Majority of the readership of this blog consist of aspiring entrepreneurs, probably in consumer Internet or mobile space . Every one of us have an idea for a service which according to him/her is exactly what market needs . This post is not about objective merit of your idea. If you are betting your reputation, money, energy and time [in that order ], I assume that you have good reason to do that .
This post is not about revenue model .You may or may not have a revenue model and may be secretly wishing that you will cause a blip on the radar of Google,Yahoo,Ebay,MS or HT of world and they will acquire you . There is nothing drastically wrong in your assumption . This may happen .
I am sure you have got an “A-Team”. You have gone to right colleges, your room mate have fairly good understanding of LAMP stack so it won’t be a herculean task for two of you to code it up. Your friend who is a usability pro is ready to help you part time in designing logo , UI ,workflow and everything “creative”.
What’s the problem then?Why we are waiting then? What’s stopping you to start? Why Ashish doesn’t find enough startups to profile? Don’t tell me you are married or you are above 30 , that’s just an excuse!
In most of the cases, real answer lies in one sentence “I am not sure about Marketing” .
Underlying assumption in our story is that “Build it and they will come” but we fear that this may not happen . And we are not sure how too get our message across to our targeted user base . We count on being discovered by world . And that rarely happens.
We need to go out and talk to our user , tell them about our product offering. But you may ask- how? You are not funded (at least not yet), so you can’t possibly run full page advertisement in national newspapers,you can’t do TVC like Desimartini and Fropper; neither you can do bill board bash like BiggAdda. So what can we do ?
This is what this post is all about:
- How to engineer word of mouth.
- How to spread the word about your service ? How to make people aware that you exist ?
Its about street smart tactics of creating buzz . Not revenue ,Not sales, Not cash flow . Just how to make people know that you exist & make them talk about your service? & do it with little money .
I know some of you might be thinking “Here is Yet another armchair grandmaster trying to dispense his marketing gyaan. Why should I give a damn” . Very valid point.
Well……. I don’t have a series of successful venture exit behind me , neither I am running a cool startup . I have been a Software Product sales guy in past and I know a thing or two about how people react when exposed to new software or new way of doing things and how we can soften their reaction and use it for our advantage .
Secondly I am observing IT Consumer internet space for a long time now . thanks to my involvement in USENET I have been a mute witness to some ideas being discussed in those forum and than ending up being big time success.
Third is I have talked to few Jr guys in big PR Agency in valley about how they engineer a Word of mouth ? What’s their secret recipe? To my great surprise these are some basic common sense tactics This post my attempt to spark a discussion about the relevance and effectiveness of these tactics in Indian context .
A point of caution first, Operating assumption while writing this post is that
1) you are based out of a metro so you want to get early adopters from these cities only . 2) you are in Internet /Mobile space and your target user base is college Kid ,young or middle age professionals .
Your Sys Admin :
A startup in silicon valley wanted to make a Web based IM platform where you can log into your IM friend list at Yahoo Messenger ,AoL ,Jabber ,GTalk etc[ You know which company I am talking about ] . when they were about to launch Public Beta they started brainstorming way to spread the word . One of their approach was to contact System administrators community. Most of the BIG corporation don’t allow you to install messenger client on your computer .
Sys Admin knew it, they were good guys, they want to help their colleague but they were bound by corporate IT policy. With web based IM, it was possible for them to address this issue . Not to officially endorse the venture but quietly slip the word around . one cubic at a time . So founder called one of his friend who was a SysAdmin at a big IT service firm, showed him a basic demo and requested him to tell people about it .
Surprise ……server log showed that in next 3 days 500 people logged in to their service from a single building of that company. Very soon, every branch of that company started using it . Truth was that they were using Lotus Notes messenger to tell their colleague about this cool new Web Based IM . That SysAdmin probably had told it to few guys, may be out of sense of obligation.
But he started an avalanche. Next thing this startup did was to log on to a job site and find out all the guys in who were IT Admin, shoot them an email and rest as they say is History ….errr……History in making .
Now think about it . Lot of the Web2.0 stuff consist of making desktop application run inside a browser and similar stuff. I am sure your Sys Admin friend can help. Think about it .
