New Boston-Area Startup Marketing Jobs

by Nathan W. Burke on March 26, 2013

Because our Boston-area Startup Marketing Meetup has nearly 200 members,  I’ve been getting contacted by both recruiters and early stage startup companies looking to build out their marketing teams. I’ve experimented with this in the past, and I’ll try to keep open positions up to date on my ugly, often neglected site StartupMarketingJobs.com.

But again, a warning: The site is ugly, barely functional, and almost totally manual. If you’re interested in these jobs, your best bet is to just email me a resume/cover letter, and I’ll pass it along to the right person.

New Jobs

Sr. Manager, Digital Acquisition Strategy – Spartan Race
The acquisition team is responsible for designing and implementing end-to-end digital strategies and capabilities that will drive profitable growth and acquire new members. In this position, you will manage a large-scale digital acquisition program and implement digital acquisition strategies to drive a quality audience to conversion and optimal ROI. Full Details > 

Social Media Engagement Manager – Spartan Race
The Social Media Engagement Manager will be responsible for the development and execution of fan/consumer engagement across all social platforms. He/she will be charged with communicating with current and potential fans, delivering high quality engagement and cultivating relationships across all social channels to boost the amplitude of our marketing campaigns.  Full Details >

Email Campaign Specialist – Spartan Race
The email campaign specialist will create, manage and implement new e-mail marketing campaigns, including working with and coordinating product marketers, designers and copywriters to implement templates, copy, landing pages and offers designed to drive build attract Spartan Race participants. The specialist will manage end-to-end email campaign workflow – from conception and testing all the way through pressing to send. In addition, this position will be responsible for evaluating and communicating campaign results. Full Details >

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Next B2B Startup Marketing Meetup: How Sales & Marketing Can Work Together – 3/26

by Nathan W. Burke on March 13, 2013

We’ll be hosting our monthly Boston-Area B2B Startup Marketing Meetup at Yesware in Boston. The details:

Presentations

How Startup Marketing and Sales Can Work Together

Ah, the relationship between marketing and sales. Whether the two departments are in a close, symbiotic relationship with perfect alignment or mortal enemies, the two must work together for any B2B startup to succeed.

Matthew Bellows, the CEO of Yesware will present his view of what sales needs to succeed, how marketing can fuel that success, and how the two can work together to dominate.

From one of Matthew’s previous presentations:

About Matthew Bellows

Matthew BellowsMatthew Bellows is CEO of Yesware. He is responsible for sales, product vision and strategic direction of the company. As a founder of the company, Matthew brings more than 10 years of extensive sales experience to the company’s goal of helping salespeople close more deals faster. Prior to Yesware, Matthew was the Vice President of Sales and Consumer Strategy at Vivox, the market leader in voice for digital worlds. He previously served as General Manager and Board Member at Floodgate (acquired by Zynga) and as Founder/CEO of WGR Media (acquired by CNET Networks).

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Motivating People To Take Action: My Favorite Recent Startup Marketing Email

by Nathan W. Burke on March 11, 2013

I was looking at Hacker News today, and saw an article entitled “Why I Finally Joined Mixergy“. I was only vaguely familiar with Mixergy, where Andrew Warner interviews entrepreneurs and others in the startup world, and the post piqued my curiosity:

After a year or two of coming over now and then, consuming content and looking around a bit, I decided to take a look at his interview archives.

Jiminy Cricket! There’s almost 700 interviews in there. While “getting rich quick from your startup” has been done to death, 700 hours of interviews with successful founders is something I’d really like to take in. Even if their advice never directly makes a difference in their startup, just listening to their stories can help me get a better sense of context for where I am in my startup. And that’s worth money.

Sounds like something I should take a look at. I went to the site and added my email address, and minutes later received this email:
A great email gets action. Here’s what I like about it:

  1. A direct, human-sounding subject line: “Can I ask you a question?”
  2. An immediate question that resonates and challenges me to look at what I need to improve upon
  3. A call to action that can’t be ignored
  4. Challenging reinforcement with “Don’t let your inner weakling keep you from doing this right now.
  5. “Don’t let me get away with sucking,” followed by links to rate the email itself.

