As for 1 day, we have increased 10 times the number of registrations, abandoning the context and SEO

The hour has struck and you have decided to launch your IT start-up on the not yet established “wild” market. Your competitors are already trying to sell something, but they are still not good at it. They are all looking for a working business model. Some of them offer a new service as an addition to the main product. The price range is large. Large companies are not yet visible or they are just beginning to show interest in the problem.

Sites of competitors' projects are still raw and scary. They are full of awkward banners. Call for urgent registration before the end of the "endless" action with a countdown timer. Almost all of them use contextual advertising and SEO in an attempt to convey their proposals to people, but this does not work.
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A week ago, AlexKarpik talked about tools for promoting a startup in runet. Today I will show on our example how the first steps in SMM put context and SEO on the shoulder blades.

1. Contextual advertising Google Advords and Yandex Direct - a bad idea

We were confident that contextual advertising is an easy and fast way to get customers. The problem is that it is good only for a mature market, when people know the problem they want to solve. Almost always their search query matches the name of the solution. For example: “buy a ticket to Chita” or “Moscow dentistry prices”. The potential buyer is well oriented in the market. He knows that for travel you need transportation for which you need a ticket. If your teeth hurt, you need to go to their dental clinic for treatment. If you made a new ticket service or opened a new revolutionary dental clinic, contextual advertising will work.

As it turned out, in the “wild” market everything is different and this approach is not suitable for Virusuda . You solve a problem about which people do not know at all, or do not give it proper value. In this market, you first have to tell everyone about the importance of the problem, and only then about its solution. For example, here are statistics of optimized advertising campaigns Yandex Direct and Google Adwords on the “wild” market:




To say that we didn’t like this picture - to say nothing. As it turned out - this is a typical result of contextual advertising in the "wild" market. Taking into account the optimization of campaigns, the Direct CTR was scanty, and the Adwards CTR was slightly better, but the flow of people remained scarce. At the same time, the conversion of these users into registrations was kept at the level of 11%. It may seem to you that it is not so bad, but for the sale of low-cost services or goods is a disaster. The verdict is obvious. The costs are high, the return is almost zero - the channel is not effective.

2. SEO - long, but still necessary

We started searching for search engines exactly on the day when we launched our project on the web. “But if the context did not work, then SEO is not necessary,” you will say. But you will not be completely right. SEO, though "dead", but still not useless. Both then and now the market was “wild”, and we had enough time to get into the TOP SERP. The calculation was simple. We hoped to save on contextual advertising when the market becomes consolidated.

Of course, this is a tedious and long job. However, it is better to do it. Monthly expenses are not great at all, but the possible result is worth it. Here are statistics on the costs of withdrawal and maintenance of ten keywords in the TOP SERP of Google and Yandex.



For 12 months, we spent 53 thousand rubles on SEO (employee’s work is not counted). Not so much for the potential opportunity, although if I could turn the clock back, I would never do SEO. After all, the words "potential opportunity" and "hypothetical benefit" - the terms are definitely not for a startup.

3. Referral program - already something

When it became clear that contextual advertising does not work, and SEO is a long time, we began to look for other opportunities for promotion. Our attention was attracted by referral programs on various web services. In addition, our users themselves from time to time were interested in this opportunity. A little analyzing the market managed to reveal one pattern. It turned out that the professional services work best referral programs that allow you to display real money. Active participants in such programs are 2-4% of registered users. No one is interested in "points". Everyone has his own life, and money is a universal tool needed by all.

Of course, it was a little scary to introduce a referral program to our paid anti-virus service, but we still decided to check our guesses and did it. But if something is to be done, then it should be done to "the whole coil." We did not hide the program from people deeply and put a whole section “Referrals” right in the main menu of the service panel.

And it worked. Having made a newsletter on our user base, on the first day we received more than 200 clicks on the already placed referral links to our service. The program participants on the first day were 3% of our users.

