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DifferentiationGuest BloggerMarketingProduct MarketingStartupsStrategy

You are a Startup Marketing Failure, So Now What?

Note: This is a guest post by Josh Duncan. This was originally posted on Josh’s blog A Random Jog, and has been reposted here with his permission. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information

Chris Dixon wrote a post last week titled, The default state of a startup is failure, that I think is a must read for startup marketers. Chris shares the following ideas around building something new,

On the flip side, first-time entrepreneurs often fail to realize that when you build something new, no one will care. People won’t use your product, won’t tell people about it, and almost certainly won’t pay for it. (There are exceptions – but these are as rare as winning the lottery). This doesn’t mean you’ll fail. It means you need to be smarter and harder working, and surround yourself with extraordinary people.

While aimed at entrepreneurs, I think there is an important take away here for startup marketers as well.

No one cares about your slick UX and new features. It doesn’t matter how great that data sheet is or how fancy your new logo looks. Your snazzy email marketing is going right into the spam folder and your web site traffic is a joke.

The fact that nobody cares about your product is something that you need to embrace. It needs to be something that you are not only aware of but also motivated by. You have a challenge in front of you but also the opportunity to do something really special.

Where do you start? Here’s my recommendation:

  • Add marketing from the start – building a great customer experience doesn’t happen by accident. Plan to add “remarkable-ness” at the beginning.

Once you are finished, figure out what worked and get ready to start again. It’s an iterative process that’s never done.

That’s my take on how to get started. Anything to add?

Josh

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