

Ask HN: We've launched and I've got $5-10k for marketing, advice? - jmathai

We launched a start up which we've bootstrapped so far.  I'm willing to fork out $5-10k for some sort of marketing/pr etc.  The site is PubliciTweet (reviewed here before) and we're targeting anyone who could benefit by running marketing campaigns on Twitter.<p>Would love to hear ideas, referals and what has/hasn't worked for you guys.  Actual #s are always welcome.<p>We've considered AdWords, ads in Twitter clients, etc. but haven't pulled the trigger just yet.<p>Site is at http://publicitweet.com
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charliepark
For marketing, I've found HARO (<http://www.helpareporter.com/>) to be a
really useful resource. Essentially, you have reporters who are looking for
leads / sources, about a wide range of topics. Obviously, you're going to have
a lot of "Jon & Kate + 8" and "fashion week" requests, but you occasionally
get topics that deal with your area of expertise. You can then step in, and
you get free exposure, in some fairly high-profile media outlets, and are
quoted as an expert. Even the interviews that aren't in super-high-profile
papers still give you a good chance to refine your pitch and to practice
speaking to a non-technical reporter, so you've got a more polished
presentation when it comes time to chat with the WSJ/NYT/etc.

So there's that.

BUT.

You might want to consider holding off on doing any publicity until, as zaidf
mentions, you've ensured that you have a good product/market fit. In addition
to Eric Ries and Sean Ellis, check out Steve Blank's stuff. If he were your
advisor, and he heard you were looking to spend runway money on PR, he'd be
apoplectic. He'd probably say that the best return on that money is going to
come from doing user testing (that is, interviewing people to see if you have
a product that they'd spend money on; if not, using the money to tweak the
product, and then do another round of interviews; repeat), or from using it to
extend your runway so you have longer to figure everything out before you run
out of money.

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jmathai
Thanks. I'm completely open to holding off on doing any publicity related
tasks. I wanted to make sure I didn't stay head down in engineer mode since I
feel that the main features are complete. I wanted to turn some focus onto
growing the userbase.

We've started to do some A/B testing on small features. Most users have
positive remarks and we're using Get Satisfaction to acquire more input from
them (though it's not got much traction yet).

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zaidf
If you haven't, read up on Lean Startup/Eric
Reis(<http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/>) and also Sean
Ellis(<http://startup-marketing.com/>).

I particularly like the free survey tool provided by Sean Ellis at
<http://survey.io>. Basically it gives you an idea whether you have a service
that you can charge for.

Bottomline: (1) don't assume your product will sell(be open to changing almost
every aspect of it) (2) test, modify, test more whether your product can sell
(3) don't scale marketing until you _know_ from a smaller data sample that
there is demand for your product. Simply put, don't scale till for every
dollar of marketing spend, you can make more than a dollar. Ignoring that last
piece will lead you to having no money in the bank in little time( _cough_
last bubble).

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jmathai
I've followed a bit of Eric Reis' stuff and had been adhering to it already
:). Will check out Sean Ellis. Thanks.

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crucini
Good marketing has a long ramp-up time. Ideally you would have started your
marketing program several months ago.

I think the most effective marketing communications is PR. You can find a solo
PR agent to handle your account for about $1k/month. This is the low end of
the PR profession, and you don't get world-class creativity. However, if done
right it will earn you a trickle of mentions on tech websites.

PR is like boiling water. You have to apply heat for a long time.

See PG's essay on The Submarine.

No matter which marcom route you emphasize, you will be much stronger if you
can clarify your market. Saying "anyone who could benefit from $product" is
blurry.

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aaroneous
I'd strongly suggest not spending your money on a PR firm in the bootstrap
stage. Better options are handling it yourself (great for establishing
_relationships_ with writers, bloggers, etc), or find an ambitious college
student who's studying PR/Communications and wants to get into the field.

In my experience, bringing on a PR intern was exponentially better than hiring
a firm. The interns are thrilled to have the opportunity to work on a real
project, and they'll spend hours digging, searching, reaching out and just
trying different things. Your PR firm is going to do the bare minimum to keep
you on as a client for the next month.

Of course, if you have tens of thousands/mo to retain a top-tier PR firm,
things will obviously change, but a 5-10k is not going to cover that.

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jmathai
Clickable link for the lazy :) <http://publicitweet.com>

