Comments on: Startup Marketing 101

By: Fahad Firdausi

Fahad Firdausi — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 08:11:38 +0000

RT @aprildunford: Startup Marketing 101 http://bit.ly/cYpKqW

By: nychng

nychng — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:55:46 +0000

RT @aprildunford: Startup Marketing 101 http://bit.ly/cYpKqW

By: Toan Dang

Toan Dang — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 10:42:03 +0000

Startup marketing 101: http://ow.ly/2Njtp

By: Marc Binkley

Marc Binkley — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:10:56 +0000

thanks for sharing April. Startup Marketing 101 : http://tinyurl.com/ycexurj

By: aprildunford

aprildunford — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:45:26 +0000

Hi Ryan,
Glad you like it!
It’s important to track cost per lead just so you can get a historical measure for your different lead tactics. That doesn’t mean you go out and spent a bunch of money on getting leads before you are ready. You should feel confident that you have a product that is a good fit for a market first and secondly you need to make sure that you have optimized your lead conversion funnel as much as possible (so that you get the most business for your buck). Once you feel comfortable with both of those then you can start spending some money acquiring leads.
Organic search leads will often convert better than other leads, the problem is that it’s difficult to scale organic search rapidly (not that you shouldn’t try to scale it as much as you can – you should especially if you are getting great conversions) and you can only scale it so much. If you can get as many leads as you can handle with just Organic search then leave it at that. If you need to grow the business beyond that, you’ll have to start trying other things (even if they convert lower). Once you go beyond organic search you have to compare different tactics and do more of the ones the get the best ROI and less of the ones that deliver the least ROI.

By: Ryan Kelly

Ryan Kelly — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:24:12 +0000

Hi April,

this is a great blog! I found you on Sprouter.com

When your product is still in “free” mode, should you be concerned about Cost per Lead just yet? Or should we make an assumption based on what we “think” we might charge for the product later on?

I’m also wondering if the “conversion waterline” is the percentage of people who try our free product and came through organic search. Meaning, if 50% of organic search traffic (free) try our tool, then should we really be paying for anything that converts at a lower percentage, and only pay for marketing that converts better than that?

For example, ReTargeter is working and doing great things from a branding standpoint, but it does convert lower than free visitors.

By: oderau

oderau — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 02:00:23 +0000

April Dunford's take on startup marketing at the early stages of… http://bit.ly/chiWQ9

By: Elisabeth

Elisabeth — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:48:25 +0000

@aprildunford of Rocket Watcher offers excellent advice for startup beginners: http://bit.ly/97bN7M.

By: Syed Naimath

Syed Naimath — Fri, 21 May 2010 20:41:51 +0000

Startup Marketing 101 | Rocket Watcher by April Dunford http://j.mp/c9XXCw

By: Andrei Petrik

Andrei Petrik — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:34:37 +0000

Startup Marketing 101 http://ping.fm/R6ukr