Product Hunt Radio - What not do to when marketing your product with Dave Charest of Constant Contact

What not do to when marketing your product with Dave Charest of Constant Contact

12/04/19 • 45 min

On this episode Abadesi talks to Dave Charest, Director of Content Marketing at Constant Contact. He’s here to walk us through all the common mistakes that makers make when marketing their products, and how you can avoid them.

In this episode they talk about...

How to contribute to an online community as a marketer

“Don’t approach it as an opportunity to get your message in front of people, approach it as an opportunity to participate. You can go there and say, ‘hey, check out our stuff,” or you can go there and ask questions and be part of that community. That’s the big difference.”

Dave and Aba talk a bit about the different types of marketing approaches that exist and the fact that marketing can sometimes get technical. He talks about why he says “if you’re thinking about starting with content marketing, then yes you should start with content marketing.” He breaks down how to be a good online citizen when you’re approaching a community on behalf of your product, and how to make sure you add value to the discussion, rather than only viewing it from the perspective of how to get the most out of the community that you can.

Top tips for developers, designers, and others who are first-time marketers

“One of the downfalls of social media is often we don’t see the months, potentially years, of work that went into getting the ten thousand or ten million followers. There’s that saying about overnight success: ‘it took me years to become an overnight success.’”

Dave gives his advice for people who are designers, developers, and other makers who usually do not dabble in the marketing space. He says that you need to have a long-term orientation and ensure your plans stretch to twelve to eighteen months, which is when you would expect to start seeing some benefit back to the company or product from your efforts.

Which marketing channels to focus on

Dave points out that the big social media platforms each have their own unique personalities, and that the people that you are trying to reach probably have a personality that meshes with one of the platforms more than the others. That is likely where you are going to find the audience members that you want to reach. He says that it’s also important to think about which channel matches your own personality and interests, so that there’s a good fit between you and the platform, since you are going to be spending a lot of time on it.

Common mistakes people make in email marketing

“When you're thinking about writing an email, think about answering three questions: What are you offering? Why should the reader care? And what do you want them to do next? If you can answer those three questions, you're actually going to write a pretty persuasive email because you're saying hey, this is what I have for you here today, this is why I think you'll find this thing valuable, and here's what I want you to do next to get it or do it.”

Dave talks about why email marketing is so powerful as well as the pitfalls that first-timers encounter and how you can avoid them. He says that it’s important to remember that email lists should always be opt-in, meaning you shouldn’t even think about adding all those emails that you’ve gathered over time without getting permission first. He also talks about the importance of being succinct, making sure that your emails are responsive for mobile, and why perhaps “the original vanity metrics were opens and clicks on emails.”

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 😸

In this episode they talk about...

How to contribute to an online community as a marketer

Top tips for developers, designers, and others who are first-time marketers

Which marketing channels to focus on

Common mistakes people make in email marketing

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 😸

Previous Episode

The future of seed stage VC with Tige Savage

On this episode Abadesi talks to Tige Savage, co-founder with Steve Case of Revolution, and managing partner of Revolution Ventures. He was formerly VP of Time Warner Ventures and got his start at age fourteen working at a computer store, where he helped create a community for customers before there was a commercially available internet.

In this episode they talk about...

How to think about whether to raise capital

“Work on product-market fit, identity what you’re good at, be willing to back away from what you’re bad at, and continue to iterate over time. Don’t over-capitalize yourself until you believe you have something that works. Then make the decision on whether to take on other people’s capital.”

Tige talks about why they intentionally focus on markets and companies outside of Silicon Valley, and how this has benefitted them. He says that it’s been fifteen years to their “overnight success” at Revolution and talks about how he got into the venture capital game in the first place. He also talks about why the thought process when raising capital from LPs for a venture firm is similar to the process of thinking about raising money from investors for your company.

The future of direct-to-consumer and Tige’s breakdown of a number of companies and industries

“If my kids were to go back thirty years and see how things were purchased back then, they would be astounded at the friction that’s in the system. The companies that understand ways to deliver to consumers what they want when they want with the least amount of friction are finding the most success and the incumbents that don’t do that have been or will be threatened.”

