Just added a new startup marketing job on the shiny new StartupMarketingJobs.com site:

Senior Manager, Acquisition Marketing – Woburn, MA

Job Summary

ByAllAccounts provides financial data aggregation software and services to the financial back-office market. This is an exciting time for the company as we are bringing new technology to the financial services market, our products are proven, our client list expanding, and we are growing!

We are looking for a seasoned Senior Manager, Acquisition Marketing, who will thrive in a fast-growing technology organization.

Reporting to the Vice President, Marketing, the Senior Manager, Acquisition Marketing will drive new business lead acquisition and nurturing by optimizing an inbound marketing process. The ideal candidate will be technology savvy, have deep experience in digital marketing, and be comfortable analyzing data to solve marketing problems. S/he will have strong marketing operations ability and be adept in the day-to-day running of digital marketing processes and projects.

Responsibilities:

• Create campaigns using marketing automation software to generate sufficient qualification-ready leads to reach monthly pipeline creation targets
• Develop and execute a website strategy to maximize lead engagement and conversion through the ByAllAccounts’ website
• Drive our digital and direct response advertising initiatives (media and messaging)
• Develop, manage, implement and measure message /campaign testing
• Troubleshoot and manage the systems required for lead acquisition and nurturing
• Work directly with partners to design and execute innovative joint programs that engage partners’ customers and drive new business
• Manage the growth of byallaccounts.com website, including site navigation and development to increase user engagement. Includes ByAllAccounts’ online partner portal.
• Collaborate with Director of Sales on tracking and reporting of goals and objectives, forecasts, key metrics and definitions of success.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelors’ degree or equivalent
• 6+ years of successful experience in acquisition marketing
• 2+ year hands-on experience with e-commerce marketing, with deep expertise acquiring customers through digital channels
• 1+ year hands-on experience using a marketing automation platform to build and execute lead nurturing programs: Marketo preferred. Eloqua and other platforms will be considered.
• Prior channel marketing experience in a B2B environment, preferably in a small company
• Ability to plan and execute SEM and SEO campaigns preferred
• Prior experience developing and using thought leadership content to drive acquisition marketing
• Demonstrated highly-developed communication skills, verbal and written
• Analytical, curious and a strong mix of left and right brain, and a passion for data driven marketing
• Proven track record of success in driving measured Marketing programs and tracking
• Solid organizational skills and ability to meet tight deadlines in an environment of competing priorities
• Experience analyzing and reporting on campaign effectiveness
• Strategic thinker with hands on experience and solid attention to detail
• Entrepreneurial spirit coupled with an intellectual curiosity and drive.

Candidates will be required to pass criminal background and credit checks before hiring, as well as periodically thereafter and must have permanent U.S. work authorization to be considered.

Apply on their web site, or send me your info, and I’ll make sure it gets to the right person. nathan dot burke at gmail dot com.

Just got an email from a Boston-area startup looking for a channel marketing manager, and posted it on the brand new (and likely soon to be neglected) startupmarketingjobs.com. But since the site is less than 10 minutes old, I thought posting it here might be a better idea. I’m not going to give up the name of the company, but can say that the person in charge is awesome to work with, and it will be a lot of fun. Trust me on that.

The details:

Channel Marketing Manager – Boston

Hot start-up in Boston’s North End is hiring a Channel Marketing Manager. In this role, you will have the opportunity to be strategic, creative and client-facing, while embracing the roll-up-your-sleeves goodness of a rapidly growing, well-funded start-up company. You’ll have ownership for our affiliate program, which boasts over 100 client partners to-date, and drives revenue for the company by engaging partners to sell our service to their customers. Your role is an exciting blend of channel strategy, relationship management and program execution. You may be coming up with a new idea for a partner campaign one minute and then designing a landing page or trade show layout the next. Each day brings new challenges and you need to be up for the challenge of  juggling a wide variety of priorities while managing your deadlines and getting it done.  Your ability to build strong relationships with partners, convey your ideas, build a plan and execute will make you successful, along with a healthy dose of ambition, project management expertise and dev/design chops.