Designing the model, developing and testing the referrals took about 4 days, and we immediately felt the effect. Within a month, the reference mass on our site and TIC have doubled. We began to receive registrations with a higher conversion in payments, since the referrers placed our links on their thematic platforms and did their best to increase the number of conversions. They wrote reviews of the service, filmed videos and uploaded them to YouTube.

If you can include a profitable referral program in the business model, it will be a good channel for attracting new customers. Invent a referral and tell about it on your project website. Make it so that target users for the referral program do not search for its description for a long time. If you have something to offer active webmasters and simple ones who want to make money, then the process of attracting users will be greatly accelerated. The main thing that I would advise to remember is to offer only money.

4. SMM - optimal result

So we come to the most productive, in my opinion, channel for the promotion of the IT statrapp on the “wild” market. In fact, SMM is not so complicated. It is interesting to work with this channel, and the return depends only on you.

4.1 Social networks Vkontakte, Facebook and Twitter

We have opened accounts in popular social networks. By themselves, they would not work, but we hung the group widget on our website so that people would add to it. In addition, we have placed social network widgets in other places, which I will discuss below. So we began to inform potential customers about all the movements of your startup, which certainly began to draw their attention to the project.

4.2 Your blog on the project website

We have had our own blog on the service for quite some time, but now its main task has become clear. We linked it to social network accounts and added AddThis to publications. As we have a startup, we often make some updates, add new functions to the service. Now a note about each update was made in a blog on the project site and shared by accounts and groups of social networks.

Not to say that this led to some serious change in traffic. But it certainly increased the number of pages indexed by search engines. Low-frequency queries that match the titles and content of publications will in the future slightly increase the flow of people from the SERP.

However, I was a little tricky, saying that the effect on so much is modest. We began to share interesting publications in popular subject groups in social networks, which on average made up 100 additional registrations on the day of publication and about 30 the next. This approximately corresponded to 10% of the number of unique users who came from social networks.

4.3 Company blog on Habré

We turn to the most interesting channels for today. You all know about Habrahabr. So, if your startup belongs to the IT family (like ours), then, most likely, you should start a corporate blog on Habré. Of course, it's not free, but it's worth it. Also, here you can place widgets of your accounts and groups in social networks.

We started this blog on June 2, and the next day we made the first publication. Of course, we prepared for this event in advance and spent the whole working week on “licking” the first post. The effect was instant.



The publication began to be vividly discussed and scored more than 100 comments. For 4 hours, she appeared four times on the main Habr and disappeared from her when the number of “pluses” fell below “+5”. In the end, she entrenched in the "best publications", scored 16,000 views and was shared in the Habr group in the social network.

During the day we received more than 1300 new unique visitors only from Habra and 451 registrations from them. This was 10 times more than our usual number of registrations. But the effect of each publication on Habré is short and lasts 2-3 days. Now it was necessary to make posts twice a week so as not to miss such a "tasty" channel.

For 1.5 months, our transition to SMM and, mainly, to Habr gave this increase to the attendant:


If you decide to start a blog on Hebre, then all you need is to do 1 or 2 technical (or near technical) publications per week. The flow of your visitors and (if you choose the right hubs for publishing) of clients will increase greatly. Your goal on Habré is to write posts so that they get to the main site, and then the administration “shares” them in their Vkontakte and Facebook groups.

Habr is a cruel community and local users do not really like companies. The most popular topics are “How I hacked something ...”, “Layfkhaki” and “TOP 100 free, but useful gizmos”. Community members are vindictive and biased, but you have to live with it. Before publishing, read and write recommendations for writing posts. If you create a publication at the wrong day or time; if you make a mistake with the target hub or the content is not “in trend” Habr - the post on the main one will not appear. On average, the number of views of the publication of the company, which hit the home, approximately 15 thousand. for three days. The approximate flow of visitors to your project site is 10% of the number of views.

