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How Would You Spend $20k?
Yesterday I wrote about the need for live video streaming at “infomercial conferences“. On my content ideas pad I wrote, “spend $20k” — this is the amount that it costs to present on stage at the DEMO conference which was held earlier this week.
Francine Hardaway wrote a column yesterday on Fast Company asking if a big launch event (like DEMO) is worth it for a small company. The column is a must read as Francine goes over the list of pros and cons for spending $20k (more like $30k all-in) for 6 minutes on stage at DEMO. The net comes down to something I very much agree with – if your product or service is in the social media space, it’s not the place to be. I would add that if your p/s needs early adopters, it’s also not the place to launch. If your product or service is enterprise-related or is a gadget, it might be worth looking at DEMO as part of a launch package.
Robert Scoble wrote one of his best posts this year yesterday where he asked, “where oh where did the great startup launch go?” Robert goes into detail about how Bug Labs launched their gadget versus using a large conference to launch a startup. Robert wonders if his readers can name one of the companies that launched this week at DEMO. I watched every single presentation (some live with a “press-only feed”) and I think I can only name a couple of them. I don’t fully agree with all of the steps Robert suggests, but overall his list is strong.
Robert also looks at how Google launched Buzz and how much better of a launch they could have had if they pulled in some outside people to have a look before going live.
My issue with DEMO is the lack of coverage. Robert notes that many of the startups were covered only on VentureBeat which is the official blog of the conference. From my perspective, it seems like there are less media posts for each startup as the DEMO conferences have moved on each year. When I attended two years ago, it seemed like there was a lot more media in the audience (which I’ve heard from multiple sources was less than about 500, way down from when I attended two years ago).
DEMO will be moving from San Diego to San Francisco this fall. Perhaps that will get the excitement going as many of the startup bloggers and journalists call SF home and could attract more media to the event. I will look at what DEMO needs to do to improve and attract startups in a future post.
So, here’s my question to you. How would you spend $20k? If I gave you $20k today for your startup, how would you spend it? (this is an exercise, I don’t really have $20k to give you) The money has to be used for launch or promotional activities – not for hiring additional employees.
Some ideas include:
- buying a DEMO slot
- buying Google AdWords or other online advertising
- buying print advertising
- renting a booth at a conference in the expo hall
- buying paid posts with a company like Izea
- renting a “social media expert” to write content and get that content promoted on some of the social media services including Digg or Reddit
- paying a PR firm to get posts and/or stories written about your startup
- creating print materials and handing them out at popular locations with your potential customers
Your turn…how would you use $20k to support your product or service launch?
I’d say it depends on the target audience, but print and press releases is certainly a must have, since you don’t want to reach the “nerds” only when launching (in case it’s not just a internet “guru” product). It’s the main problem of many startups anyway: They invest tons of money in developement, which isn’t bad, but without a fat marketing budget, visitors or customers won’t find it.
I would probably run a contest to build my email list. At my company Active.com we use a company called Artistic Hub to run photo contests as a way to build our email list. We have found this type of marketing is effective for our products that are self-setup or have quick sales cycles.
I would use some of the $$ to hire a Product Launch Manager who knows what they are doing to create marketing content and develop a launch plan that involves building anticipation, desire and social proof.
Then I’d use the rest of the $$ on building a list of prospects to do an online launch to.
I’d spend:
25% in adwords.
25% in a SEO work for certain keyphrases that could boost the business
10% for traveling expenses to a conference to do some networking
20% for some kind of viral campaign
30% for backups, and re-spending later on any of the previous options depending which one got better results after a trial phase.
I would host a 2 month contest in my site, $10k in prizes
What Francine said. The rest of you are smoking dope.
For each unique visit +1 feedback, I’d give $1 to a charity.
Likely to get 20,000 visits once the word is out there.
Thought?
I would spend the money on making the product better. A launch is basically a deadline for the product, rather than something with long term results. If you start hanging on Twitter and listening, become part of the community, you can get a lot done for nothing. Don’t pay for publicity, either. If your product isn’t good, you can’t spend enough to get it off the ground. I saw some people at DEMO who didn’t even have a working product, and needed money. For them, it might have been worth $20k.
P
I’d fly to San Fran and throw a party for the press if I had that much to spend.
Or I would come up with a marketing plan like moonfruit and giving away macbooks.
This is exactly what I told one NY-based startup recently when they decided to open their service to SF – they needed a local party.
oh – not the macbook idea – we know how that turned out recently :)
I’d spend $5K on a social media launch, $10K on AdWords and $5K on doing multi-variate optimization on the traffic bought off of AdWords and ensuring they convert and have a great experience on the site. Get all the founders doing live-chat & phone support during launch week to ensure that every user has a fantastic experience so they become brand ambassadors.
Hi Matt – can you expand on the social media launch?
There is no guarantee that you will get covered – so focus the money on places that will nearly always provide results.