“Is there a way to market our new offering with zero marketing budget ?”
One of our clients asked us during a business meeting.
“I do not want to go for external funding, share away my equity and dilute our vision with having external VCs on board. Is there a way to not spend huge sums of money in marketing and still be able to grow ?” he continued.
We realised this is a question that is often shared by many entrepreneurs. Irrespective of bootstrapped and a funded venture – every entrepreneur wants to keep a check on the customer acquisition cost.
Fundamentals of marketing gave us 4Ps – Product, Price, Promotion, Place. 4Ps framework is something that has been taught in marketing classes since decades now. The 4Ps framework has been a good friend of marketers for a long time. Promotion has carried a heavy weightage in this marketing mix.
But no longer this needs to be the case!
Quiz: Which company’s products do most of us use most often in daily life ?
Google. Will be the answer for many of us.
Do you remember using Google for the first time ? Did you start using it after seeing any of its ads ?
Most of the world started using Google before seeing any of its ads. They reached millions of users without spending too much on the promotion. What difference did they make ?
They focussed most of their energies on 1P. Product.
A strong product will market itself.
The best marketing is the marketing of word of mouth. That is your current users become your product’s advocates. Letting the users be so delighted with your offering that they don’t just come back to it again and again but also refer to it in their network.
So, a product which delights customers and has something for them to talk about and to refer to others will not need much marketing promotion.
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Zero budget marketing – wonderful talk by Mahesh Murthy, partner Seedfund.
There is a talk related to this that we thought you will find useful. Although a little old – Mahesh Murhty’s insights on marketing in the video are more relevant today than before. He gave this talk during India Angel Summit in Mumbai in 2013.