 

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Personalization Gone Wrong: Check Your Email Templates

by Nathan W. Burke on March 7, 2013

This could happen to anyone, I suppose, so I’m not going to share the name of the person or company. A colleague got this email today. Let it be a reminder to make sure you have your email templates set up correctly.

 

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How To Apologize When You Screw Up As A Marketer

by Nathan W. Burke on February 14, 2013

I saw this on reddit last week, and found myself using this as an example of how someone at mini creatively apologized for spamming their database.

The letter reads:

Last week you received some emails from us. Hundreds of emails, in some cases. While we love staying in touch, this was unintentional. A server went haywire and the technical glitch has been fixed, but we wanted to make up for any hassle we might have caused.

Nothing says “I’m sorry” quite like flowers and chocolate, so we’ve combined the two and enclosed a chocolate rose. But if you’re allergic to flowers (or chocolate), we hope this duct tape will help fix things up. Or, if you’re ever feeling annoyed again, you can de-stress using this particularly squeezable can of spam.

Again, our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience.

Motor on,
The MINI Team

Contrast that with an email I received last week from another online company that unintentionally sent a spam message:

Hi Nathan

Thanks for being a subscriber to emails from the [Company Name]. We appreciate your attention and business and try not to send you wasted emails, instead offering deals or giveaways you want. Sometimes, we (read I) mess up. You were sent the last email by mistake, it was supposed to go only to people who bid on yesterday’s name your price promotion.

Please accept my apologies. To make up for it, here is a picture of my cat, Walter, and a link to enter a watch giveaway for Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s giveaway: [link to giveaway].

Thanks and Apologies,

 

Granted, MINI has the resources to buy and send out this package, but it just feels more sincere, and doesn’t ask you to buy a car immediately.

 

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An Early Look at Knofolio

by Nathan W. Burke on January 25, 2013

Every once in a while, I get an email from a startup that is so far from what I normally do that it makes me take notice. That happened this morning when I got an email from Andrew Coyle, founder of knofolio:

I came across one of your articles about start-ups and decided to contact you. I am building a website that bridges the gap between prospective art students age 15-18 and accredited art & design colleges by providing a learning platform that helps students develop a great portfolio. Let me know what you think

Interesting. Aside from running an art gallery for a few years, I know almost nothing about art. I especially am clueless about how art students apply and are accepted to universities. Here’s what I’ve learned about knofolio:

Marketing Startups: What problem are you trying to solve?

Andrew Coyle, KnoFolio: KnoFolio solves 2 problems.

  • It helps prospective art students build an online portfolio and share it with top art & design colleges.
  • It provides a channel for art & design colleges to find and communicate with talented aspiring artists.

Marketing Startups: How do people currently solve what you’re trying to fix with knofolio.net?

Andrew Coyle, KnoFolio: Currently accredited art & design colleges primarily reach out to prospective art students by physically going to high schools. This provides a large limitation to high schools that aren’t on an art college’s radar. It is also extremely time consuming to maintain relationships with hundreds of high schools.

From a prospective art student’s point of view, the mystique of the colleges intimidates them.  It is hard for them to understand what is required to create a portfolio (the main requirement of a student application). What is even worse, they often fall victim to the for-profit (non-accredited) Art Institutes that intentionally confuse applicants.

There are no meaningful online art college preparatory platforms despite a stated need. There are many websites that help students fulfill admissions criteria for traditional colleges and universities. The platforms usually take the form of ACT/SAT E-learning. The ACT/SAT is the key differentiator in a student’s application for traditional colleges and universities, whereas the portfolio is the key differentiator in a student’s application for an AICAD school. KnoFolio will fill the demand for online portfolio development. It will be in a digital environment to free the student from the constraints of time and space. Students will have the ability to create a portfolio that meets the standards of AICAD (accrediting body) colleges without being hindered by economic or geographic constraints.

Marketing Startups:  Where are you based?

Andrew Coyle, KnoFolio: KnoFolio is being built in Milwaukee, and plans to move operations to San Francisco.

Marketing Startups: What are your goals for the site?

Andrew Coyle, KnoFolio: KnoFolio goals:

  • KnoFolio sign-up page generates 500 excited users- February 15th 2013
  • KnoFolio successfully launches- February 20th 2013
  • KnoFolio generates 1000 active users- Validated MVP- April 1st 2013
  • KnoFolio gets funded- April 30th 2013
  • KnoFolio develops a scalable and repeatable business model- July 30th 2013
  • KnoFolio becomes a leader in online art & design education

Marketing Startups: What (if any) is your business model?