Your Job Portal :
When we were starting out Delhi Chapter or Mobile Monday, we faced a problem. Where can we find people who might be interested in attending this group? So we checked Naukri.com to find out which company is hiring for Mobile specific Skill set and found out our friends in that company to spread the word. In some cases we even called the HR of that company and make her send event notification. So, you see that Your Naukri.com is a rich repository of Internet savvy people. I am sure you know at least one recruitment consultant , you can borrow his login id for a night and do some data mining. You can do a very targeted marketing . you can say some thing like
“Prashant , its been 6 years since you left college , i m sure you miss some of your friends , find out where are they and may be some of them are working with you at infy Bangalore .Join XYZ.com ”
” Prashant , last year I Quit my job as Mobile Developer to follow my dream , we bootstrapped a little company and our product is in Public beta now , as a fellow mobile developer i would like to have your view in this . please join our beta prog . if you like what we did please tell your friends about it ”
Chances are that reader of these emails will respond to your campaign . but for god sake please be careful and don’t send an email starting with “Dear Candidate ” .
Your HR Guy:
HR is not just for recruitment . there is one more responsibility of HR , Training . As you are a startup so I am sure you must have heard of some latest Buzzwords like Agile, Scrum, Rapid Prototyping ,Test driven development etc . and thanks to your training in Traditional IT Service companies I am sure most of you don’t understand it fully . But that doesn’t matter much ,you can read about it . Borrow a copy of Getting Real from your friend . Lobby with some HR or Training firm, arrange for a workshop to dispense gyan about somethings like “Making a High Performance Web based Transaction server with two people team ” or whatever is relevant , share your experience .
Truth be told ….some guys in Bangalore have actually done it. Not once but three times . Each time they were paid 25K . Few more such session are in pipeline for them . Their initial motivation was purely financial [Cash strapped venture] but later on they infused more and more marketing angle to it . And why not? On Each occasion time a focused audience of 500 saw , listened and interacted with their product for 20 Min . if you can not get some one interested in your product after 20 Min then….either the guy is not worth it or your product .
Those of you who are doing startup would admit that 1 year of work in your own venture gives you more opportunity to learn that 5 years in a CMM Level 5 IT Firm . I am sure you can use it., Why not share it and share it well. call your Boss and HR at the company you used to work for ..tell them you did one such training for a client you can’t disclose i was wondering if you would like to do it .
MBA Colleges
You can do the same for Guest lecture at MBA college …any MBA college with good student strength. Just add some entrepreneurship spin to your pitch and tell your story. If you are in a Metro I am sure you must be having one in next block- get in touch with them … Biz school depend big time on case studies,guest lectures ,summer training etc. You can be a case study to them . there are more than 20 MBA colleges in Jaipur itself . I am sure not all of them have their guest lecture schedule full. You can surely help . Do it while Web 2.0 is hot J
PTA Meetings
This might sound a little weird to some of you. Go to your local affluent schools, talk about the internet domain in context of your product. This will help parents who see their kids spending a lot of time online on Facebook , Orkut or P2P. Parents want to know more about it, but they don’t know whom to ask.
Introduce them to cult of Poke and scrap – they want to be cool or they simply want to connect with there kid by a common pursuit. You can surely tell them a thing or two and I bet these parents would go and boast it to their kids and you know a social network site endorsed by your dad is a excellent way to make it stand out. I am sure it won’t do much harm either. Key here is to balance between talking about your domain and your product. Worth a try. Isn’t it ??
Night Out @ College Hostel :
I am yet to find a person who doesn’t like to talk about romance of startingup , But at the same time i am yet to see a startup who actually capitalize on this romance . When it comes to marketing that is your best weapon . Don’t sponsor annual cultural fest of the local engineering college . Instead try this go to hostel one night on some pre text [b'day ,visiting your cousin , alumni etc].
Show them your Product . Tell them how much fun you guys are having in doing this. Show some pics of your team in bean bag and some of your pics with Narayan Murthy at some conference and tell a good story over beer . If you are able to pull a good show, you will have some good number of crusaders in that campus next day .Make sure you have everyone’s email id; and as a follow up, ask them to relay your message to college mailing list. Avoid sending a direct email to list- let your crusader relay it and take glory of introducing a cool thing.
In India, startup is still a novelty and having a chance to talk to entrepreneur is bigger novelty. I don’t see anyone capitalizing on this.
On the other hand, what are Indian startups doing ? Spamming Orkut??
There are few more tactics. Some of them too whacky, some of them too specific to application that they don’t need to be mentioned for the purpose of a generic discussion; and of course some of them too good to share. I am sure you can come up with few of your own!
What do you think about these type of guerilla tactics? Can it work in India ? Let me know your thoughts .
