

Would you pay for startup marketing software? - htss2013

I&#x27;m an online marketer by trade with lots of experience working with startups. I&#x27;m considering making software that would automate a lot of what I do.<p>Would you pay for marketing software in addition to, or instead of, hiring a human marketer?
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reeses
One thing that human marketers did for us was to establish a plan for
tradeshows, publications, advertisements, and ultimately launches.

My cofounder and I had tension related to whether we should continue to polish
or whether we should shove the fledgling application out into the wild. The
marketers helped balance that with a roadmap based on trade shows and
purchasing scenarios.

It is of course helpful when the marketing firm is very well connected, but we
would not have had any concerns if we had one marketing expert with technical
leverage.

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htss2013
If you don't mind me asking, how did you find those human markters? It's my
impression that startups have a difficult time hiring FTE markters, and so
they either go without or hire agencies.

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reeses
We found an 'agency' that was really one guy with _awesome_ connections to
designers, trade show staff (so we ended up at least 'Bronze' sponsors to
every show with almost no outlay), where to spend money on presence, and a
really good sense of ability when it came to young talent.

He projected costs on a monthly basis, and we had the ability to say whether
we were OK with the amount or whether we needed him to find lower-cost
options.

We were pretty well capitalized (my co-founder and I are old :-)) but we paid
between $8k and $25k/month, most of the high-end occurring when we were
hitting competitive trade shows for premium placement. Even then, he was smart
about finding spaces that were on an arterial aisle leading to refreshments
and surrounded either by totally JV firms or large constructs that had a
history of understaffing (so we would catch their overflow).

Edit: Just to reinforce my original comment, if we had a tool that could help
this guy be superman and trim our costs even further, we would be all over it.

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mindcrime
Probably not, since - as a startup - we don't yet know _how_ we need to market
our product(s).

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htss2013
But what if the software helped you figure that out?

I'm not talking about current marketing software that mainly automates very
specific marketing functions like email, social media, PPC management, etc.

I'm talking more about software that would help you build a marketing strategy
road map and track what's working and what's not, and then how to adapt.

