Category: Marketing

How to Use Inbound Marketing and Content Strategy

This is article #1 out of 50 in The Startup Marketing Playbook.

You’ve heard it frequently: “Inbound” is key for B2B marketing. Many resources out there tell the story of inbound marketing, so we’ll keep this one simple.

First let’s review some vocabulary. We’re going to be using these terms often:

  • Targets: people who match your criteria to become a customer. For example, for a daytime dog walking service, targets might be mothers between the ages of 30-50 who live in San Francisco and have a dog.
  • Leads: targets for whom we have contact information (i.e., an email address or phone number).
  • Opportunities: leads that have indicated they are ready, willing and able to make a purchase and become a customer.
  • Customers: people who are paying to use your product or service (duh).

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50 Post Blog Series on Startup Marketing

In January 2015, I published Startups <3 Customers, a guide to sales and marketing for technical startup people. The goal was to give beginners a ridiculously easy way to understand the fundamentals of building a sales and marketing organization in a B2B startup.

If you’ve read that guide and kicked off sales and marketing at your startup, awesome! You’ve probably noticed that there are a lot more details to be covered, especially when it comes to the nitty gritty of actually executing successful sales and marketing.

To help break it down, I’m excited to kickoff a series of 50 blog posts that cover those nitty gritty details for marketing. Similar to Startups <3 Customers, these posts are designed for folks new to inbound marketing. They’ll help you understand more detail of the many facets of building a world class marketing organization.

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New Ebook: Startups <3 Customers

When I first got into startups, one of my core responsibilities was to acquire new customers.

The problem was, back then, I had no idea how to acquire new customers.

As I explored, I learned about sales and marketing, and began to understanding how they are used to acquire customers. It turns out, sales and marketing can be really fun, and really powerful.

I remember searching the internet for a how-to guide to get me started. There are plenty of blog posts out there, but they all seemed to go into too much depth, or skip the beginner stuff. I wanted something that started with the basic fundamentals so I could work my way up. Essentially, a for-dummy’s guide to sales and marketing for a B2B startup.

Fast forward a few years to now, and I decided to write that guide: Startups <3 Customers. It’s a guide to the basics of sales and marketing, particularly helpful for technical founders and employees at B2B startups.

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If you want to understand what the business people actually do, or you need to get the basics of sales and marketing set up yourself, this is the guide for you.

Check it out at startupsheartcustomers.com. I hope it is helpful, and if you have any questions or feedback, email me anytime. Good luck!