Lets talk about it.
tags: guerilla marketing tips, img
Good stuff.
Prashant – Congratulations for joining pluggd.in.
“Chances are that reader of these emails will respond to your campaign .” I think this can be dangerous. If an affluent blogger or someone else starts to bad mouth your company for sending unsolicited emails, things can be upside down. I liked rest of the ways to market for free/cheap.
@Gaurav: Thanks
As far as backlash form affluent Blogger is concerned , i don’t think that would be a big issue . you will be surprised to know that some DSA of leading Financial service firms [Home Loan, Luxury Car loan type ] are already scanning Jobsite DB for Lead generation .
Moreover on a side note that affluent blogger will be writing about you . isn’t that good ? No Publicity is BAD Publicity . Mginger is an example . almost everyone bashed them for their biz model but they are doing well .
Prashant – I still think it is a gamble. Bad publicity is OK, if it in unintentional, like someone bashing your design, usability, etc. May be I am thinking from my point of view. I would try to avoid a site that indulges in these activities. Perhaps an average Internet user may not consider it offensive.
I don’t know much about mginger, but isn’t their users ‘spamming’ their friends than mginger itself?
Really cool stuff. 100% Out-of-the-box thinking.
Great stuff Prashant. Cool whacky ideas (except for maybe the PTA one!:)
Couple of Indian startups have used innovative ways to market their product – for e.g. Mouthshut’s auto rickshaw campaign (which has been copied so badly that it looks damn cheap now!)
another one – hire babes to market your product (esp. if you are building just another social network).
Distribute cool t-shirts to babes and ask them to campaign @ any of the hangout places like shopping malls.
I am sure you will get lot many eye— balls! :J
Prashant, that was really interesting. Want to startup?
@ Lalti :Thanks .
@Sameer: Thanks . As far as viability of PTA as a Marketing mechanism is concerned . i think its more suitable for some specific type of venture . like in Local Search [Parents are still the decision maker in purchase related matters ] or MAPS or Music . and i feel We can’t rule out the Soc Nw. apps too . its needed .Soc Nw hits mainstream news for all the wrong reasons .
@Sudhanshu : Thanks for the complement. Yes i want to startup …..A discussion on this topic
@ Ashish : Babes….. Glad that you mentioned them . My experience says that using babes to promote your product is not very good idea . You know when you point your finger toward moon you want people to look at moon but more often then not they end up looking at Finger [Provided its Babe's Finger] . more true for geeks …who are early adopters
@Prashant – babes can get you the first footfall (or eye-balls) and that’s the entire notion of why every TVC has some sexy babe.
Qn that I am trying to answer is – how do I get first set of visitors?
Agreed that “when you point your finger toward moon you want people to look at moon but more often then not they end up looking at Finger ” – product needs to have enough meat to convert first timers to return visitors – but the basic qn is how do i get the customer on the first place?
@Ashish – Pitch your product to Ashish’s and Prashant’s of your industry, give them content/juice/analysis about your startup/industry. Once they write about your startup, early adopters (like the readers of this blog) will give it a shot. Here you got your first visitors. Rest depends on your product.
i new startup in the mobile space http//tagg.in
oops a typo there … http://tagg.in
i thnk m bit late in the discussion…. everyone left??
….. exlnt post prashant …. thnx a lot…
… you kno what first tim i though of doin the same things…. nd latr i was movin to more foolish ideas lik “fundin annual college fests and all …” … they r all artificial nd do not bring ny benefits…. marketin needs most natural ways … a recipe usin natural instincts of a person [includin dat babe thing] plus quick, exponential growth though other mechanisms…
…. only a match can help u light fire… petrol tank can definitely add to it… but only once fire is already lit up… thats what i think…
Great article, I would like to add few more here.
1) If you have little cash in your pocket attending few conferences will help a lot. You will meet new people who can be great contacts for future.
2) Try to be active on social networking stuff especially Facebook. Create Facebook Page for your product and promote it as much as you can.
3) Be an active blogger atleast for your product. All these things improve chances of your product coming in google search.
4) And last but not the least keep reading posts like this. And keep commenting
One more thing…read this article by Neil Patel…I would recommend people to subscribe his blog.
http://www.quicksprout.com/2007/12/17/tony-sopranos-top-11-tips-for-success/
@MobileFun : Good Luck for your venture. No Offense intended but since we are talking about marketing here i can’t resist thinking of another way of doing it . you could have posted it as a neutral third party[user] endorsement. like ” i noticed tagg.in is using such tactics. their service is good and i feel their approach to advertisements is non intrusive “.