As Channel Marketing Manager, you will:

• Lead all affiliate marketing initiatives for the company
• Drive revenue and assets under management by optimizing partnerships and defining creative ways for partners to sell our service
• Project manage a wide variety of programs in order to meet aggressive business goals
• Design and develop partner marketing materials including print collateral, online marketing assets, webinars, videos, live events including seminars and large-scale tradeshows, videos and much more
• Lead all partner relationships and communications including kick-off calls, regular email communications and ongoing meetings
• Work closely with internal sales team on all new partnerships and provide regular communications to sales to keep them up-to-date
• Influence internal resources to get programs executed in an efficient way while delivering high-quality work
• Plan and manage small and large-scale partner events including webinars, live seminars and tradeshows
• Juggle a significant number of tasks at one time with tremendous organization, focus, positive energy and flawless attention to detail
• Execute a wide variety of projects in support of affiliate partnerships, including: copywriting, online and offline design, collateral production and customization, report generation, portal management and whatever else comes your way

If you have the following skills, we want you:

• 5+ years online marketing, integrated marketing, channel marketing experience
• Bachelor’s degree/MBA preferred
• Experience working with clients, building partnerships and operating in a client-facing role
• Proficiency in writing promotional copy
• Strong event planning expertise and knowledge of trade show logistics
• Organizational skills and ability to multitask with great attention to quality and detail
• Ability to create strong relationships, lead and influence others to get the job done
• Strong design skills with ability to execute design vision
• Ambitious and motivated to deliver great work, help our clients and build a successful company
• Data-driven marketer who knows how to test and measure
• Articulate communicator who can professionally represent our company and who knows how to listen to what the customer needs and then communicate the plan to get it done
• Creative thinker who can build channel programs and strategic offers while being execution-focused, managing deadlines and making it happen
• Knowledge of HTML required
• Experience using Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign) required
• Video editing experience a plus (Final Cut, iMovie, Screenflow)
• Design production experience (trade show booth graphics, online banners, print collateral) required
• Knowledge of content management systems and CRMs helpful

Send your info to me at nathan dot burke at gmail dot com, and I’ll forward it on to the right person.

It’s rare that I’ll get an email that so perfectly shows how NOT to attract a prospect. But this morning I received an email from an SEO company:

Dear Sir,

We are writing this letter to change your website design to a new look as its very old one and layers of conflicting technology that inhibits the site speed and ability to make required updates and outdated look and navigation interface, which does not properly communicate to your target audience. The new site will incorporate with several accessibility considerations and will support multiple languages for your targeted International regions, including English, French, German, and Spanish.

When to Redesign Your Website

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to how often you should redesign your website. HubSpot did some research and published that 39% of marketers feel that a company should redesign their website every 13-24 months. They also found that another 29% of marketers feel that a website should be redesigned every 25-36 months. So to sum it up, a large percent of marketers (68%) feel that a website should be redesigned every 1-3 years.

Why Redesign Your Website

There are many reasons why companies want to redesign their website. Some of the more popular reasons are as follows:

* If you want a website that is more user friendly

* If you want to look more professional

* If you want to stay in check with their competitors

* If you want to improve branding or positioning

* If you want more freedom to customize their website without all the hassle

* If you want to better optimize for lead generation or sales

If you are ready to talk and to know more then we are here to help you now and ready to take care of your problem and Question…

Let’s start with the first sentence:

We are writing this letter to change your website design to a new look as its very old one and layers of conflicting technology that inhibits the site speed and ability to make required updates and outdated look and navigation interface, which does not properly communicate to your target audience.

So they’re telling me that my web site stinks, the design is “very old”, it is far too slow, I can’t make updates to it, and it doesn’t properly communicate to my target audience. Interesting way to start a conversation via unsolicited email.

