Forum Ventures Marketing Playbook

This is a Tactical Guide to marketing so you gain initial traction.

To Start: Ignore TAM

Total Addressable Market (TAM) is a big, sexy number.

But it's a false idol at the early stages. Narrowing to an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) works because:

• You can test and iterate more quickly.
• You only need to build one acquisition channel to get multiple customers.
• It's easy to grow from and build a sustainable, repeatable sales process.

TAM sounds great when you're talking to investors, but the reality is that you will have massive competition for those customers. Even if they aren't being served now, many big players will swoop in once they notice the opportunity. Focus on ICP to get a foothold and give you the resources / traction necessary to take on TAM later.

Identifying Your ICP

Must-have criteria:

• Experiences the pain your solution solves right now.
• Has a relatively simple decision-making structure OR is a known early adopter of technology similar to yours.

Why these criteria?

If a company doesn't experience the pain your problem solves right now, they are not an early adopter. Full stop. Go back to them later. The purpose behind seeking a company with a simple decision-making structure is so you don't get stuck in long sales cycles. The alternative is a company known for adopting similar technologies. However, don't bank on these - they tend to be few and far between.TIP

Ideally, your ICP is already spending money to solve the problem your solution addresses, but this is not necessary. The company may not know a solution exists or may not feel competitor solutions are worth pursuing. This opens opportunities for you.

Differences Between Innovators & Early Adopters

Innovators:

• Desire:
  • Want to be seen at the cutting edge.
  • Want to be part of a community.
  • Want to be listened to.
• Best for:
  • Getting candid feedback.
  • Trying new features / new ideas.

Early Adopters:

• Desire:
  • Want polished solutions early.
  • Want to be seen as innovative.
  • Want to feel connected to innovation.
• Best for:
  • Maturing your product.
  • Testing scalable sales channels / messaging.

Getting in Front of Your ICP: Going to Market

SMB

• 25% Direct Sales
• 75% Marketing

Why? SMBs work with people they know, like, and trust. Direct sales builds the trust but marketing is necessary for scale.

Mid-Market

• 50% Direct Sales
• 50% Marketing

Why? Mid-market enterprises like the human touch, but want a convenient, sleek, digital experience where they can get value quickly.

Enterprise

• 75% Direct Sales
• 25% Marketing

Why? Enterprise deals can be huge and change is painful. Before committing to new technology, enterprise customers want to know who they are dealing with.

Direct Sales for Early Stage SaaS

Always Start with Direct Sales.

Regardless of your eventual strategy, you MUST sell direct in the beginning. Even if you plan to have your funnel entirely digital, selling direct will help teach you what process should be automated.

• You learn more by doing it for real
• You open the opportunity for new insight
• You get very close to your initial customers

Approach your ICP as nothing more than people with problems. Be curious about their problem and learn about them as people. Only then can you honestly talk about your offering as a real solution. Until this point, you'd just be cold pitching. You need to understand them first.

Direct Sales 101

Warm Intros

• Description: Leveraging your network to get introductions to prospects.
• How to do it: Ask. If you know you can provide value, the intro won't be in vain.
• When to do it: Immediately + ongoing.

Cold Outreach

• Description: Building a lead list and reaching out to prospects outside your network.
• How to do it: Build a lead list through social media or similar (next slide).
• When to do it: In addition to warm intros.

MQLs

• Description: Having the marketing team identify leads to pass to sales.
• How to do it: Give marketing team the ICP definition and let them develop a lead list.
• When to do it: Once warm + cold are either exhausted or fruitless.

Building a Lead List to Supercharge Direct Sales

Identify Search Parameters:

• Size of organization
• Size of department
• Funding round
• Tech stack
• Location

Tools + Resources:

• LinkedIn (+ Conversify lead builder tool)
• Crunchbase
• Built-With / Wappalyzer
• Datanyze

Find Contact Information:

• Title within the organization
• Email nomenclature
• Avoiding dummy emails (hey@ or fakename@)
• Respect admin + EAs!