. you agree ??
That would have been more effective
@Kamal: Thanks for the kind words . unless you are a Soft Drink ,Sports goods or jeans wear company there is absolutely no point in sponsoring a Cultural Fest . all marketing is basically conversations and conversation originate from context . a Billboard or a Sponsorship basically make you stand out , you don’t blend with context with surrounding so your recall is short lived. where as tactics like that are more long lasting .
@Abhishek : thanks. I agree that attending conference is of immense value . FB Page ,regular Blogging and follow up on fellow blogger of your domain are a must . thanks for pointing to the article . it was good .
Prashant,
I actually thought that it was good that ‘mobilefun’ mentioned that it was his/her startup. I think it takes a lot to stand up by your product, esp. when it is half baked in alpha or beta. I think people generally figure out when an anonymous random person talks about a relatively new product. My $0.02
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Great stuff!!
I like Ashish’s (7) idea too
excellent discussion. ( am late though
).
Find evangelists (an extension to the sys. admin).
If your product is really good there will be some one or the other who evangelizes it. Identify them (most active users, bloggers, etc) and give them more incentive to spread the word. (Mind you these folks, if like me are very sensitive, they will be put off by in your face incentives and you risk the chance of losing them)
Thought provoking post. Hey Prashant hats off to you.
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I think WOM king factor is the ability to build success stories to your early users. And if success stories are generated on community leaders of your target for your product/service you can release, as an avalanche, the full power of WOM.
Think what google does. He was a “success-story-machine” providing refined searches, the best of the web. And he distributes his success stories on his campus, first. From that community leaders and from that success stories they offer to their first users community, I think, has started the google brand WOM avalache. Craigslist, Facebook and more and more websites have adopted the same WOM success strategy. A succesfull startup, have to do the same.
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Hi,
Nice Tips, would definitely use them. I have recently launched India’s First Hotels comparison Engine, http://www.GhumiChale.com. It compares over 800,000 deals across the globe, has over 2 Million Hotel pics with Maps & 2.4 Million Reviews. It got launched on 1st June and till today over 4500 pages already got cached with google (you may check by typing site:www.ghumichale.com in google search bar). The venture is also likely to get a funding soon.
Cool tricks!!
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Prashant – loved the Job portal idea – very insightful. I’ve written a follow up post at http://www.moneyvidya.com/blog/?p=141
What I’m essentially suggesting in my article is that users should try and take lessons from organisers of student events in High School and College – the marketing budgets for these events were often close to zero – yet they managed to put bums on seats.
Gautam Kshatriya
gautam.kshatriya@moneyvidya.com
http://www.moneyvidya.com/blog
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Hi Prashant, wonderful read.
I want to add a few points to this.
The primary objective of a WOM campaign is to look at generating awareness then to convert new customers. In WOM you have a good control over quality but little over the frequency of it. So in essence if we say the right thing, the frequency automatically goes up and reaches a tipping point faster.
The biggest advantage we have here is that we are the underdogs. Most times people would not understand we are into, but then again, we have their admiration and they give us a more patient listen because we may have left our jobs for it or we may be taking on some big guys while at it. Our big challenge would be to create believers out of this set and that requires engagement.
I would suggest doing this in stages. i.e first creating and then sustaining buzz. Its very area specific for now.
. Creating Buzz. your friends and family play a crucial role in this and you would need to sustain highly targeted stunts that attracts attention while remaining memorable. Here are some ideas I think would help differentiate
Eg.1 Your Newspaper Vendor is your best friend.
This requires you to get up at 3 in the morning, about 1000 collats of your product tastefully done(try to make it the size of a CD cover or a bookmark, any bigger and it would look like the flyer for your neighborhood clinic) and three staplers with pins.
Target a locality that you think has potential customers. Pay the vendor about 500 bucks and sit with him and staple all the newspapers he’s delivering. My suggestion for the message would be something on the lines of ‘we xyz.com stapled the paper for your convenience, would you please visit us sometime?’. You can add something wackier (wackier the better, just don’t insult the reader’s intelligence but) as that makes you look younger and bolder and hence more attention from the reader. Request the reader to drop in… don’t announce your presence, you’ll end up sounding like arena multimedia (no offence arena!)