Andrew Coyle, KnoFolio: The business model is two sided: Prospective student pay a subscription rate & fees for courses. Art schools pay for prospective student data (niche lead generation). *It is free to sign-up and create a portfolio.

Marketing Startups: How are you going to market the site to get people to use it on both sides (both colleges and students)?

Andrew Coyle, KnoFolio: I have been in contact with many art & design colleges. They are enthusiastic about the project. I hope to primarily market the idea through word of mouth.

Marketing Startups: What’s your background?

Andrew Coyle, KnoFolio: Here is an article I wrote about KnoFolio. It details who I am and why I am creating KnoFolio.

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The 2nd Boston-area B2B Startup Marketing Meetup: February 12 at Hubspot

by Nathan W. Burke on January 24, 2013

The second Boston-area B2B Startup Marketing Meetup will be on February 12 at Hubspot in Cambridge.

Hubspot is hosting an event called “Creating Marketing People Love”, and will go through 3-4 techniques that every marketer should be using (with a pseudo-fun Valentine’s theme).

They have invited our group to the event, and will have startup-specific content and experts on hand that work with startups.

Register for the meetup here!

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Highlights from the 1st Boston-area B2B Startup Marketing Meetup

by Nathan W. Burke on January 18, 2013

On Wednesday night, we held our first Boston-area B2B Startup Marketing Meetup at Litmus in Cambridge. Marketers, soon-to-be marketers, and forced-to-be marketers came to discuss challenges, give their best startup marketing tips, and say what they wanted from this newly formed group.

Some of the topics attendees want to see in future meetups:

I gave a presentation entitled “Content Workflows for Startups: Planning, Executing, and Promoting the Hell Out of Your Stuff”

Slides are available for download:

Our Next Meetup

Our next meetup will be on February 12 at Hubspot in Cambridge. Hubspot invited our group to their event entitled “Creating Marketing People Love”, including startup-specific content with experts on hand that work with startups.

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The 1st Boston Area B2B Startup Marketing Meetup

by Nathan W. Burke on January 9, 2013

Join us for the first meeting of the Boston Area B2B Startup Marketing Meetup Group.

When: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 6:00 PM
Where: Litmus, 675 Massachusetts Ave., 11th Floor, Cambridge, MA 

What:

Our first meetup where we’ll discuss what we want to get out of the group, topics we want to address, and we will have one short guinea pig presentation on “Content Workflows For Startups: Planning, Executing, and Promoting the Hell Out of Your Stuff.”

Beer and pizza will be provided

We are restarting the Boston-area Startup Marketing Group, and the first meeting will be held at Litmus in Cambridge.

Agenda
6:00-6:14 PM Come in, sit down, shake some hands. Meet some people.

6:15-6:44 PM Introductions: Who are you? What are your biggest startup marketing challenges? What topics would you like us to cover? What would you like to present about (if anything)?

6:45-7:00 PM What is your best tip for the group? Give one take away that people in the group could use right away to better their marketing efforts.

7:01-7:30 PM Presentation: “Content Workflows For Startups: Planning, Executing, and Promoting the Hell Out of Your Stuff.” As a startup marketer, you probably spend a good deal of time producing content. But how do you know that you’re reaching the right audience? The right tone? Are you getting the biggest return on content investment?

7:31-8:00 PM Q&A and wrap up – Ask questions, give suggestions, meet people…that kind of thing.

 

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3 Steps To Guarantee That Your Email Will Be Hated

by Nathan W. Burke on January 4, 2013

I just received an email that elegantly demonstrates perfection in its repugnance. Behold this masterpiece:

  1. Terrible Subject Line: “Go Gangnam with email verification?” What does that even mean? I get the reference to the song, but what does that have to do with email? And great timing with the outdated pop culture reference. It might as well be a Borat quote.
  2. Bad English “We offer fool-proof email verification service which is can…”
  3. Make a promise that is immediately invalidated – Promise that you’ll remove all spam and obsolete email addresses, then send me a spam email to an obsolete (almost two years) email address.

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