What is it - advertising startup budget?

In early February of this year, we seriously thought about the advertising budget and channels to promote Omnideska . The beta version loomed on the horizon, and our hands were itching to launch a page to subscribe to an invite.

The plan was as simple as two kopecks. Spend several thousand dollars on advertising, collect one and a half to two thousand subscribers, send them invitations after some time and get feedback. Of course, we had thought up the next stage of advancement in advance, but decided not to dwell on it so far, as there were plenty of current affairs.
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The end of February was marked by the beginning of the operation. They acted strictly according to the scenario, but it soon became clear that the advertisement was published. True, not the same as you thought. Sit back, you will find an interesting reading.

Blitzkrieg bet

The last thing we wanted was to pull in a set of subscribers, so the task was to hit all fronts and reach the cherished number as quickly as possible. The prepared list of channels for promotion was as follows:

- contextual advertising (Google Adwords and Yandex. Direct);
- banner advertising;
- advertising in social networks;
- advertising in mailing lists;
- publication of information about OmniDeska on thematic resources and forums;
- Notification of friends and friends with a request to share;
- unobtrusive communication with interesting people and potential customers;
- active commenting useful posts on various blogs.

As you can see, we have mixed a lot of everything - classical monetary methods of advancement and exclusively guerrilla, which do not require a penny. That is how, in our opinion, it was possible to achieve the desired results. Some of the above shot, but something failed miserably. But first things first.

"Perfect" contextual advertising

As planned, contextual advertising should have brought the lion's share of all subscribers. We had high hopes for it and approached the preparation as seriously as possible. Made a list of low-frequency and mid-frequency keywords for Yandex.Direct and Google Adwords, created advertising campaigns, set adequate bids, made sure that there was plenty of money on the card, and started it.

Yandex.Metrika has never had to endure such a number of continuous refreshes. Waiting for a flurry of visitors and accomplished goals, we checked statistics every 5 seconds. A day later, the picture began to appear. The results were disappointing - two dozen transitions and only 1 subscriber.

The next few days were spent on all-game games with stakes and keywords. It was necessary to make this "damn car" bring us subscribers. Efforts were not in vain - subscribers began to appear, but in fact it was a Pyrrhic victory. Initial expectations were very far from what we got in reality.

Google Adwords proved to be a little better than Direct, but even after the increase in rates, the number of subscribers per day did not exceed a few, and each cost 4.5 USD . Money money, but the speed scarecrow - at a pace we would need a year to get the right amount.

You will not believe, but in a state close to despair, we even tried the Runner. It was naive to believe that he would be able to help with something, so here without comments :)

Perseverance to us does not hold, but sooner or later there comes a time when it is worth admitting to ourselves that the wall is too thick and not to break through. We decided not to spend time and energy on contextual advertising. Campaigns were left active, but hopes were refocused on other channels.

Interestingly, we didn’t have one successful experience of using contextual advertising on other projects. Of course, this time we could make mistakes, but it seems that the problem is bigger.

Maybe the reason was what we promoted. This is not just another “master pickup” or “How to find a husband?”, But a serious B2B service. In my humble opinion, the target audience of our project rarely clicks on contextual advertising. For example, I never do this. Apparently, most of the users we need do the same.

Encouraging mailings

Along with contextual advertising, we tried our luck with banners and social networks. They were even less effective, and after a week of weak “harvest” the waste of money was discontinued.

It is the turn of advertising in mailings. I often had to deal with this type of promotion on the past project, and I knew firsthand that in some cases excellent results could be achieved.

True, the experience of contextual advertising was not in vain. Now we were without rose-colored glasses and clearly realized that it would also be difficult to promote the service through this channel. After all, it is far from trivial to find newsletters with suitable audiences and topics. Often mailings are loved by those who want to change their lives for the better, earn a million sitting at home on the couch, become financially literate in a week, become a cool programmer in a month, etc. We needed not ordinary users, but those who are directly related to the support or at least make important decisions in companies.

Understanding all this, we began compiling a list of authors with potentially successful mailings. As a result, received 24 authors, whose total audience exceeded half a million. Each of them sent a personal letter with our proposal. The content of the letters was different, but the essence is the same - an attempt to persuade the “pay per subscriber” option (the one we get).



Unfortunately, few people agreed to such conditions. Either they didn’t believe in the quality of their subscription base, or they didn’t want to bathe, but almost everyone wanted money in advance. In the best case, in the absence of an acceptable result, it was suggested to repeat the sending by subscribers who would not open the first letter.

This situation was not happy, but the depressing situation with the other channels forced us to take risks. We thought about starting with the newsletter, the subject of which was closest to ours, “Useful Internet Services”. The rest of the mailings were more indirectly related to OmniDescu, and we wanted to get the maximum possible indicators and to dance further from them.

