we dig tech startups - gravytrain '15

STARTUP WEB KIT

1. About Us

2. We dig web startups

4. Case Study: Unruly

5. Case Study: Badoo

6. Case Study: Twoo

7. Case Study: fivesquid

8. Startup Opportunities/Hurdles

8. Affiliates

9. SEO

10. App Store

11. Community Management

12. Member-get-Member

13. PR

14. Programmatic – A little extra

15. Getting in Touch

About Us

We are a relatively small but nimble team that thrives on working with web companies and start-ups, getting the absolute most in terms of ROI and reach for everyone we work with.

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We dig web startups…

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Case Study: Unruly

Unruly Media was founded by Sarah Wood and Scott Button in 2007 in the UK. During the last 8 years they have grown from a handful of people to the largest video seeing platform in the world with offices in all major cities worldwide boasting staff numbers on excess of 5,000.

Our Head of Digital was there in the early days with Unruly, building their digital strategy and processes from the ground up. The growth of the company was incredibly impressive utilising a very strong marketing back bone.

www.unruly.co

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Case Study: Badoo

www.badoo.com

Badoo is an online dating portal that has experienced massive growth over the past few years. The number of active users today reaches 246 million. Companies can learn a huge amount about what not to do from Badoo’s online marketing strategy as well as some hidden gems to develop upon.

Badoo used an aggressive ‘member-get-member’ strategy using social media and email to turn 1 registered member into 100 overnight. Bad PR around their ‘questionable’ email strategy was produced but failed to de-value the proposition leading to a huge following online.

Our Head of Digital consulted for Badoo to help them align their SEO, affiliate and member-get-member strategy to double the number of registered members from 100m to 246m.

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Case Study: Twoo

www.twoo.com

Twoo was built in response to a decline of the owner’s social network Netlog. Their re-invention of the platform online led to an almost Badoo-like clone. The founders, ToonCoppens & Lorenz Bogaert, employed a strong marketing team to increase their registered members from circa 1m to 162m in just 3 years.

Our Head of Digital was marketing manager for this company using the best-in-class mobile buying networks, member-get-member acquisition, SEO & content strategy as well as community managing their social profiles to massively increase reach and registered members.

Being involved in Badoo’s strategy and working with an impressive startup such as Unruly has led to a ‘start-up’ marketing strategy that works.

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Case Study: fivesquid

www.fivesquid.com

Fivesquid (Formerly Fivesquids.co.uk) is a British startup looking to rival Fiverr.com. With a good level of investment and a team that is hungry, Fivesquiddoesn’t boast to have the same level of members as Badoo or Twoo but can claim increases in market share against Fiverr over the last 18 months.

Our Head of Digital was the chief marketing officer (freelance) for this company leading them to a brand re-launch and aggressive marketing strategy that focussed on ROI and increased ARPU (average revenue per user).

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Startup Opportunities/Hurdles

“Startups don't win by attacking. They win by transcending. There are exceptions of course, but usually the way to win is to race ahead, not to stop & fight.”

- Paul Graham, co-founder of Viaweb

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Here at Gravytrain we believe in changing marketing-norms in innovative and exciting ways. When it comes to startups, this means changing the traditional web business opportunity curves from one that peaks and troughs relatively quickly to a thriving, long-term opportunity.

Over the next couple of slides we demonstrate the stages of the traditional web business opportunity curve followed by how this can be improved by implementing digital marketing techniques.

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After this it can reach impressive heights.

However, without continual management this growth will decline at a rapid rate.

Growth for successful startups often begins at an exponential rate.

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By reaching more members the amount of success achieved can be even higher.

Growth for successful startups continues at an exponential rate.

Continual management ensures steady growth.

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After years of experience, the online digital marketing mix looks very much like the opposite image for digital startups. Using extensive experience allows us to get the most value for money and often exceed expectations in terms of growth and revenue.

Having been involved in marketing for different platforms and varying KPIs, we have worked with all the big mobile buying networks for app installs, reach or other types of conversions.

Member-get-member plays a critical role in amplifying the reach of a brand online due to the viral nature of this tactic.

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Affiliates

36% of sales on affiliate networks in January 2015 were via mobile

devices.

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Social Media platforms are capitalising on this popularity.

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Affiliate marketing has grown at a rapid pace over the past decade, with nearly all online companies using some form of affiliate system.

At Gravytrain we have used a number of affiliate platforms and strategies in order to achieve a range of goals, including:

Increased Traffic Brand Awareness Optimised Conversion Rates And more!

