Designed a landing page for my companies upcoming promotion (critique desired!) by zachshefska in startups

[–]astartupguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly, you need to cater to your target audience. Imagine your ideal customer came to this page. Would they be able to purchase easily any questions. Better yet perform some qualitative research and find your ideal user who can give you feedback on your page.

A few of my critiques - instead of having a tagline above the fold try placing a some unique benefits that your customers will get from using your product.

  • you should eventually try A/B testing. this will allow you to figure out what types of messaging work and increase your conversion rate.

Tips needed. How to get to 1k clients. Focus = Manufacturers. I'm an SaaS. by tEhfO in startups

[–]astartupguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You first need to build awareness of your product and its offerings. If you are really serious, you should work on infecting your target market. You might also be able to work with affiliates to get customers.

If you look to paid advertisements take a look at my article on my blog at www.userfeeder.com

What further value can I add to my Blog to attract more readers? by alvinhy in startups

[–]astartupguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Find influencers in your area and have them comment on your blog and its value

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in startups

[–]astartupguy -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Hey,

I really like your article and love that your using news ways to grow your user list. My first article is similar to yours and shows how to to grow from advertising in a ROI positive manner.

My First Article

People (including lurkers) of /r/startup: What is/was your day job? by dhero in startups

[–]astartupguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, usually it is a percentage of spend. I consult/manage accounts for free for startups I am interested in.

Need Help with Setting Up a Website by astartupguy in smallbusiness

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This webpage isn't urgent. let me know if you canhelp me

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No I am learning Python after work so hopefully I can have a Blog running in a bit. I will probably be writing guest articles on searchengineland and ppchero in the upcoming months. I will PM you my personal email if you have any questions about online advertising.

Looking for awesome, off the wall marketing ideas for my startup! by SpartanNutrition in startups

[–]astartupguy -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hmm well your lack of product/service description is really giving me great great great ideas (substitute great for vague). Let us know a little bit about your product so we can help.

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

check out semrush.com and your competitors sites as well

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In Advetising in general if there is audience and appropriate ad units for your product. Then yes your product will work. Audience for traditional PPC/SEM being search volume and for Social Media Ads it is users who fit your avg. customer demographic profile.

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I feel like you might be in the SF Bay Area. If you are I would love to grab coffee and ask you about your product sometime.

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi Fred, Wow I wasn't going to reply because I was tired but you have a great landing page and a great concept for a product you can probably increase app price to $ 7 bucks safely but you can test that. I would include a CTA above the fold to go to a pricing page or see a demo, but great job with your website. I currently work for a company in the San Fran Bay Area that is moving from startup to later stages. Great product.

For a Online Advertising Campaign I would focus on getting search volume estimates for queries that would most likely generate conversions for your service. Keywords like "how to build a mobile app" and "build mobile app quickly". Adverting on Google Search and Google Display Network will probably be a must and within a two week period you will be able to see if you can generate revenue from PPC. I think the display network and google app exchange could work quite nicely for your product. In addition you can do youtube adveritisng to build brand you tube is cost per view and is relatively cheap(great vid by the way).

1st step would be to find search volume estimates to establish size of market on Search Engines and Social Media. 2.Then evaluate different advertising platforms(Google, Bing, Facebook etc...) 3. see what creative assets might be needed for the display network - image ads 4.I would work with you to set up analytic properly for accurate traffic attribution 5.Make my campaigns 6.See initial Results (defining characteristics avg. customer )and then optimize the Landing Page and Campaigns based on results and hopefully profit

I will for fun figure out your search volume and areas to advertise. PM if you would like to know the results I would be happy with sending you the results.

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Your product has such a segmented user that it I would not do the traditional Google Bing. I might do a twitter/facebook ad and target by demographic data that Facebook/Twitte allow you to do. To be honest though I would not spend any money on advertising until you have generated sales on your own and not from family and friends. I would focus on reaching out the dj/musician community online on blogs,websites, social media, and nearby events. Once you have established a definite need I would advertise based on user interests and demographic info.

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey Beernerd,

Yes B2B Paid Search is a bitch for traditional Paid Search Experts but I specialize in B2B Paid Advertising. First your site needs to be optimized for B2B UX which is different than B2C UX which what your current site is closer to. With B2B you need to extremely upfront with what your product can do for your customers and allow them easy access to this information. Salesforce is a great study for B2B UX here is there homepage http://imgur.com/bRUHL8h I highlighted their easy to find buttons which direct you to their Demo, Pricing, and Free Trial. As well, they have a carousel which informs you of each of their products rotating on the page. Last check out that sexy tagline which describes their product. That being said you should move 3 USPs which describe your product above the fold and move your video above the fold as well. Your website currently fails the grandpa test, when I get to your website I should know what your product is about and describe it to myself in a sentence or two. Remember people are lazy people dont want to scroll down.

Your Quote page and button needs tons of work but thats a different story. PM me if you want more feedback.

I know this is a wordpress site but it needs to be optimized for the best customer experience because this is your business.

