Thread by @paraschopra

1/n MARKETING.

For products past market-product fit, marketing (promotion) becomes a barrier to growth. Why do so many founders say they struggle with marketing?

What if I told you there's a framework to approach marketing? Bookmark this thread because that's what it's about.

2/n If you ask most people to define marketing, they’d go with definitions like “to inform about the product”, “to create brand awareness” or “to spread the word”.

All these definitions are wrong because of the same reason: they serve company’s goals, not customers’.

3/n This error - mind projection fallacy - is common and hard to cure

I’ve written about how it affects entrepreneurs when they
- design products invertedpassion.com/why-people-jum…
- get excited about new technology invertedpassion.com/nobody-likes-u…
- seek new startup ideas invertedpassion.com/to-get-good-st…

4/ In this thread, I’ll talk the same error from the marketing standpoint and provide a framework to help design marketing campaigns that don’t fail miserably.

(Whether they’re effective or not depends on creativity. Frameworks are inert. Their application is everything)

5/ If I were to compress my startup advice in <1 tweet, it'll be:

People are busy with their lives. They don’t care that you’re passionate about X. They’ll start caring if your passion makes them passionate about their goals.

(X=your idea, product, ad, blog post, video, etc.)

6/ How do some marketing campaigns manage to get spread while word of mouth while others struggle to even get noticed?

To answer that, first, answer another question: How many ads do you remember seeing yesterday?

7/ Seriously, close your eyes for 30 seconds and recall all the ads (online or offline) you saw yesterday. Did that? Promise?

Good.

8/ Even though you likely saw 100s of ads (on TV, billboards, online, logos), if you’re like most people, you wouldn’t be able to recall more than a few. (I’m able to recall exactly zero ads from yesterday, and yes, I closed my eyes too) sjinsights.net/2014/09/29/new…

9/ The reason for this inability to recall ads is because: a) consumers are bombarded with ads; b) marketers are not willing to accept this reality. Most marketers underestimate the extent of competition for consumers’ attention.

10/ We’re hungover from pre-Internet days because we assume that when the ad is seen by the consumer, it registers in her mind.

The world is different now. Marketers need to understand that their main competition is not other ads, but Twitter, Facebook, Netflix and Youtube.

11/ So given how busy consumers' lives are, it' shouldn't be a surprise that cold emails don't get replies, exhibitions don't work, Adwords spend increases.

12/ So, what to do?

Lo and behold, let me present you the MER framework.

M=Motivations (of consumers), E=Emotions (you need to deliver), R=(Need for) Repetition.

13/ THE MOTIVATION PART

Consumers at different stages have different motivations / goals.

Most consumers in target market are either uninterested at the time they see the ad or only passively looking. The same ad cannot talk to consumers at different stages of purchase journey

14/ These are all the different stages and respective motivations

Common error: you informing them when they want to be intrigued and you selling them features when they already know about features (but not convinced).

You need to deliver messages that answer their motivations

15/ THE EMOTION PART.

The second step to being a good marketer is to admit that consumers are busily happy with their lives and your marketing messages compete for the same emotions that they can get from elsewhere.

Intellect responds to emotions (not vice versa).

16/ Understand that when you send them a blog post, a TV ad, or display at an exhibition, you're competing with their Instagram timeline.

Challenge of crafting good marketing is to identify and serve them the right emotion at the right time and do it much better than anyone else

17/ It also helps to understand that most marketing messages serve not to attract potential customers towards your products but to ensure your competitors don’t snatch them away with their ads.

The function of most advertising is to prevent sale loss (and not sales)

18/ THE REPETITION PART

The third step to being a good marketer is that memories fade, life gets in and consumers need to be reminded again and again how the goals they’re motivated to pursue and emotions they seek will be delivered to them by you.

19/ Most of the target customers are NOT passive or actively looking, so most of your ads will not give any immediate sales.

But you want to ensure that you have a high recall when an event in your customer’s life triggers them into first passive and then active looking mode

20/ Investing in making systems and campaigns for repetition and follow-ups is difficult because marketers live and breathe in their campaigns.

The challenge of the marketer then is to really live the consumer’s life. (And that’s much much harder than it sounds)

21/ To keep the memory refreshed, you need to pursue the consumers on all channels they hang out on.

The multitude of marketing channels required to create awareness and recall is why marketing easily takes up >50% of expenses for a growing startup tomtunguz.com/saas-marketing…

22/ Some of my lessons from scaling marketing at @wingify

What went well:
- our case studies grabbed attention
- we were able to get high search ranking (top 5 results) on Google
- what helps in closing: social proof of 5000+ customers, trust building inside sales process

23/ What didn't go well:

- we measured ROI for conferences from leads (and not from a brand building)
- We didn’t scale our Adwords spend
- We created feature-laden, informative ads for display ads
- We underinvested in getting press.

24/ That’s all for this thread. I hope this framework can help you think clearly what you should be coming up with when anyone asks you about your marketing strategy.

More details on MER framework: invertedpassion.com/mer-framework-…

RT for your marketing friends on twitter :)