Tige says that it’s “never been a better time to be a consumer.” They’ve invested in a number of different DTC companies and Tige breaks down the market opportunity and why the founder and the idea were a great fit for each of them. He gives his analysis of why DTC is flourishing, including why the millennial generation has fuelled the DTC boom. He talks about some of the unique ways that these startups are taking what have traditionally been online sales techniques and applying them to offline products. He also explains what he wants to see in the future in the space, and what will end up being disrupted.

How to scale a startup

“Companies have political environments, so my advice always is call it like you see it and don't play the game. There are people who are very political and play the game and indeed have succeeded simply by dint of that capability. My advice is not to be that person, to be as authentic as you can, and to call it out when it's time to call it out. If you do that, you've got to be awfully confident in what you're bringing to the equation, because if you're not playing the game, you better be delivering the goods.

He explains how running a seed-stage company as CEO is different from running a larger enterprise as CEO. He talks about the ways that a leader needs to grow along with the company, as “you go from pure hustle to a larger business.” Tige gives out some of his unorthodox leadership tips and talks about why it’s important to also upgrade the management around you when you’re CEO of a fast-growing organization. He also explains why it’s okay if a company’s management doesn’t necessarily have the answer to every question that’s asked of them, even if it feels as though they need to.

Tige also talks about some of his favorite products.

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 😸

Companies and Products Mentioned In This Episode

AirPods Pro — New AirPods with active noise cancellation

Apple News + — An immersive news experience.

Bloomscape — Living room ready plants delivered to your door.

Bright Cellars — The monthly wine club with the best wine for you.

Framebridge — Online custom framing.

Garmin InReach — Explore anywhere, communicate globally.

Policygenius — Compare and buy insurance online.

Next Episode

The future of proptech with Thomas Kutzman

On this episode Abadesi talks to Thomas Kutzman, co-founder and co-CEO of Prevu. Prevu is a real estate technology platform that saves homebuyers money.

In this episode they talk about...

How he decided to leave his finance job to start Prevu

“I think we got to the point where we were talking about the idea too much and you hit a moment as an entrepreneur and you think to yourself, if i don’t do this, will I kick myself if someone else does, and we hit that point.”

Thomas and his co-founder worked in the finance industry and Thomas worked in Geneva as an equities trader for a US hedge fund before he left the firm to start Prevu. He talks about how his finance background helped him with starting the company. He says that it gave him a greater understanding of the real estate market but more importantly, working with risk all day made him more comfortable with taking the risk to start the company.

Advice on starting a tech company as a non-technical founder

“I had no intention of being the person who was going to code our application, but I wanted to be able to understand it, so I could properly communicate. If you’re a non-technical co-founder you should at least invest time in learning the language so you can be more productive in your conversations with your product team.”

Prevu uses a ton of technology in their platform, but neither Thomas nor his co-founder were technical. This can be a daunting challenge for many founders but Thomas talks about how they found the right people to do the work for them in the early days. He also says that he took courses on Ruby on Rails so that he could communicate effectively with the people who were doing the work for them and so that he had a better understanding of how everything was going to work.

Why they bootstrapped the company and how doing so helped them

“By being bootstrapped and by being disciplined with how we used capital, we were able to last far longer and prove out the concept in a much more attractive way from a data perspective, from the amount of traction we had, and the actual learnings on our customer acquisition, our technology, and where we wanted to go to company. I think if you have the luxury to try to bootstrap, bootstrap as long as possible, so you have data and a story to tell investors.”

Some founders view bootstrapping as something that is forced upon makers when they are unable to secure funding, but we’ve had plenty of people on the podcast who say that it is instead a more desirable path to growth. Thomas believes this is the case, and explains why it is a better option than raising venture funding. He says that it forced them to have operational discipline and to make sure that they knew exactly where every dollar they were spending was going. All of thiss also helped them when they later went on to raise funds from venture investors.

Lessons on leadership and how he invests in personal growth

“For leadership, it comes down to if you show you’re going to learn something that you don’t know, others around you will go and learn something they don’t know and you’ll find your passions that way.”

Thomas talks about his leadership style and how they manage being co-CEOs. He talks about how he’s trying to grow personally and as a leader, and gives out some of his book recommendations. He also tells us which podcasts he’s always listening to and says that he actually hosted a real estate podcast himself. He explains that doing so helped him learn a ton from the people he invited on the show.

He also talks about some of his (and his wife’s!) favorite products.

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 😸