Variation…. the TEA stall guy outside the Campus (IT company/College/ IT Park) is your best friend
free tea from 5 to 6. no strings attached, xyz.com just loves you guys’. The tea stall is a brilliant place for conversations and a good number of blokes might just check the site out from their phone.
Set a day and a time when you get the maximum traffic. Pay the Tea Guy around 1000 bucks and put in a standee next to him or hang a poster on the stall that says ‘happy hour
Eg.2 Bumper Stickers
you need friends with cars. bumper stickers
buy them a couple of beers and ask them if you can stick your site’s stickers in their cars, lot of them won’t mind as long as you get it designed professionally. Strategic area to paste… right above the place where the Dealer’s name is. If possible, stick over it! Again, don’t just announce the site, put some interesting like ‘xyz.com likes chocolate for breakfast’. keep the message to not more that 5 words. In doing so, your objective is to create a personality for the site. Don’t say ‘I hang out at xyz.com’. you would create no buzz as there is nothing to talk about. In bumper to bumper traffic, this one will stick in the head of all those guys behind you. besides since the owner of the car is endorsing it, adds credibility and a bit of class
Avoid cars which are already stickered with stuff like ‘bad boy’ and ‘no fear’ and avoid autos. Autos are everybody’s bitch, have no class and look terrible after a while. Case and point, mginger…
Eg.3 Please don’t hack into my Wifi Connection
Lot many houses have that board sponsored by some realty or cable company or packers and movers or ICICI that says please don’t park in front of the gate. Take that idea and run with it in different ways… like for example ‘Road warriors, please don’t use my wifi for your emails, I’m broke already. me and xyz.com thank you.’ its a bit negative but the guys who are just passing by, will love it. It’s fresh and relevant for them to have a solid recall.
… Sustaining Buzz.
Now that you got a certain amount of buzz going for you, try sustaining the buzz by making your product or site or whatever relevant each time there is an interaction.
Eg.1 Video Blog
Blogging is good but is kinda stunted sometimes when trying to reach a crowd that has little patience. Just switch on your phone camera and record anything that is happening in your office (if you got an iphone… well then you get to lug your digicam.. heheh). try not to stage them and capture whatever you guys are doing on a daily basis, the drunken nights, the morning after you guys pulled an all nighter, fights, singing… anything. Apart from near reality-tv-like pull it has on people who visit the blog, it’s a solid recruitment tool.
Another example would be merchandising effectively. print t-shirts and put your dog on it. just say ‘Poochie! official mascot for xyz.com. Loves milk, bones and my slipper’. Put it up in your favourite coffee haunt for sale. The idea is not to get into merchandising but subtle PR in a very believable way. Your Grandmother on your Tshirt kinda tells people that everyone’s involved and you guys are having fun while at it. much more effective that just saying ‘I am changing the internet landscape with http://www.dingdongditch.com, are you dingdongditching yet?’.
Eg.2 Put a piece of you in everything that you have.
What I think a lot many start-ups don’t do is create the romance of being in a start-up in all their communication. The best way to do it is with what you have as ‘physical stuff’. This includes your stationary, your office building and your home.
for example, if your card says ‘xyz.com meets almost every sunday for brunch in zed’s’ there is a chance that you will bump into guys who remember your card. guys who come looking for you are the one’s who would like to get recruited or ones who might turn out to be evangelists for you.
Put a banner outside your building that says ‘xyz.com working here. we are overworked and underlaid but wait till we hit the bigtime’. even if it is a bit pretentious, a lot many guys will identify with it and that’s what we actually need, right?
Things not to do… don’t go post about your company in forums that are not sensitive. Talking about yourself in communities such as these will get you good ears. But i have seen a lot many people skipping us completely in other forums. Try using somebody else as testimonial in such cases and please make it look genuine.
Also this is kinda personal but avoid all these newpaper guys with private treaties. i dunno when the govt is gonna call it insider trading. call me paranoid but well i don’t like them. I do not think what they are doing is fair on us.
i think i wrote a bit too much. anyways i’ll put some more of stunts to try soon.
Anant Gopal
Global Frequency
Awesome list!
Great insights. You really rock and i am gonna ry many of these ideas soon.
Do you mentor or help startups creating the buzz??
Thanks
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Most interesting blog for me so far on plugged.in
Makes sense..i wish u luck with your endeavors.
Hi,
Found your ideas quite innovative and interesting.
Nice, great articles, thanks.
awesome stuff!! wonder how i missed it..very useful stuff..have been struggling with marketing issues..this will surely gonna help