"Capital Observer of the Secondary Market looking at the Primary Market"
This article is from Canvas Ventures
The core ideas come from Airtable, Curology, OneMedical, Twilio, and Uber's marketing leader
Marketing can make or break a company. What's the first thing you do when someone asks to help a company grow? The answer is to focus on marketing in stages.
We know that the best products don't always win. It's often a "good enough" product, and a killer marketing approach supported by unique customer insights is the core key. Time and time again, we as VCs see many companies getting caught up in "feature and functionality" marketing, which also means missing out on opportunities to create long-term brands.
We are passionate about helping companies discover new channels or reinvent old ones to help them. Find a new way to generate brand awareness around channels such as TV, direct mail, and radio, with the opportunity to build a huge competitive moat and drive the company to achieve exponential growth.
Of course, the process is not easy. With each new channel emerging, the job of marketers becomes more complex. We also identified several trends in marketing:
1. It’s noisier than ever
According to Salesforce's 7th edition of its annual State of Marketing report ( for which Salesforce interviewed more than 8,200 marketers worldwide ), marketers expect to use 40% year-over-year in the number of data sources they use.
2. Purses are tightening
According to Gartner, marketing budgets as a percentage of company revenue will fall from 11 percent to 6.4 percent in 2021. "This is the lowest percentage allocated to marketing in the history of Gartner's annual CMO spending survey," the report said. ”
3. The ponds are overfished
Ten years ago, only 17% of global ad spend went to the top five ad sellers (Google; Viacom and CBS; News Corp. and Fox; Comcast, and Disney）。 Today, ad networks are more congested, with 46% of global ad spending occurring at the top five Internet companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Alibaba, and ByteDance).
As marketing money efficiency comes under downward pressure, it's important to listen to your customers, stay curious, and be open to some crazy-looking ideas. Over the past year, I've had dozens of conversations with good marketers, asking them what actually worked and what crazy ideas they tried that seemed ridiculous at the time, but actually worked. Here's what we've summarized and shared with all OF OUR CEO and marketing executives at Portfolio (companies include Airtable, Curology, OneMedical, Twilio, and Uber):
With developers, marketers need to be problem-solvers, not sellers
"Developers can quickly see all types of marketing language. Developers want to find answers to questions, for example, how can they get the correct documentation as quickly as possible? How can you get them to know about what goes live today, rather than what will go live two years from now?
The marketer's job is to help them get the code as quickly as possible. Give them direct access to other developers in the community who share the same ideas, and can help solve some of the questions in real time
—SaraVarni, former CMO Twilio
Avoid free trials at all cost
"Early in Curology, we came up with the hypothesis that free trial reduces the perceived value of the service, thereby reducing the spiritual resonance/recognition of the treatment process for skincare users. So, we started experimenting with $4.95 shipping and lowering the minimum buy threshold, but the result dramatically changed the way users thought about the value of the offer. We initially worried about how this change would affect customer acquisition costs, but found no impact at all. We are able to attract the same number of new customers at the same cost of customer acquisition – sometimes customer engagement can be positive"
—FabianSeelbach, president of Goop.com and former CMO Curology
Note: Curology is a telemedicine company that customizes skincare solutions for users
By Series A, your company needs a story that resonates with customers, not just your VCs
"When looking at startups, businesses are usually led by founders of engineers or computer scientists who are data-driven experts. The first marketers they hired were performance-driven digital marketers. That's what founders know and love, and the data is analyzable and irrefutable. For example, we run an ad that will be data-driven and results-centric. But when these companies reach a certain size, you're back to the basics. What is the positioning of the company? What the hell is going on in the process?
Often, the mindset of companies in the early stages is that in order to raise capital, more emphasis is placed on delivering business metrics. But if you don't know how to tell a story, there is a bigger problem. If you don't lock in company positioning, stories, brand identities, etc. early on, it can mess up because you don't know who your audience is. Initially, the company's audience was VCs (for fundraising), but then it was retailers, partners, and customers. If you don't know your story and audience, then any money invested in the performance won't work. ”
—DougSweeny, CMO One Medical
SaaS businesses should always price higher than they originally think
"Every time I review the product history pricing models of the companies I've worked for, we price them based on what we think the market will afford and the value we want to stick to. If you want to change from a freemium model to a paid model, it is recommended to start with a slightly higher price, because it is much easier to start with a high price and then adjust downwards than to start from a low price and adjust upwards. If the company is in a SaaS model and is taking a "land and expand" approach, start with high price settings and then slowly expand. If you don't have upward pressure on prices, your ability to recruit and build ASP models will create a lot of resistance. ”
—DavidGee, CMO Coherent, formerly Imperva, Zuora, andHewlett-Packard
In messaging, clarity and repetition always win
"When we experience our products, brands and companies every day, it's easy to assume that our customers are the same. But in fact, they are not. When releasing a product, it sometimes feels like you've described this new feature over and over again and want to come up with a more creative way to talk about it. You think, "How do you describe it to get the customer's attention?" But often, most customers still don't understand. When building customer perception, instead of finding ways to change the way language is spoken, repeat your message where the customer can see it. ”
—ColeyCzarnecki, Head of Consumer Product Marketing at Uber Eats
Driving successful word of mouth requires very specific asks
"It's not enough to just ask people to share their stories. First, ask questions about how to help other customers. For example, "Did you have a great experience?" If you share your story, it will help others. Then make sure they understand clearly where they want them to share, such as software review sites or social networking channels. Make the process as simple as possible by providing any additional context or information. Finally, consider what needs to be done to help amplify these voices and create word-of-mouth transmission."
—ArchanaAgrawal, CMO Airtable
Smallbusiness owners want to hear from other small business owners, not you
"We've seen a lot of influence from word of mouth among small businesses. When appropriately utilized influencer for endorsement, we can bring information to market very quickly. As we know it today, social and mobile advertising is over. But people still spend quite a bit of time on these channels, and our job will always be to try to figure out how to reach customers through those channels. ”
—LaurenWeinberg, Global Head of Marketing and Communicationsat Square
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