Marketing

Exceptional marketing is a formidable barrier to entry. At least that’s what Dharmesh Shan thinks. And given the success of his company, Hubspot, it might be smart to listen to him. Here is one of Mr. Shan’s thoughts on how to execute exceptional marketing:

Create content that kicks butt.

It’s really simple. If you produce things that are useful/interesting to your target customers — you win. You win by drawing people in to your business not because you had the largest marketing budget, but because you created something of value. The kind of stuff that people tweet about, link to in their blogs and and share with their friends. That’s magical. The type of content can be varied. At my startup HubSpot, we’ve tried lots of different things: “normal” blog articles, music videos, parody videos, songs, cartoons — and of course, free marketing tools. For most startups, if you took every dollar you would have spent on advertising to try and beat your prospects over the head in the hopes that they’ll buy from you and instead spent that dollar on actually producing useful content, you’d win. Seriously win. This worked so well for us that almost all of our increase in marketing spend is allocated towards hiring people that can produce content. They make videos, write blogs, create research reports and develop software tools. The beauty of this content is that long after you’ve invested in creating it, it’ll continue to generate traffic and leads. To this day, some of the early articles I wrote for our marketing blog drive consistent cash into our bank account. We don’t have to spend a penny for those leads. I’ll summarize again in four words: Create content. It works.

I’ve been trying to follow this strategy since the inception of Elias Interactive. It’s simple hard. Writing a blog is not difficult. In fact, there is something therapeutic about communicating thoughts, ideas, and observations via a blog. Writing awakens the creative side of me. But blogging after a day of coding, following up with new prospective clients, and balancing the books is hard. I think this is true of most small companies where the founders must wear several hats. And so creating content is usually the first item on the to-do list to be pushed to another day or time.

Why we focus on creating content at Elias

Putting off creating content is not smart because content works – at least it has for Elias. We don’t spend money on marketing because we work hard to keep up with the clients and prospects who are already contacting us to ask for help with Magento. Most of this steady stream of new business comes from reading this blog or twitter or an answer to some question on Magento’s forum. Without this blog we would have to work a lot harder to find new clients and build trust. Content works.

But the benefits of content are not immediate. I have a theory about sales and marketing: results trail effort by 3-6 months. So what you do today to bring in new business will have an effect on your business in about 3-6 months. That’s why consistency is so imperative; and why ignoring content for too long will have a negative effect on business in a few months.

Help Wanted

We are about to roll out a new website platform here at Elias that will give us a solid foundation to better serve Magento users. I need help creating content for this platform: things like blog posts, pictures, tweets, tips, solutions to Magento, examples of excellent online stores, webcasts, or anything else that might add value to the community. If you are interested in working with us on content then write a comment below or drop me a note at josh[at]eliasinteractive.com. I’m interested in how we can help one another.

One of my least favorite aspects of our business is dealing with contract paperwork. I once worked for a large, incredibly sophisticated software company that required me to get a signature from clients faxed in old school style. For the best software development, do visit us.  Now I run a company comprised of 4 people who all work virtually. When we secured our first client, we used a contract that we received from my partner’s cousin, who was in law school at the time. After adding a pretty cover page and detailed requirements documentation, the thing turned out to be nearly 20 pages.

The Problem

It was such a hassle to create and send this lengthy contract that half the time I avoided it by outlining the software services via email. The problem with using email is that too many expectations are not addressed. This becomes an issue, say, when a client has another development firm make changes to your code after a job is done and then expects a refund because all of sudden it appears that something broke. Yes, contracts are a necessary evil.

Earlier this month I embarked on a mission to revamp how we do contracts. My overarching objective since joining Elias has been to create a great customer experience that converts clients into raving fans of Elias.

This is where design became important. Eric applied his designer touch and, after our attorney recommended we remove a section, got the T&C’s down to 2 pages. Add 1-3 pages of statement of work and I accomplished my goals of less than 5 pages and clear language. But I still needed to get around the pain of asking a client to print, sign, and scan/fax the executed copy to me. Our society has to deal with a fundamental problem. And that is the information overload. The Internet makes it easy to find any kind of information on virtually anything one can think of. And the same principle applies when it comes to finding the right malpractice lawyer for your case. However, on the other hand, it can be a useful resource to start your quest of finding the right attorney. Let us have a look at a the most important points you need to take into account in your decision making process. You can visit NYC Personal Injury Law Firm ASK4SAM for further detail.

Key objectives for “operation contract” included:

+ improve the experience for the customer by making it easy to do business with Elias
+ decrease the length of a contract to under 5 pages
+ make the contract language clear, especially with regard to warranty (important for software services)
+ decrease the time it would take to execute an agreement so that the focus is on the client’s project, not the legal stuff

I spent a day googling contract examples and reviewing agreements that we had received from other companies. Then I rewrote several drafts of the legal jargon until it made sense to me. This lowered the terms and conditions (T&C’s) page count from 15 to 5. Better. But still too long by the time I added a statement of work at the end to detail what each client engagement included.

The Result

The best document scanner are the electronic equivalent of memory enabling us to organize, share, and preserve the information and documents that are most important to us for years to come. Duplex scanners, also known as two-sided scanners, go a step further, enabling us to scan both sides of a document simultaneously without having to manually reinsert the document the other way up.

Josh Fendley, a friend a partner, suggested I try RightSignature to sign agreements online. Their free plan lets you upload 5 docs/month and then use your mouse to sign. Now our clients receive a 3-5 page contract via an emailed link and sign the thing in less than 30 seconds with their mouse. This has revolutionized how we serve clients by allowing us to focus on the client’s business instead of spending hours adjusting and completing contracts (it literally used to take 2-3 hours to prep a contract).

If you want a copy of the contract then either comment below or drop me an email: josh[at]eliasinteractive.com