They wrote a letter, paid for the ad and held their breath while waiting for the results. The first pancake, contrary to the proverb, did not come out lumpy. The letter received 25,000 people. Openness was a little less than 8%, which is in principle below the average, but despite this, we got 100 subscribers . The issue cost us 100 USD . That is 4.5 times cheaper than Google Adwords, and 50 times faster.

Fearing to scare away luck, we tried to keep from the obvious impersonation of mailing list advertising and were happy in silence. It seemed that we managed to find a channel through which it would be easy to get the cherished couple of thousands of subscribers.

However, the next advertising release brought us back to earth. Considering the greater remoteness of the subject of the second mailing, we understood that the result would be worse, but we hoped that not by much. This time the letter was sent on the list of 50,000 subscribers. The discovery was the same, but only 45 users signed up . The cost of mailing has increased, and we are closer to the indicators of Google Adwords, not counting the speed.

The problem was that further things could only get worse, since subsequent newsletters had even less in common with our topics. Therefore, we decided to temporarily switch to other channels and return to the newsletters later.

Thematic resources, and you there too?

Time flowed inexorably, but for the soul was just over two hundred subscribers. We counted on other numbers initially. On the other hand, instead of unjustified optimism, there was already an adequate assessment of the situation. Yes, the task turned out to be much more difficult than we imagined, but we just had to bend our own line.

We have prepared several options for describing the service and began to unobtrusively write about it wherever possible. Thematic resources and forums, as well as sites that write about startups, have been “bombed”. Then we added to spark.ru, from which, by the way, subscribers still come from time to time.

After a few days of active dissemination of information, we took a pause to analyze the statistics. With a grin on his face, we found that the number of subscribers increased, but our “bombing” did not bring a serious surge.

It became clear that the blitzkrieg failed. We got involved in a war of attrition. It was necessary to slowly but steadily do the planned work, tuning in a positive way. Having completed the posting on all sites and forums that “waited” for information about the service, we moved on.

Pleasant surprise in the form of a workhorse

Being engaged in thematic resources and forums, I accidentally discovered the Toaster. Asked questions and answers to them prompted the idea that there should be a lot of "ours" here. I wanted to spend the time and see if the Toaster could benefit us.

All questions on helpdesk immediately got surprisingly useful answers, which modestly offered to pay attention to Omnidesk . And it was just warming up. I began to look through all the questions and sincerely tried to help, without trying to advertise the service. Grateful users themselves clicked on the link from the profile that was prudently added.

I have been doing this for quite a long time, and sometimes I go there and now, but now with the goal of simply finding the answer to an interesting question or helping others.

The result was very good. For all the time, we have received more subscribers from the Toaster than from Google Adsense. Yes, the first should be given a lot of time, but contextual advertising can not be completely abandoned after the initial setting. In general, I sincerely recommend.

By the way, slightly more people pass from the profile than from the links, the purpose of which is obvious to everyone. So try not to be intrusive. Nobody will spoil the karma, but they will surely thank you for the lack of a clear “pairing”.

Habr is dead, long live Habr!

About Habré we thought long before the start of the promotion. I really wanted to declare myself, but there was no clear idea from which side to approach it. Accordingly, the operation “Conquest of Habr” was continually postponed. The impetus was given a good experience with the Toaster, after which we firmly decided that the next step should be Habr. Do not miss such an audience.

True, the same Toaster slightly spoiled the picture. That in one, now in another question I saw the answers of users who were nostalgic for the best times and wrote that “Habr is no longer a cake”. Not that we were very scared, but such opinions did not add joy. They had little effect on our desire to shine, but they were forced to be more modest in terms of possible results.

Start the winding path

Having studied the available options for getting on Habr, we planned to write an article in the hub "I am promoting", because there was nobody to ask for an invite. I have already set myself the task to think about the first article, when Dima (co-owner) announced the action for startups - the company's blog for six months is free. It was what you need. The application was sent on the same day. In just a few days, burning with impatience, I asked Habr on Twitter if they respond to everyone, regardless of the decision on the application. Answered in the affirmative. Agonizing wait continued.

And so, at the height of one working day, a letter arrived that the application was approved. Joy knew no bounds. Now everything was in our hands. It remained only to write a quality article.

A long discussion began on its subject matter. They thought to write about themselves, but people in the know said that the stories about startups had already become boring to the audience. I had to get acquainted with the first posts of other companies. Most of the articles, in our opinion, were rather weak, and we were not surprised at all how they were perceived by users. Some were really good and more than deserved their popularity. As a result, we agreed that a good post in any case would have an effect, and stopped at the version with the story.

It's easier to run a marathon

I often have to write. True, these are usually selling texts, manuals, instructions or knowledge base articles. Fascinating articles are not quite in my part, but I understood perfectly well that much depends on the first post. Therefore, the mood was the most that neither is fighting.