Moving on:

The new site will incorporate with several accessibility considerations and will support multiple languages for your targeted International regions, including English, French, German, and Spanish.

If the email is an example of this company’s mastery of the English language, I have very little confidence in their ability to translate copy into multiple languages.

I kind of loved the audacity of a company that pitches SEO services by insulting their potential customers using broken English, so I had to check out their website. It stands to reason that their site would be:

• Beautifully designed and polished
• Incredibly fast
• Easy to navigate
• Grammar and spelling error free

And here’s what it looks like:

Clicking on the above image will show you that their banner image is a woman pointing to a Google SERP for the keyphrase “SEO Company India” with this site being the top result. Of course, a quick search shows that the site in question isn’t even in the top 100 results.

The Takeaways

1. Don’t spam potential customers with an insulting message
2. Don’t offer translation services in broken English
3. Don’t have a terribly slow web site with multiple grammatical errors and false rankings claims if you hope to win business

This morning I am glued to my monitor, tracking the news coverage and tweeting, +1ing, LinkedIn-ing, facebooking, and whatever -ing you can think of related to a press day. The reason? At CloudLock, we just announced the closing of our Series B Funding Round.

Since much of what happens behind the scenes is a mystery (maybe that’s making this sound too interesting), I thought I’d take the time to outline what happens up t0 and after the release of a funding round.

March 16th – Come up with first draft of press release. The draft includes all the major details of the round, but needs quotes from both investors. The release is shared with all parties involved.

March 19th – All quotes have been given and approved. Aside from some minor tweaks, the release is good to go, so we hand it over to our PR firm to start doing outreach.

March 20th – After pitching to a few media outlets, interest is starting to come in and coverage is secured. Over the next few days, our CEO does interviews with 7 publications.

March 26th – Final interview done. Articles are written, waiting to be published on the 27th at 9:00 AM.

March 27th – Press time. I have my press hat ready and am tracking coverage and prepping our email newsletter to go out with the news as the main topic.

8:21 AM- TechCrunch article hits: CloudLock Raises $8.7M To Help Secure Enterprise Data In The Public Cloud

8:37 AM- BostInnovation article hits: CloudLock Raises $8.7M Series B to Grow Cloud Security Business in Waltham

9:00 AM – I post on the CloudLock blog: Expanding to Keep Up with Customer Demand or: Closing Our Series B Funding

9:00 AM – Xconomy article hits: CloudLock Nabs $8.7M for Cloud Security Tech

9:00 AM – Boston Business Journal article hits: A Year After Pivoting to Data Security, CloudLock Finds $8.7M in VC

9:45 AM – Boston Globe article hits: CloudLock closes $8.7m in Series B funding

10:00 AM – Talkin’ Cloud article hits: Data Security Firm CloudLock Raises $8.7 Million in Funding

10:13 AM – PEHUB article hits: CloudLock Calls Up $8.7M

10:40 AM – MassHighTech article hits: Cloud Software Company Locks in $8.7M in Funding

11:17 AM – VentureWire mention on Wall Street Journal

11:28 AM – VentureFizz article hits: CloudLock raises $8.7M in funding

11:35 AM – Fortune mention

12:01 PM – Boston Herald article: Waltham’s CloudLock raises $8.7M

1:00 PM – Newsletter scheduled to go out

So far there have been hundreds of mentions on twitter, mostly linking to the articles linked above.

What’s the Point?

Good question.

1. Awareness – It may be hard to believe, but CloudLock is not yet a household name. And a funding event is a great way to garner top-tier coverage (see above), which in turn garners eyeballs. Although we may not see any direct sales as a result of the funding event today (ie: “Hey, these guys just raised money. I should buy their product immediately!!”), there will be people that hear about us for the first time as a result. And only people that have heard of you will buy your product.
2. Relationships – Those that decided to cover the funding event now know about us and what we do. And although some won’t care, others will be much more willing to talk to us the next time we have news.
3. Talent – One of the main points of doing the round is growing our company. That means we need to attract talent, and many of the articles above talk about our focus on expanding our team. In a tough talent market, getting your name out in publications where your target employees spend their time is something money can’t buy (other than buying a spot on a job board. not the same).

