketing’. This book is a real direct marketing master plan and is referenced time and time again for all the right reasons.

Join Tim and Jack as they dive right in to some of Dan Kennedy’s best material on the subject of direct response marketing, and show how you can effectively apply these strategies to your business.

Dan Kennedy’s Direct Marketing Rules…

1. There Will Always Be An Offer.
2. There Will Be A Reason To Respond Right Now.
3. There Will Be Clear Instructions.
4. There Will Be Tracking And Measurement.
5. There Will Be Follow-Up.
6. There Will Be Strong Copy.
7. Results Rule. Period.

People Don’t Like Being Sold, But They Love To Buy…

OK so we’ve generated our leads, set up customer engagement and begun the education process, so when’s it time to actually make some money?

Building on our initial e-mail marketing strategies, this week Tim and Jack get to the business end of it all and run us through the final three critical elements for any solid e-mail marketing plan. We all want people to give us money, so how are we going to get e-mail to do it?

This week you’ll learn how to structure and target your sales e-mails, the importance of onboarding, how to retain your customers and a whole lot more. Then it’s time to let it all soak in as next week will be a more hands-on episode all about effective copywriting tips which can be applied to your e-mail marketing strategy.

Sales, Onboarding & Retention…

• Converting from sales e-mail to sales page.
• Preserving your reputation by not overdoing it.
• Why alienation can be beneficial.
• How to form your ‘tribe’.
• Giving your customers a voice.

Visit MarketingForFounders.com for more startup marketing know-how.

Time To Get Smart About E-mail…

While we’d all agree that social media can’t be beat for communication, branding and image, e-mail is still king when it comes to actually making money. By applying some key fundamentals to how we approach e-mail marketing, we can start generating more leads, increasing our conversions and then cash it all in.

This week on Marketing For Founders we’re kicking off a two part series all about getting the most from your e-mail marketing. Drawing from their own experiences and understanding of the e-mail game, Tim and Jack are going to break it down in to six concepts to give us a clear picture of an effective and profitable e-mail marketing strategy.

In part one you’ll be learning how to engage your audience via e-mail, the power and effect of education and some killer lead generation tips. Make sure to tune in next week as we round it all off in part two.

Engagement, Education & Lead Generation…

• What are the core components of e-mail marketing?
• Underestimating the power of e-mail.
• Engagement and interaction.
• Educating others and how it benefits you.
• How to generate leads without looking spammy.

Get more direct marketing mayhem over at MarketingForFounders.com.

This week on Marketing For Founders we’re mixing it up a bit with a killer panel to give us some of their valuable insight, experience and knowledge in to the startup marketing scene.

Joining our hosts Tim and Jack is Patrick McKenzie of Kalzumeus Software, and Rob Walling, a serial web entrepreneur with over ten years of experience as a self-funded startup founder. Both highly technical, but brilliant marketing minds in their own right, Rob and Patrick are sure to leave you with a ton of great ideas to get your marketing moving.

With solid marketing being such a critical factor to the success of our startups, it is so important for us to get it right from the ground up and to implement proper long term strategy. By wrapping our heads around the relationship between the technical and marketing sides of our businesses, we can all start to make more money with far less pain.

Tying It All Together…

• Building a strategy before it’s too late.
• Taking your marketing back to basics.
• Effective e-mail marketing to expand your reach.
• Onboarding and creating an automated experience

To get more great marketing episodes, go to MarketingForFounders.com.

Marketing To The Mailbox… Really?

It’s all too easy for us as online entrepreneurs to disregard or not even consider implementing a direct mail strategy in to our marketing campaigns. Surely physical, offline marketing can’t possibly have a significant impact on what we’re doing online?

While our inboxes are becoming increasingly crowded with easily avoidable content, the humble mailbox may not be getting the attention it deserves. By not utilising targeted direct mail, your business is missing out on a proven method of attracting new clients in a tangible, memorable and exciting way. What better way to reach out to your audience than by having your message literally in their hands?

This week on Marketing For Founders, Tim and Jack walk us through some direct mail strategies and how your small business can benefit from them. With so little material online on direct mail for startups, this week’s episode is full of marketing gold to give your business a leg-up.

It’s Time To Go Platform Agnostic…

How to turn your package in to an experience.

Using your physical product to carry your message.

Combining online and offline marketing.

Captivating your target market.

The importance of testing new platforms.

The importance of testing new platforms.

Your designer?  Your SEO?  Whoever is available?

Landing pages need to function like an old school sales letter...

They should tell the story of your unique value proposition, share benefits that solves the visitors' problems and have a compelling reason to take an action that is important to you and is good for them.

Marketing For Founders co-host, Jack Zerby recently discovered the power of direct response marketing in a startup's landing pages.  He dove into learning as much as possible as fast as he could and then, not taking it on faith, he put it into action.

The results?

A better educated visitor which turns into a highly qualified lead and ultimately a great customer.

Jack shares his knowledge of designing landing pages to get people to take action.

Many founders work diligently on their product and then leave marketing to the last or worse put it in the hands of an expensive PR company that will get them mentioned on Techcrunch and Hacker News.

You'll also see how Jack is implementing these old school strategies in his own startups and how Tim uses direct response marketing for his consulting clients.

Become a regular listener of Marketing For Founders to learn the skills and strategies a startup needs to grow quickly and profitably.  Visit MarketingForFounders.com to learn more about the power of marketing.