Marketing for Startups & Enterprise: An Interview with Microsoft’s Kevin Henrikson

A big thanks to our SEJ Summit 2015 sponsor, Searchmetrics—the leading global enterprise platform for search experience optimization.

At SEJ Summit Silicon Valley last July 22, SEJ Founder Loren Baker had the opportunity to talk with Kevin Henrikson, Partner Group Engineering Manager at Microsoft, about how marketing works when you’re in a startup and how it’s different with marketing for larger corporations.

Kevin leads engineering for Microsoft Outlook iOS/Android. Previously, he co-founded Acompli and ran engineering prior to an acquisition by Microsoft in 2014 for $200M. He was also one of the original founders of Alpha Brand Media, parent company of SEJ.

Here are a few key takeaways from the video:

• The marketing strategy for a small company is very agile and requires less process while larger corporations have an existing marketing machine. The latter helps push you out in terms of growth, allowing you to focus on other things such as support, features, functionality, and retaining existing users.
• You can adapt a startup’s agile marketing strategy by breaking down a company’s greater goal into smaller pieces. This makes it easy to consume and allows you to figure out which parts of your strategy are working and which aren’t so you can move on.
• Take advantage of press, because it is a digital marketing discipline that works for all. Find something about your brand that people want to write about or talk about on social.
• To do this, build your press strategy by doing chunks of releases that are press-worthy. Instead of sharing that your startup will get another round of funding, share why it’s getting a new set of funds. Tell a good story that people want to re-tell.
  
  Source:http://www.searchenginejournal.com/marketing-startups-enterprise-interview-microsofts-kevin-henrikson/138900/