I’ll update with stats when the storm is over.

My monthly column for VentureFizz is back. This month, I take a first look at peddl, an MIT Media Lab startup. From the post:

When it comes to buying and selling secondhand things, there have been few technological innovations after the garage sale and Craig’s List. But a new startup called peddl is using its MIT Media Lab brainpower to use a combination of a mobile app, hyperlocal, and new market models to make it easier to broadcast the idea that “I have this” and “I want this” to prospective local buyers and sellers.

The story starts at the MIT Media Lab, where Tony DeVincenzi, a creative director, Matthew Blackshaw, a Yale graduate and former Microsoft employee, and Dávid Lakatos, a Hungarian national and particle physicist work on experimental computer interaction projects. They came up with an idea 6 months ago to come up with a software application that could have a large outreach and would solve a problem that many people have: easily buying and selling secondhand things to people around us, with “people around us” meaning hyperlocal.

For the full article, see “First Look: peddl”

Just saw this awesome post from one of my favorite Boston-area marketing guys, Mike Troiano on OnStartups. In the post, entitled “Startup Branding: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs“, Mike answers the following:

1. What does startup branding really mean for an early-stage company? Is it just picking a name and a logo?
2. Any favorite startup examples that they think are particularly clueful about brand and drawing out the right emotional response?
3. Speaking of names, how do I pick a great name for my startup? Does it really matter all that much?
4. What about logos? Can I just hack something together? Use a crowdsourcing service like 99Designs? Or is that a waste of time?
5. Any tips on where to find a great freelance designer for a startup logo? And, what would you consider reasonably priced?
6. How do I decide what category my startup falls into? Is it better to find an existing category, or blaze the trail of a new one?
7. How much does good branding matter when trying to raise capital? Is smart money really fooled by that kind of this? Will I look foolish for having invested in brandinged in one?

Awesome article, with questions that every startup out there has to answer.

I suppose the question I asked in the title of this article is rhetorical, as it’s pretty easy to see my opinion. Pawngo, a Denver-based “online pawn shop” decided that the best way to get publicity was to pull the following stunt:

Via barstoolsports.com:

What in the f#$% is this?   Some company called Pawngo dropping 900 lbs (literally) of Butterfingers in Copley Square today making fun of Wes Welker?    Do they think that’s funny?     I mean great publicity stunt.  Now everybody in New England hates your ass and hopes you die.   Bravo.   Bravo.    Oh by the way here is Pawngo’s contact info….

First, the idea that any attention is good attention is just wrong. And while plenty of angry New England Patriots fans will talk about this, it will only lead to negative associations with the brand.

Secondly, this is a Denver-based pawn shop thanking a New England receiver for not catching a pass. Logical. Apparently these Denver fans were so hurt from getting annihilated by the Patriots that they had to cheer on the Giants, and when the Patriots lost, the Pawngo guys couldn’t resist rubbing it in.

But let’s put the football aspect of this aside for a second.

Is attention everything? Any time you see a stunt like this, people will comment about the genius of the PR/Marketing tactic. Think of how many people will visit the Pawngo site because of their classless actions. And out of the thousands that will visit, some will sign up and will pawn their junk, which will justify the butterfinger campaign.

So is it worth it? Should you make 14 and a half million people hate you in order to get attention? Do the ends justify the means?

I have my opinion. What’s yours?

Startup Marketing: The Land of Carnies and Rubes

As a marketer at a startup, I am always looking for ways to get our product in front of potential customers in a way that is repeatable, not annoying, scalable, and affordable. Along the way I’ve tried just about every kind of advertising, lead generation program, lead guarantee whitepaper syndication, webinar…..the list goes on. Because of that, I’ve found several insanely outdated, arcane practices that are just accepted by marketers. I hate that.