Tools + Resources:

• LinkedIn
• Apollo
• Hunter
• People Data Labs
• Acceleprise (ask us!)

Intros, Outreach, and MQLs: Step-by-Step Nurture

Not everyone will be immediately eager to talk to you, but there are multiple steps to try before giving up.

• Email - Clearly state what you can do for them then make the ask for a meeting / call. Get your credibility markers out, too, and customize where possible (i.e. mention a brand that a specific prospect might be familiar with).
• LinkedIn connection - This is about humanizing the process and engaging with their content / shares after connecting. Done well, you show that it's not X-Co selling to Y-Co, it's Mary selling to Jonah. Remember that you represent your brand.
• Email follow up - People get busy. Keep this friendly (not pushy) as a reminder of your impending meeting, not "that you didn't respond."
• Phone follow up - Similar to the email follow up. Your only goal here should be to get the meeting on the books in a friendly way.
• Meeting - Have a conversation. Learn about them, their challenges, and then talk about solutions (including your product).

*Reminder: NEVER spam people. Let them unsubscribe if they want to. Your domain authority is crucial - lose it and your emails won't deliver. Tools Like MailShake can help you here.

Cold Email Nurtures Get You to a Phone Call

Get to the point. Lead with the problem you're solving, not your name.

Keep it short. 2-4 sentences maximum.

Include a question. Your goal is to elicit a response.

Be mindful of inbox previews - It's your chance to add further credibility and can mean the difference between your emails getting opened versus trashed.

Subject lines: The goal is to make it seem like you already have a business relationship.

• For example: "James Murphy (CEO Robly) and Jane Smith (TargetCo) Check in"

Adding Value in Direct Sales: Industry Spotlight

Invite prospects to be a guest on your blog/podcast. Starter steps:

• If you don't have a blog / podcast, consider a newsletter.
• Make a list of 100 insiders in your industry.
• Invite all of them (individually) to be interviewed, highlighting that you are in the space and can give them free press.
• About 10-15 will agree.
• About 5-8 will actually get scheduled (at the start).
• Use these as leverage to book more later ("We've chatted with X already, would you like to be a guest?").

Great for: Getting 1:1 talk time with senior level people who may not have made time for you otherwise.

Value-Add Data

Value-Add Data Set

If you're doing original research, ask for their contribution in exchange for free access to insights afterward.

Starter steps:

• Draft an invitation email asking people to take part in your survey in exchange for a free copy of research.
• Email this to your lead list (ideally >500). If you send to 500, you can expect about 15-50 responses.
• Write personal, custom thank you notes to all who respond, asking them to share the invitation with colleagues.
• Follow up with all who fill out your survey to send them completed research.

Great for: Getting large lead lists to engage with you on a deeper level.

Buy ICP's Product

Buy Your ICP's Product (if it's a fit)

It's both customer research and a warm way in the door.

Starter steps:

• Identify all products that your ICP companies produce.
• Look into pricing and applicability to your business.
• Buy ICP products as a regular customer.

Leverage product usage:

• Use insights from your usage as a lead-in for sales reach outs.
• Promote their product on your social media, tagging them.
• Reach out for a customer interview (see Industry Spotlight strategy).

Great for: Getting the attention of not-super-well-known companies (effect is smaller on massive global brands).

Educate on the Problem

Try videos (Vidyard can help) and other educational content in tandem with an Industry Spotlight strategy.

Starter steps:

• Identify someone who can speak with credibility on a subject in your organization (or externally - Industry Spotlight strategy).
• Produce content (interviews or organic written/ghost written blogs) based on the problems.
• Publish on your own blog.
• Use that as the base to pitch other publications (companies and media) to guest blog about the problems using different angles.

Great for: If you're operating in a murky, brand new, or incredibly quickly changing space, education about challenges and how solutions should look are a great way to give prospects the right language to ask for solutions ("right" meaning the way they talk about the problem naturally involves your way of thinking).

