travels with khuyi

Notes from #smashsummit

Went to smash summit yesterday - wanted to share the below notes as these were some of the things that most caught my attention.

Paid Acquisition

Facebook:

Optimal has built a brand index around how valuable the fans are for various brands: http://www.optimalsocial.com/audience/brandindex/
AdParlor tests 200-300 images for every one that works
AdParlor - 10-20% of budget at any given time is on experiments, 80-90% is on already proven targeting/ad concepts
Alphaboost.com is like Moat.com but for Facebook

Offline

Using Twilio to allow people to text a word to a specific number and get a link to download app is something TuneIn.com and others have been using in offline advertising to create a clearer, more immediate CTA (primarily on billboards, but also in print)

Email

Subject lines have to drive opens but they are also a branding opportunity - you should have a list of words that you purposely avoid (eg for Daily Worth, rule is they can’t use “Investing” because it’s too dry)
Daily email of 250-300 words where you can read the whole thing without having to click through is powerful for acquisition because people can forward.
Subject lines should be verbs not nouns - at Paypal they saw a 10% lift using EXACT same subject line but with verbs in place of the nouns

Affiliate

Refer.ly created with idea that the best people to write ads are the people that have a strong opinion about your product
What can you give to your biggest fans?
Companies to check out: Tracksbuy, Kirabit, Skimlinks (these are all more ecommerce-y)
LivingSocial’s me+3 - if you refer three friends, your purchase is totally free. single best thing they’ve done for acquisition efforts of paying customers.
Mothers are an incredibly viral demographic, but many marketers have realized this and so has gotten increasingly competitive to get their attention.

Mobile

Value per user on Android about half the value per user on iphone
iPad has really protected the iPhone - expect bigger android adoption once Android tablets get better.
Music moving to mobile faster than any vertical except games.

Earned Media/Community/Content

Birchbox: don’t underestimate the power of providing a directed topic of conversation to existing communities
Events were really powerful for Birchbox
YouTube: use it for true content, not commercials.
YouTube: best way to get content distributed is to tap into other people’s audiences rather than directly building your own
Warby Parker does video responses to tweets and sees 50% retweet rate from that - surprises customers and they are excited about sharing it
Warby Parker’s fathers day twitter campaign: opportunity to win free sunglasses to people who tweeted: #daddeserves + the name of a pair of warby parker sunglasses. got people browsing through the site, thinking about how the sunglasses could fit into their dad’s look.

Branding/Other

listening to the way your existing customers talk about your product is the best way to inform how you message potential customers
video tutorials can be really powerful
Salesforce.com has a YouTube channel that it claims does the work of 35 full time sales reps in terms of its impact on sales

Product