So this list includes things that need to die in startup marketing:

1. Lead Guarantee Programs That Refuse To Screen Leads Based On Qualifying Questions – Allow me to explain. I’ve done several lead guarantee programs with large technology vendors, and they typically will syndicate a whitepaper across their network, require a registration form, and will then give me the info from the registration forms. Many of them will allow us to add a qualifying question (in our case: “Do You Use Google Apps at Your Company?”). But rather than just paying for those leads that answer in the affirmative (which makes them qualified), some vendors make you pay regardless of the answer. They’re basically making you pay for leads that – by definition – are not what you want.This doesn’t apply to all lead generation vendors, as I’ve worked with a few that will only count those leads that pass qualification criteria. Just recently a large vendor pitched me on a program to get our whitepaper in front of our target market and the price was decent. I said “I only pay for the leads that answer yes to my qualification question.” There was a long pause on the line and I was told this is impossible. Okay. That’s fine. We can’t work together.
2. Overused Buzzwords and Meaningless Terms – “The leading provider of”, “a one-stop-shop for”, “disruptive PAAS as a service”, the list goes on. You’re not being paid by the word, and no one has ever bought a startup’s product based on the verbosity of its website.
3. Ridiculous Costs At trade shows – The cost of renting a chair at a major tradeshow? $150. The cost of buying that same chair? $100. It’s amazing how we just expect to be extorted at trade shows when we’ve already paid $10K to buy a booth. When renting a piece of equipment for 2 days costs more than buying, we have to ask why. This system is broken.
4. Unacceptable Minimums – This might come off as a whine, but as a startup, you have to account for every marketing dollar spent. Because of that, it’s nearly impossible to justify a gigantic spend the first time working with a vendor. Back to the lead guarantee example: jumping into a $30,000 program to deliver qualified leads just isn’t doable. And when I ask to do a $1,000 test spend, I’m told it isn’t worth the vendor’s time. To me, that’s a good way for a vendor to say they don’t stand behind their product. If you won’t do a small program where the program’s success would result in a large spend, you have no confidence that you can deliver what you’re selling.
5. The Kick-Back Threshold - My hand is shaking trying to write this. A while back I worked with a company that wanted to host our whitepapers, and deliver us 100 leads that sign up and read our whitepaper. Fine. As part of the contract, we specified that leads have to answer affirmatively on a qualifying question, and they had to be from companies with 500 or more employees. Sounds like a plan.When they started sending me a weekly spreadsheet with those that have signed up and read our stuff, I noticed something: 99% of the leads were garbage. A simple Google search showed that these leads were from either very small companies, companies that didn’t exist, or “ABC123″. Every week I’d send the garbage back, and the vendor was getting angry at me! They told me “Normally we have a 10% kick back threshold but we value your business so we will take these out.”

   A kickback threshold is the vendors way of saying “We know that at least 10% of the leads we send you are garbage. That’s not in your contract. In fact, we told you we’d only charge you for qualified leads. But because you aren’t blindly accepting these obviously worthless leads, I wanted to let you know that everyone else automatically assumes that 10% will be garbage. We’re really annoyed that you’re calling us on our bullshit, and just want you to know that you’re being a real pain in the ass by asking for what you paid for and not wanting to pay for junk.”

   To say I was steaming mad would be an understatement. It’s amazing to me that there are so many built-in processes to rip people off, and they’re not even questioned!

Okay, rant over. Feel free to add your own.

I got an email yesterday about an upcoming startup tech talent fair. The info:

Looking for a Boston-area Startup Job?

If you’d like to talk with Boston-area startups looking to hire, this event may be good for you.

One Email Tip

Quick question: When is this event?

Looking at the email I received, you wouldn’t know. If you’re trying to get companies to sponsor your event, it helps to tell them when the event is taking place. While that information is available by clicking on the registration link, why should I have to go to your site to find out the date of the event? Additionally, the copy tells me that I can register at the provided link. I don’t want to register since I don’t know when the event is.

