I don't know how much I need for marketing

Previous parts:
Part 1. Explosive promotion, target audience and positioning

The main goal of any promotion is to attract users who will eventually become paying. And in order to understand how to do it and how to do it well, every moment should be covered with a metric.
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Startups are very fond of metrics, because they bite sound and look. It is very good to use the name of metrics in your speech, because it is solid. If you want to talk with other startups, mentors or investors, then of course you should read the definitions of metrics. The basic well-known metrics such as LTV or CAC carry little sense content, they just say everything is good with you or everything is bad.

Metrics that measure all indicators related to user engagement should be grouped by attraction channels. That is why the cost of attracting a user (CAC) averaged across all channels has little meaning.
The main thing you need to know about the channel is its relevance (what percentage of people are potential users) and of course the cost of attracting a user to the site.

Obviously, you need to look for cheap, highly relevant channels and avoid expensive and low-relevant channels.

How to search for channels

Well, firstly, there are well-known channels of attraction such as AdWords, Yandex.Direct, advertising in social networks, etc., which give access to almost any type of audience. The remaining channels are searched based on user segmentation . Here you have to think about it, imagine yourself as a user, where he is, what he is interested in and build hypotheses where to look for them. Perhaps topically forums, groups of social networks, regional sites, etc. And then think about how to go out on them.

Move consistently, brainstorm, think up any ways to reach customers.

A little separately is the involvement of users due to referral programs and virality. This is also an attraction channel, it also has a cost, but it is by default highly relevant and often quite cheap - just what you need. Use referral schemes to the maximum, combine them with direct attraction channels.

How to find out the relevance of the channel

Channel relevance is the percentage of users your product may be interested in (and they will at least think about buying) of the total number of channel users. Relevance is a measure of demand. The relevance of the channel is close to the CTR - the percentage of people who switched to advertising from the total number of ad views. That is, relevance is a bit of a virtual measure of the channel, it is definitely impossible to calculate it when CTR is an absolutely accurate indicator.

It is necessary to track the percentage of failure, those who went through advertising. If the failure rate is high, i.e. people immediately leave your site, it means that the advertisement introduces them into a kind of delusion. Obviously, in this case there are problems with positioning, and the CTR does not reflect the real relevance.

CTR can be influenced by where and how the advertisement is located, for example, in the footer of the site, not on the main page, etc. The location of the ad does not affect the actual relevance of the channel, it should be taken into account. Channel as a gold mine, the volume of gold does not depend on how to mine it.

Thus, for the relevance of the channel, you can take the maximum possible CTR for ads with the correct positioning. Correct positioning is determined by a low failure rate.

See how users behave on the site, how much time they spend. This gives an understanding of the situation when the user is not interested at all what you offer. Group these users and define failure criteria. Usually, everything is associated with a short time on the site, the lack of transitions to other pages, the absence of any actions.

Next, make an advertisement with positioning on the segment of users that is present in the channel (well, or you think that is present :)). Take any well-managed tool like AdWords, YaDirect, Twitter ads, stream impressions to a similar segment and launch a campaign with minimum CPC (for example, $ 0.05). For high-frequency queries, this of course may not work (or you will have to wait a very long time for your chance). Try to correct the requests by making them more accurate, or change the tool, for example, on Twitter there are no such problems. At the moment, Twitter prohibits advertising from Russia due to sanctions, but allows it to be done from Belarus, well, you understand what to do.

Track failure rates. Change the ad text (positioning) until you achieve minimal failure. If you do not know what the failure rate should be, then focus on 10% (30% is bad, all that is more than 30% is very bad). Changing the text of ads should be consistently a little bit (no need to change everything at once). Well known to all A / B testing.

As a result, you will have a tested good ad positioned for a certain segment of users that is present in the channel of interest. And all that remains to be done is to place an ad for a short period of time in order to collect statistics.

And, of course, it is not always easy to do this on the condition that it is budget. Try to consider any test placement periods for a short period of time or agree with the channel owner on trial placement. Look for alternative ways of posting (for example, placing author articles instead of buying banners, posting comments, etc.).

How to find out the cost of attracting a user to the channel

A number of channels immediately provides this data (Direct, AdWords). For the rest, the formula is obvious - how much money you have invested in monetary terms divided by the number of clicks to the site. Consider different indicators - how much does it cost to attract to the site, how much does it cost to get a registered user, a paid one, etc.

It is worth remembering that the cost of attraction can vary greatly from the strategy of the campaign; this is clearly seen in Direct and AdWords. For example, for B2B services, very cheap ads are likely to work, which are placed at the bottom of the page under the issue, on other pages and in other unsightly places, because business is used to choosing from alternatives and will first consider all the options. This will allow you to test everything well.

Start with the most minimal budgets and, if necessary, increase them smoothly, keeping an eye on conversion, CTR, etc. An increase in the budget should be reflected in the final figures.

Often people forget that the number of their clients is of course. Especially when it comes to B2B and B2G. Agree, this is so obvious fact, but he so deftly leaves the area of ​​attention. At the same time, there may be so few clients (or clients in the segment) that their or a significant part of them can be simply called or direct contact is made. Think about it.
An exhausted channel loses relevance, which you will immediately notice in your metrics.

Summarize

1. Separately consider referral programs, give bonuses for customer drives, for posts on social networks, etc.
2. The referral program and the increase in virality can be the key to low-budget explosive advancement. If it doesn't work, it's very likely something is wrong with the product. If you are sure that referral programs do not suit you, proceed to work with direct attraction channels.
3. Segmentation says which users you are looking for.
4. By segments - to find promotion channels
5. For each channel and segment prepare announcements (positioning)
6. Test positioning using well-managed tools.
7. Using tested ads test feeds.
8. Identify highly relevant channels.
9. Gradually increase budgets in good channels.
10. Keep track of metrics, test, think.