Remember that it makes no sense to go to Habr, if your business model is still too far from ideal conversion. You can not recoup the cost of maintaining a blog on Habré, the minimum price for which companies are about 55 thousand. rub. for the quarter.

4.4 Company blog on Spark and Megamind

Another place where you should post information about your project is Spark (a separate project “Zuckerman Call”). He is still young and the audience is very small, do not count on habraprate. The principles of his life are very similar to those of Habrovsk, but the audience is much friendlier. Here you can light your project in free form. Welcome posts on the topic "100 tips for a startup," "How we would make a million," "My startup is the best, although it is no different from others" and "I have a super idea. Give urgent stomillonov. On the main page posts can get only 24 hours after the publication, if they score at least “+3” points, a few comments and “favorites” marks. In this case, you can also share on the communities "Zuckerberg will call" and "Spark" in the social sphere.

The average number of views of a cool publication of about 3000 for 2 days. The approximate flow of visitors to your site is 5% of the number of views. Accommodation at Spark is free. I will not speak about Megamind - as long as I do not have exact data.

4.5 Network Media “Zuckerberg Will Call” and “Roem.ru”

Let's move on to more complex channels. There are media "Zuckerberg will call" with a very large audience of readers. You cannot place anything on your own. All you are allowed to do is write the text and send it to the editorial board for consideration. If the content seems interesting to them to attract the attention of the target audience - you will be placed. Targeted information events are associated with any scandals in IT, personal life and preferences of the founders of well-known IT companies, as well as sales of known startups or their explosive growth.

Recently, a Start-ups column appeared in which you can try to post your project by writing a brief overview and also sending it to the editor for review. Since the editorial board itself selects the CDPV and other images, the result is not always predictable. On average, you expect 2000 views in the "Startups". The number of transitions to your resource will be about 3%.

You can offer the editors of the service your publication to be placed in the “Column” section, but this is a great job. Actually, so far I have not been able to estimate the exact effect of the “columns” of the CPU.

In Roy, which is also a media outlet, you can send an informational occasion through a feedback form. If the reason is interesting - you will be contacted from the editorial office or they will find the material themselves and post it. The bulk of the articles talks about the courts and scandals in IT. The effect of the resource has not yet been measured.

4.6 New Advertising Formats in LJ Lebedev

There are unusual promotion channels that we have not yet reached. Their use increases your recognition among a large circle of people who are not even your potential customers. These tools allow you to create and maintain your presence in people's lives. You will be remembered first of all if you suddenly need it. For the “wild” market, this is perhaps the most important strategic step. It will allow you to already be recognizable and popular when the market is organized and competition increases - a sort of reserve for the future.

I’ve been looking at LJ Lebedev for a long time, but I haven’t yet used standard promotional offers in his blog. It would be great to participate as a sponsor in Ethnoexp.



The other day, he presented a new format of “nanofantiki”, which consists in placing 14 pictures of 100x100 pixels in size on each page of his blog. The price of 1000 shows about 10 rubles. CTR after all the optimizations of the image is approximately 0.75%. Since the format itself is new, and the Subject audience is motley, the real effect of this tool I can’t discuss, because I do not have enough data for this. But in the past 2 days from the placement we received 165 unique transitions and 20 registrations from them. Spent on it a little more than 300 rubles.

Finally

1.5 months after we started working with SMM, our distribution by user engagement channels looks like this:



The share of clicking on links on websites increased almost 7 times from 4.9% to 33.2%. We stopped using contextual advertising, and we almost never do SEO. During this time, the service income has tripled. Of course, here we also played into the hands of the release of Yandex Manul, bringing to people the seriousness of the problem of infecting sites and the need to protect them. But about this and the big purple bar in the diagram on the right, I will tell in the following posts.

PS
There is little information on the issue of promotion channels with real performance indicators in the network. Mostly there are extensive reflections and some distant examples. I hope this article will help someone navigate when choosing a tool to promote a startup in the "wild" market.