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Three years ago, Drift's founders took my chances as the first full-time marketing company. Since then, our marketing team now has more than 20 people and people from other startups sometimes consult me on how to manage marketing in a young company. Here are my top six tips:
1. Make your first hire early
People often ask me the question: what is the right time to hire the first marketing specialist? The answer is simple: as soon as possible. Because it's so hard to get attention today.
There is a belief, especially among product-oriented companies, that if you build a great product with exceptional engineering and design and really solve a problem, things will naturally take off.
And it really works for some very lucky businesses. Like Slack. They built an excellent product without investing in marketing. And it exploded. But Slack is the exception, not the rule. You have never heard of companies that did not manage to do it because … well, they did not do it.
There is so much noise and competition that you have to do marketing. And the sooner you invest in marketing, the better your chances of capturing attention, developing an audience and winning customers.
2. Do things that are not scaled
I can not say it enough. And thanks to Paul Graham, this advice is now obvious and even cliché. But many people fear things that are not going to scale because they are very busy – stress, pressure, goals, meetings – they think they do not have the time.
But in the early days, you have to answer each email. Every tweet. Every message And block the time to do it. It makes all the difference that people know that they are talking to a real human – and that you listen. Moreover, if you answer everyone, you have the right to ask for favors. For example, "Hey, while I've got, can you share this?" Or "PS: We are organizing an event tomorrow night if you are around."
Start as many conversations as you can.
3. Hire a GP
A new book, entitled Why do GPs triumph in a specialized world of David Epstein, is he not more in agreement with him – especially if you want to start your first career in marketing.
This first marketing specialist must be able to do a bit of everything: write, copy ads, create videos, organize events, co-marketing and partnerships, public relations, SEO, content marketing. You call him.
Look for hungry and beheaded people who do not have a particular "niche". Find someone who can do a lot of stuff and THINK where to find the solution. Take me for example. I was our first blogger (we then hired a writer). I was our first event manager (we then hired an event manager). And we followed this pattern up to the makeup of the team. This game book also increases the chances of finding a new, more specialized employee.
4. Say yes to everything
At first, I would say yes to all webinars, podcast interviews, conversation opportunities, Twitter discussions. No matter what it was. Just say yes until you find a good reason to say no, for example, it does not work, no one has come forward, no one has been converted, and so on.
Marketing is a game of momentum and it is the first job of hiring to get and stay on course.
5. Do not be the Cheesecake Factory
The worst thing to do is turn your marketing into Cheesecake Factory (a huge menu and all you have to do is correct). You want to be the place where you prepare great pizzas and great salads and that's it. So launch a large network early, but once you have found 1, 2 or 3 channels that seem to really work, focus on the laser and redefine the channels until they no longer work.
6. Encourage the use of models
This is the first thing I would like to focus on at the beginning. Marketers need templates so they do not have to make every mistake.
Encourage your first marketing company to find one or two peers – people who do the same thing in different businesses – and stay in touch and share best practices. This is likely to turn into a sort of therapeutic group. But it's a great way to learn (and let off steam).
So what are you waiting for? Investing in marketing, especially before you find your place in the product market, scares you. But it's critical.
Dave Gerhardt is Vice President of Marketing at Drift.
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