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Marketo’s user community, and the company has created a full week of activities and prizes to celebrate. I think there are a few takeaways to note around building a community, becoming a central hub of helpful information, and motivating users to promote your brand.

The Marketo Community

In case you’re not familiar with Marketo, it is a company and product focused on marketing automation, or as Marketo refers to itself “Revenue Performance Management.” Basically it is web-based software that manages a lead from anonymous visitor throughout the entire sales and marketing process (registration, email nurturing, sync with CRM systems, workflows, etc.). If you’re a marketing professional for a B2B company that does lead acquisition online, you’ve likely used a combination of tools or a Marketo competitor to do the same tasks.

The Marketo Community was launched last year, and the goals were:

“The online Marketo Community was created for customers and partners to collaborate with each other, learn best practices, share tips and tricks, and forge new relationships,” said Heather Watkins, senior manager of customer communities and programs at Marketo. “We could never have predicted the community’s first-year growth would keep pace with Marketo’s own terrific numbers. Through the Marketo Community, businesses of all sizes learn from one another and help us continue to innovate the Marketo product suite.”

Let’s unwrap that from a couple of different perspectives:

• As a marketer - The community helps answer questions about using the Marketo software and gives marketers the opportunity to exchange ideas about topics broader than simply using the software.
• From Marketo’s Perspective – The community lets users find help in a self-service model rather than simply contacting support, gathers feedback for their product roadmap, and creates loyalty through creating experts on their own community site. Brilliant.

Becoming A Central Hub of Helpful Information

A proponent of the “create gobs of useful content” inbound marketing strategy, Marketo is constantly adding content to their site. And rather than simply creating content that asks the questions that their software answers, Marketo spends a good deal of time on content that doesn’t just explicitly plug their product. For instance, they do studies on email deliverability rates. Sure, that’s tangentially relevant to their product, but it’s not a shameless plug. Instead, it gives data to a question that every marketer wonders “Are my emails getting to my leads?”.

Using the community site, Marketo is then able to quickly disseminate their content to those members that are looking for the data. Rather than looking around for information in many locations, community users simply log in, and the discussion forums and articles are available in one spot.

I think this is a huge takeaway for marketers in early stage and emerging companies: don’t just create content focused on the immediate sale. Think of your own buying behavior. If you’re going to buy a big ticket item, you’ll probably spend some time looking around and doing research. In this phase, you’re probably not ready for the hard sale yet, but you’d definitely be willing to look at content that answers the questions you have that are related to the problem you’re trying to solve.

In the Marketo example, they’re trying to build content for marketers rather than building only content for marketers looking for marketing automation software. Sure, they have that. But they understand that not everyone is ready to buy this second. Because of that, they’re willing to give you information you can use that second, and maybe you’ll come back over and over again. And maybe you’ll remember them when you’re actually looking to buy.

Motivating Users to Promote Your Brand

This is the Holy Grail of Marketing: getting your customers/users to promote your brand for you. And it is so hard to do and so easy to seem manipulative and inauthentic. In fact, the only real way to do it is by creating something they want to share with others.

In general, Marketo has done this by creating content worth sharing and giving users motivation to do so. For instance, in the birthday promotion, they’ve offered prizes to the most retweeted tweet (motivation for viral sharing), the most creative video (users creating content for the brand for legitimacy), and the best blog post (more content talking about the brand). And they’ve got some pretty nice prizes for a promotion that is timed to coincide with the holidays:

To Sum It Up

If you’re a marketer at a startup that is looking to build a community, look at what Marketo has done to build a community, establish expert members within that community, motivate users to promote the brand, and give them reasons to create promotional content.

If you’re a marketer using Marketo’s software, take a look around the community; there’s more than just stuff about using the software (but there’s helpful info on that as well).

Disclosure: this post was submitted as an entrant in the Marketo Community Contest described here.