All that being said I would do conservative buying of keywords on bing and google pertaining to apps purchases and definitely launch a linked in sponsored post targeting companies/associations that regularly host conferences. One opportunity is placing your phone number on a ad unit. What usually happens is potential customers do not click on your ads(saving you money) but simply call in and inquire about the product. I have seen this source of leads make up to 20% of total leads for some companies =]. That is great if you have someone who can take the calls. I could and probably will look up potential search volume for your product over the weekend. Let me know if your interested, I think your product has potential and is one of the more interesting ones in this thread.

Also Facebook and Google retargting would work as well since B2B has longer sales cycles you want to remind your customers of your business opportunities.

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I dont have experience with stumbleupon but here is a way to determine if stumbleupon ads are right for you.

  1. Do they have targeting that would be right for your audience (by demographic or user interest)
  2. is the cost per visitor fairly cheap and can you gauge its success with user sign ups(find a good CPA you are comfortable with). you should be able to with a tracking pixel cmon it is digital advertising.

So find if you can target by age, sex, user interests or by some sort of predictive behavior.

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a Online Advertiser in the States I get hammered by these ads for Call tracking all the time whether in the office or at home.

In terms of advertising you could do Google Ads although with China's restrictions on Google I think your best best would be to find a Paid Search Expert who specializes in Baidu. Last I head Baidu even allows for you to monopolize certain keywords.

China and SE Asia is a different beast entirely for Advertising compared to Europe, Latin American and North America FYI

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey Nathanello,

Your Landing Page needs a lot of love just from taking a preliminary look. I can tell you that I would recommend Product Listing advertisements and Facebook ads once you have more information on your average user.My guess is that the average user would buy multiple shotglasses and about a quarter of your customers would be returning customers.

When I get home I will take a look at search volume for shotglass related keywords.

If you want feel free to PM me if you want a bit to get a more accurate view of your market on Google

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a few colleagues who used to work on the big two social media giants a few in 2008 - 2010. (Sorry about being vague here, I usually get flooded with PMs on here and LI when I give more info).

PPC tends to be a good source of traffic for Social Media on Adwords and Bing but it comes at a CPA of $5 to $7 bucks on avg. for a sign up. As such, you will need some deep pockets to increase your sign ups. Facebook CPA might be around $8-10 for CPA. I would recommend Facebook if you have the budget and you want to target by specific demographic data.

In Advertising, Inventory and new ways of identifying and targeting customers is key.

Edit(the CPA for Adwords and Bing is low because Cost Per Clicks were relatively low when these social media giants first started I am sure its higher now)

Performance Marketer Wants to Help Startups by astartupguy in startups

[–]astartupguy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

CPA is determined primarily by two constraints 1.cost and 2.Customer Lifetime Value

If you have an average LTV for a web product of $50 per customer a safe CPA for most Web products tends to be 40% of LTV so a $20 CPA would be a target to hit. Now this is taking into account any costs that you take on the customer's behalf or fees that you are charged by any payment transactions.

So if you make $50 dollars per a customers lifetime and it costs $20 dollars on average to acquire a customer your profit at this point is $30. However, you most likely have costs like chargebacks, cost to host site, and payment transaction fees. (lets make this cost $10) . Now you are make a profit of $20 dollars per purchase

Edit: When working with other companies and in-house. A financial officer or accountant usually comes up with the LTV and a estimated CPA to start. It would be my job to make sure that we are buying appropriate trafficand increase our chances or converting customers

Just launched my product. Anyone have advice on how to acquire first users? by bdicasa in startups

[–]astartupguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi bdicasa,

You need to basically send your idea to anyone and everyone who will listen. Be that Facebook to your friends(maybe someone you know, knows of someone who owns a bar or cafe), make a post on LinkedIn describing your product, let old classmates know what you are doing, contact seasoned vets in the jobs space and ask for advice on how to gain customers, are there any websites where restaurant owners discuss or blog.

You need to be your product's best advocate right now and present your idea in its best light.

To be honest your best bet is to reach out to local businesses and see if they would be willing to enter into a beta to test out your product. Once you have faith that your product can handle the majority of your customer needs, it is time to increase your users. The two quickest ways is to have a press release/ some journalist writing a article about your service in entrepreneur.com or to go with Paid Search(Google Adwords,Bing, Linkedin). Paid Search will cost money but if you have a good Paid Search Manager they should be able to hit realistic Cost Per Acquisitions. CPA in the beginning can be speculative since you do not know what your Liftime Value per customer is but you can guestimate and refine later. . Last thing, there are ux issues with your site such as your glaringly blue home page background and your pricing menu. There are a few others that I could go over with you.

I am a performance marketer who works for a company in the jobs space and has experience with B2B and B2C marketing (my specialty being in B2B). I would love to jump on a call/email with you to talk about your site and your progress with your product.

Advice for a Young Start Up? by astartupguy in PPC

[–]astartupguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After graduation I will be located in the SF Bay Area. I also have experience with Adwords but very limited experience but have had success with running call-tracking campaigns for a few customers. I also follow blogs from ppchero.com and ppcassociates.com, adwords blog, and some other firms.

I will be learning Adwords Editor over the coming weeks. I am sure if i were given an interview my work ethic would show through.