Positioning is sometimes referred to as the fifth P, along with product, price, place, and promotion. Founders spend the formative years of their companies answering a constant stream of questions from prospective employees, investors, and investors: What are you? Is that like so-and-so? How are you different from [insert large company that will no doubt crush you]? Developing a desired position, and formalizing it with a positioning statement, are critical steps on your way to profit and glory. … [Read more...]
Startup Marketing Essentials: #2 Market Sizing and Segmentation
If TAM, SAM and CAGR mean nothing to you, you have a problem. Whether you are creating or disrupting a market, knowing how big it is, and what segments are most ripe for the picking are critical. – TM There is a common sin that marketers frequently commit. In their rush to build a website or create an attractive logo, they forget something very important: who is the buyer? These marketers are firing without aiming. They are being tactical and not strategic. Sometimes they are simply shooting to … [Read more...]
Startup Marketing Essentials: #1 The Four Ps
I was introduced to E. Jerome McCarthy’s four P's later in my career. I wish I had known them earlier. There is no more perfect summation of marketing. Each of the P’s is a lever at your disposal. As a startup founder or CEO, understanding the four P’s will help you know which of the four levers to pull to beat your competition. -- TM What is marketing? Ask one hundred marketers, and you are likely to get one hundred different answers. Consult the dictionary, and you find stolid definitions … [Read more...]
Is Growth Hacking a Marketing Function or a Mindset?
Around the time I was making my final edit to the chapter on building a marketing department in The Professional Marketer, I happened to be part of a number of conversations on the “growth hacker,” aka “growth hacking.” The job title “growth hacker” wasn’t in the chapter, and I wondered if it should be. For those not familiar with growth hacking, it is “a marketing technique developed by technology startups that uses creativity, analytical thinking, and social metrics to sell products and gain … [Read more...]
Six Lessons Learned Managing Agile Marketing Teams
Are you interested in adopting agile marketing, but unsure if it will fit with your organization’s culture? Or, perhaps you started and it’s not working. Having practiced agile for several years now, I can fully recommend it, but there are few gotchas to avoid. For those still not familiar with the concept of agile marketing, which is borrowed from software development, the idea is to create time-bound sets of objectives, prioritize them critically, and measure achievement frequently. Here’s … [Read more...]
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