It was planned to spend the working week on writing the article, paying a couple of hours every day. If only it were that simple. Serious brainstorming, lengthy writing, ruthless editing, additional editing ... and editing again. The article was not yet fully prepared, and I already hated the word “editing.”

The final version saw the light after 2.5 weeks . And this is just a text version. It was necessary to prepare more images. With them, too, had to tinker. We bought a green T-shirt for Serezha, we drew “%” on it ourselves, and then we took a picture of it. A suitable screenshot of Starcraft could not be found, so they did it themselves.

When the result as a whole suited me, I invited other team members to read the article. The guys liked it - only a few minor edits were made. The first test of criticism, even if the objectivity of refereeing left much to be desired, was successfully passed. It is the turn of the real test.

Agonizing wait and false start

I remember that it was Wednesday. Calendar prompts - March 26th. The publication was planned the next day.

Reading posts on Habré, I always paid attention to the caustic comments that were in almost every post, regardless of its quality. Therefore, I morally prepared myself for the fact that the article, the creation of which took so much time and effort, may not be perceived in the best way. Especially when you consider how much the topic of startups is jaded.

This is a very difficult moment - to learn to adequately perceive the criticism of your creation, into which a huge amount of energy is invested. But this is definitely worth learning.

On Thursday I first opened Habr. Tried to open. He was "busy" with a DDoS attack. We were lucky as drowned. Do you have to postpone the publication for the next week?

All day I could not decide what to do if Habr earned tomorrow. Does it make any sense to publish an article on Friday? We discussed this moment with Dima, but we didn’t decide. We stopped on the fact that the morning is wiser than the evening.

Unheard of reward

On Friday morning, for some reason, all doubts vanished. It seemed to me that you can no longer pull the article. Come what may! I did not go to the office, turned on the comp and immediately published the article.

Only an hour passed, but it became clear how wonderful everything was. Anyone who read, commented, wrote messages in a personal, in social networks and even those who spoiled karma - thanks! The results exceeded all expectations. About this we did not even dream.

Habr is not a cake? Show me the cake then!

For all the time, the article gained 40K views, 255 additions to favorites, 74 pluses, 46 comments, a lot of personal messages on Habré and in the social. networks . Of course, these are not the most outstanding figures, if we compare them with other articles, but we have not written about the space program , which with enviable regularity gives out excellent figures.



Moreover, the most important thing for us is the subscribers. We hoped to get a couple of hundred, thus saving ourselves 1000USD, if we count on the cost of a subscriber with Google Adwords. As a result, we received more than 1,000 subscribers from one post, and in fact we have a B2B service, which far from everyone needs.

Resting on our laurels

When the article thundered, we stopped contextual advertising. What is the point of spending money on something that brings not cheap subscribers with frankly snail's speed? By the way, it is disabled until now, but subscribers still go - mainly from Habr and Toaster.

Not only did the issue with subscribers actually close, so we also managed to save a lot of money that was planned to be spent on advertising. As a result, in high spirits, the idea to conduct a small experiment with advertising in the mailing list.

After the first advertising issues, we had a list of 300,000 subscribers. Her subject matter had nothing to do with Omnidesk, but the coverage gave hope for good results. Plus, I was familiar with the author for a long time, and he went to meet me, agreeing to very favorable conditions for us:

- test sending a letter on the part of the list of 100,000 subscribers;
- we immediately pay only the non-combustible amount in the amount of 150USD;
- if we get more than 150 subscribers, then for each following we pay 1USD from above.

If successful, we agreed to send a letter on the remainder of the subscription list. The results were instructive, if expressed culturally. For the first day - 15 subscribers. For an old friendship, the author agreed to send a second letter to those who did not open the first. So we managed to collect about 35 subscribers from both advertising issues. And this is at quite tolerable openability - 8%.

It may seem that everything is not so bad, because again we are reaching the figure of 4.5USD per subscriber, but in this case there is an important nuance. We are lucky that the author was an old friend who did not try to cash in on us. No one else would agree to send a letter to the database of 100,000 for such ridiculous money. At the beginning, he himself noted that the standard price is 750USD. I do not think that others would take less. So, in fact, we have saved ourselves from 35 “gold” subscribers, each of which would cost 21USD.

The experiment showed that in our case it is better to concentrate on Habré. It was necessary to prepare a second article, and throw the remaining forces on the development of the service. That is what we did.

Dry residue

It may seem different, but this is not an ode to Habra. He has enough disadvantages that were not affected, since they are not related to the topic of this article. At the same time, the fact remains that through Habr, it is possible and necessary to promote quality projects.

Finally, I would like to note that this article should not be considered as an instruction. This is a personal experience. We recommend to copy or use it for your project only if your audience is similar to ours. If you have a more massive service or product, then many of the described promotion channels will work out with a bang.