Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#11

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 6:38 AM UTC

secret_target wrote: post #9

rcavezza wrote: post #5

When asked about paid marketing. Starts around 74:30 "Holy crazy crap does retargeting work." "If you do great inbound, the first money you should spend should be on retargeting... people that were sort of interested but left" "...uses a company called has offers in Seattle - they've been very effective for us". "would not recommend raw display. It will perform poorly for you."

I'm part of a stealth startup that's handling retargeting for about 30 startups now and I can confirm that it is indeed a brutally effective method for acquiring users. We're seeing that on average, retargeted ads perform about 350% better than any other kind of targeted ad. It seems a little crazy until you recalibrate your understanding of what's happening. Instead of trying to push new information on a user (which…

[deleted]

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#12

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 6:38 AM UTC

secret_target wrote: post #9

rcavezza wrote: post #5

When asked about paid marketing. Starts around 74:30 "Holy crazy crap does retargeting work." "If you do great inbound, the first money you should spend should be on retargeting... people that were sort of interested but left" "...uses a company called has offers in Seattle - they've been very effective for us". "would not recommend raw display. It will perform poorly for you."

I'm part of a stealth startup that's handling retargeting for about 30 startups now and I can confirm that it is indeed a brutally effective method for acquiring users. We're seeing that on average, retargeted ads perform about 350% better than any other kind of targeted ad. It seems a little crazy until you recalibrate your understanding of what's happening. Instead of trying to push new information on a user (which…

[deleted]

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#13

Post by scrollbar » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 6:41 AM UTC

rcavezza wrote: post #5

When asked about paid marketing. Starts around 74:30 "Holy crazy crap does retargeting work." "If you do great inbound, the first money you should spend should be on retargeting... people that were sort of interested but left" "...uses a company called has offers in Seattle - they've been very effective for us". "would not recommend raw display. It will perform poorly for you."

FYI- HasOffers does affiliate marketing for them

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#14

Post by scottkrager » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 6:53 AM UTC

scrollbar wrote: post #13

rcavezza wrote: post #5

When asked about paid marketing. Starts around 74:30 "Holy crazy crap does retargeting work." "If you do great inbound, the first money you should spend should be on retargeting... people that were sort of interested but left" "...uses a company called has offers in Seattle - they've been very effective for us". "would not recommend raw display. It will perform poorly for you."

FYI- HasOffers does affiliate marketing for them

HasOffers is actually a self-service platform that handles the affiliate tracking aspect of running an affiliate program vs. a "full-service" firm like Commission Junction, LinkShare or Google Affiliate Network which will take a 20-30% cut on all sales.

Just wanted to clarify that it's really SEOMoz that does their own affiliate program essentially in-house using the HasOffers platform. (correct me if I'm wrong on this anyone from SEOMoz!)

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#15

Post by BrentonG » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 6:58 AM UTC

Rand killed it last night! Well balanced talk from story, strategy to tactics...extremely powerful to see the juxtaposition of paid and inbound marketing. Earned media converts so much better on all levels. However he didn't talk about the speed of user acquisition...comparing both channels.

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#16

Post by danberger » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 7:00 AM UTC

The best content came out of the Q&A at ~69m. A guy asked two questions: (1) how do you find the angle about what to publish content about and (2) when do you start publishing content to get inbound traffic?

Rand responded: He goes to topsy top 1000 [1], alltop [2] to find featured blogs that are getting the most buzz, Google Plus popular section, the subreddit most relevant to you, and followerwonk [3] to see what the top 100 twitter accounts in your industry are talking about

Basically, all of the above actions get you immersed in the market you're trying to penetrate and gives you an understanding of what will be of value to them. You can then use this information to generate content that will go viral.

Unfortionately, he didn't answer the second question :(

[1] http://topsy.com/top1k [2] http://alltop.com/ [3] http://www.followerwonk.com

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#17

Post by gabaix » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 7:39 AM UTC

Back when I was doing SEO, Rand Fishkin was my hero. You could not find a more humble person, while delivering tremendous value in the white-hat community. I am glad he still speaks and educates as much as he can.

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#18

Post by randfish » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 8:10 AM UTC

danberger wrote: post #16

The best content came out of the Q&A at ~69m. A guy asked two questions: (1) how do you find the angle about what to publish content about and (2) when do you start publishing content to get inbound traffic? Rand responded: He goes to topsy top 1000 [1], alltop [2] to find featured blogs that are getting the most buzz, Google Plus popular section, the subreddit most relevant to you, and followerwonk [3] to see what t…

Hey Dan - at 71:51, the gentleman re-asks the question (after I tackled the first part) and I give an answer :-)

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#19

Post by randfish » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 8:11 AM UTC

scottkrager wrote: post #14

scrollbar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI- HasOffers does affiliate marketing for them

HasOffers is actually a self-service platform that handles the affiliate tracking aspect of running an affiliate program vs. a "full-service" firm like Commission Junction, LinkShare or Google Affiliate Network which will take a 20-30% cut on all sales. Just wanted to clarify that it's really SEOMoz that does their own affiliate program essentially in-house using the HasOffers platform. (correct me if I'm wrong on th…

+1 - that's pretty much spot on. HasOffers gives us the ability to manage our own affiliate system.

Re: Rand Fishkin: Inbound Marketing for Startups

#20

Post by dontbelame » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 8:49 AM UTC

My personal favorite is towards the end of the talk when Rand left great tips (the last 15 minutes or so before QnA) The top 10 ways to get in bound traffic are practical and insightful for any early stage startup. It kicks ass!