SEO

Bringing to the table expertise in data intelligence and visualisation allows us to interpret the world’s data.

The visual to the right shows different communities (dictated by colour) of similar searches. The line between each show the search path.

i.e. We can visualise the entire search space to see what competitors are bidding on and building content around within their web pages online. This makes us more effective in planning and getting the most bang for our buck in terms of ROI.

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Marketing tools are now a dime a dozen, however many are not only unreliable but also costly.

We have transcended this issue by creating our own tools which are for the exclusive use of our clients.

By using in-house tools we can guarantee constant delivery of high-quality data that can be utilised to improve your company’s growth for the long-term.

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App Store

The team here at Gravytrain have extensive experience with app store optimisation and delivering against KPIs for app-based marketing strategies. Whether the key performance indicator for the app is downloads, reach, visits or purchases, we’ve got it covered. For years we’ve been building the right contacts at all the major mobile buying networks to barter the best rates for buying on these platforms.

Having delivered success for a number of startups before, mobile app optimisation and mobile ad buying play a critical role. The demand does not equal cost just yet and downloads can be bought for cheaper than the market rate whatever the device or platform.

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Both the Badoo iTunes and Android apps are appearing high in Google due to app store optimisation (SEO).

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Community Management

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no such thingas bad publicity?

As an online company you naturally want people talking about you, however it’s important that you have control over these conversations.

Sometimes, even bad publicity can be good publicity – however, if not managed properly it can turn into a PR nightmare.

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Twoo has previously experienced their own PR issues in the past, however this has not prevented them from expanding.

Cultivating a positive online sentiment around your brand will not only therefore protect your company, but also secure further sign ups in the future.

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Gravytrain has spent years actively monitoring and managing the online reputation of companies around the globe.

Opposite are just a few of the platforms we have experience with.

Member-get-Member

In just 3 years the dating site Twoomanaged to increase their subscriptions from 1million to over 162million.

Member-get-member techniques were implemented to gain this success for little to no cost.

The key to member-get-member campaigns is to offer incentives to users who provide further sign ups.

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In order to gain as many members as possible, both sites encourage users to provide access to their email accounts, which they then use to direct friends to the site.

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Another popular technique used by startupsites such as Badoo is to encourage users to allow access to their social media accounts.

This both promotes the site on users’ social feeds but also enables free promotion on social media sites.

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PR

Data Capture Design Outreach

There are three stages to each PR campaign: data capture, design and outreach. Each stage has multiple

tasks which help to build online presence.

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Data Capture Design Outreach

During the data capture stage we offer incentives to encourage target demographics to answer simple questions.

This data will be used as bait for news agencies and journalists once it has been through the creative stage.

EmailMarketing

Google PPC

Facebook Advertising

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Data Capture Design Outreach

During the design stage we will take the data and package it in a way that will make it engaging to both users and targeted websites.

This could mean creating a video, game or interactive tool for example.

Creative SharableEngaging

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Data Capture Design Outreach

Once the creative piece is complete we will begin outreaching to the websites outlined in the data capture stage.

This will involve various tools including PR platforms, PPC, Facebook and content sharing websites.

PR Platform

Content Sharing

Sites

Paid Advertising

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Programmatic – A little extra

Quality Score defines the relevance of an advert and it’s destination page.

With our proprietary tool set we can track the changes in QS (Quality Score) for all the keywords in your account, directing our account managers to the right place.

This way we’re ahead of the curve and nothing is left to chance…

Quality Score Tracker

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Yes, we’re still talking about PPC..

With our awesome tools, we can run our scripts to cross reference the mentions of keywords we’re bidding for via PPC on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This way, we can automagically react to conversations around these keywords by increasing and decreasing bids where necessary.

Cool huh?

Social Media Listening

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Again, our custom toolset can be used to find broken links on your website and automatically pause adverts pointing to these URLs.

A simple yet affective script that potentially saves you a pot load of money as a result.

URL Checker

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Don’t want to spend too much or too little? Our technology will adjust the daily budget in the run up to high or low periods so we have our finger on the pulse.

Incredibly useful for accounts with small budgets or seasonal demand.

Flexible Budget

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Getting in Touch

Phew! I hope that wasn’t too much to go through. Do get in touch if you’d like to discuss how we can put this into practice for you:

Email: daniel.whitehouse@gravytrain.co.ukLinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dannywhitehouseWeb: www.gravytrain.co.ukPhone: +(44) 7762 666 974

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