Matt Blumberg and Scott Dorsey
At Bolster, we decided to tackle market research by following the principles in Ash Maurya's seminal startup product book, Running Lean. We started by conducting one‐to‐one interviews with our defined audiences and, in some cases, had two team members present to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks. We first established personas for our audiences. Think about a persona as a collection of attributes (beliefs, values) that are similar within a group of people but different from other groups. In our case we came up with three different personas. Then, we conducted over 100 interviews with those personas, and we are still conducting interviews as we are writing this. The first round of interviews we called the “problem interviews” and our aim was to identify our early adopters and learn about their biggest problems and how they currently solve them. (Location 3694)
Figure out early the metrics that you will monitor and share, even if it's only a guess in the beginning. It doesn't matter, but you need a starting point because any metrics you develop can and will change over time. (Location 3739)
At Return Path, we developed a sophisticated marketing operations function that was the cornerstone of our marketing department. We had real‐time dashboards, weekly scorecards, bi‐weekly pipeline meetings, and many other forms of monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting. (Location 3746)
The three primary foundations of marketing—brand, sales, and culture—are not standalone, esoteric ideas but are actually supported by seven primary functions: Brand, Digital, Events, Content and Communications, Product Marketing, Operations, and Sales Development. (Location 3831)
The brand embodies your company values, culture, personality, go‐to‐market strategy, products, services, and more. Your brand will set you apart from competitors, it will attract customers to you, and it will help potential employees reach out to you. The brand is definitely more than a website and a logo! (Location 3845)
For a startup, digital marketing provides the greatest opportunity for building brand awareness and driving demand for your product or service. Basic digital marketing activities include creating a website, establishing an email marketing program, generating a social media presence, and running digital advertising campaigns. (Location 3910)
At the most simplistic level, there are three things you should have a plan for in order to be successful in your approach to social media. (Location 3968)