Social Engagement

Your ICP wants to feel like people care about their views on social -- plus lots of engagement on their posts makes them look good, so it's a free way to help bolster them and get in front of them.

Starter steps:

• Identify the social media handles of:
  • Your decision maker.
  • Their influencers (company executives).
  • The company itself.

• Engage whenever there's an authentic opportunity:
  • Agree with an article they posted (Note: Always read first, don't just comment blindly).
  • Comment your opinion if they ask a question.
  • Like / re-share their posts if it makes sense for your audience.

Great for: Smaller companies or companies that are new to social with small followings. Helpful for for bigger companies, too, but the strategy can take longer to get noticed (especially if your decision maker is an influencer in their own right).

Early Stage SaaS Marketing Tactics

Early Stage SaaS Marketing Goals

Narrative Building: Marketing forces you to build a real narrative in a concise way. If you're 100% digital, this sets you up nicely. If you're enterprise in-person, this exercise gives you a strong foundation.

Customer Discovery: Digital marketing campaigns will give you fast feedback on your messaging and positioning. This gives you data-driven insight, eliminating the risk of people just being nice to your face.

Conversations: At this stage, you may not close a bunch of sales. But setting up a digital component to your business allows interested parties to self-select in so you can continue talking to them.

For SMBs

ICP Discovery

Email, Social, SEM, Landing Pages, Pillar Post Mid-Market SMBYou have control over all of these channels + they are low cost or free to get. That means you have the best chance of growth. Once you have your foundation, paid social helps attract people into your owned communities (email, landing lead gen, etc.) Directories can cost more than paid social but can drive a lot of awareness from high-intent audiences. Growing your community with owned + paid channels helps you validate your business. Paid web + retargeting helps you scale out.Known ICP (no sales)Above + Paid Directories Above + Paid Social Above + Paid Web and Retargeting TrafficKnown ICP (a few sales)Above + Pillar PostOnce you know who you're really serving, put a stake in the ground and speak to them with a Pillar PostKnown ICP (5-10+ sales)Above + Paid Targeting And Other ExperimentsWith a strong foundation and ICP, get experimental with different targeting mechanisms to find wells of ICPs.ICP DiscoveryEmail, SEM, Landing PagesMid-Market buyers do a lot of research before selecting a product. You need to be prepared for that with helpful content. The mid-market ecosystem is driven by search. Paid web traffic gives you the chance to run multiple tests to find your ICP online.Known ICP (no sales)Above + Paid Web TrafficEnterpriseEmail, WebsiteYou have control over all of these channels + they are low cost or free to get. That means you have the best chance of growth.Known ICP (no sales)Above + Pillar PostOnce you have your foundation, paid social helps attract people into your owned communities (email, landing lead gen, etc.)Known ICP (a few sales)Above + Trade Shows and Social MediaDirectories can cost more than paid social but can drive a lot of awareness from high-intent audiences.Known ICP (5-10+ sales )Above + Earned MediaGrowing your community with owned + paid channels helps you validate your business. Paid web + retargeting helps you scale out.

TacticsTesting Marketing Channels: The Bullseye Approach

Think about where your ICP "lives" on and offline.Identify how you could access that channel (free, paid, showing01Brainstormup, guerilla, etc.)Include all the ways you could sell directly02Stack RankAbility to execute Costs to executeSpeed of data coming in the doorAim for "Quickest Data ROI" → The tactics that give you the mostdata as quickly as possible03Narrow to Top 3Speed takes priority over absolute ROI value, but ROI must bepositive to be considered validThink about paid and organic tests you can run04Run TestsDon't forget about direct sales to collect dataIteration could mean try again OR try something new

Remember: Your goals are narrative building, discovery, and conversations - not necessarily sales.Examples: Early Stage SaaS MarketingExamples6 Key Early Stage Marketing Examples

Note: This is not exhaustive. Just