Why teams should do more inbound marketing
Today I spent hours on researching investors based on this article. The idea is to make a huge list of potential investors, find people who can connect you with them, and then try to convince them that you’re the startup they need to invest in. Direct sales. Finding investors is not too different from doing sales: you're selling a part of your company. And still startup fundraising still is very old fashioned.
There has been quite a shift especially in online sales recently, where people focus more and more on inbound marketing. While outbound marketing is "putting your message in front of people whether they want to hear it or not," inbound marketing is understanding where your potential customers (investors) are and being there when they are actually looking for something.
Especially with angel investors this has two advantages:
- With outbound marketing you're only able to approach the investors you find through the internet or introductions: how about the ones who prefer to stay behind the curtains?
- At early stages they invest in teams: Actively showing everyone in a sales pitch that you're "a great team" is tough when they don't find ways to see if that's actually true
Some ideas we'll try out for inbound marketing:
- high quality content: blog posts, slideshare presentations, ...
- presentations at meetups and conferences about industry specific topics, no pitches
- building in public, reflecting (e.g. this newsletter)
These are just some quick thoughts. I'll let you know how it's going. Have a great weekend!
-Jan
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